Innovation isn’t just a technical outcome - it’s a cultural decision

Originally shared in this LinkedIn Post

Barriers to innovation aren't just technical: they’re cultural, structural, and strategic.

We often talk about innovation like it’s a purely technical challenge. But I’ve seen great ideas stall not because they didn’t work, but because the environment around them wasn’t open to change.

Innovation is shaped by culture, not just inside organizations, but in industries, communities, and even entire countries.

What do we value? What are we willing to risk? Who will lead change?

Some of the hardest barriers?
• A culture of compliance over curiosity
• Fragmented federal and provincial support structures that stall scaling
• An over-reliance on pilot projects that never move past the demo phase
• Government and academic funding often misunderstand how close a technology is to real-world use, keeping it stuck in academia below TRL 6.
• Risk-averse procurement practices in government and industry
• Lack of incentives for cross-sector tech transfer (e.g., mining → clean tech)
• Undervaluing homegrown talent in favour of foreign validation

But there’s a really cool thing that both scientists and entrepreneurs do... they hold hope.
Hope for what could be.
Hope that they can create that change.
Hope that tomorrow will be better.

And that hope? It’s not naive. It’s a choice. A decision to keep challenging the way things are, even when the resistance is cultural, not technical.

Because innovation isn’t just a technical outcome - it’s a cultural decision.