Part two

Here is the continuation of this particularly long post:

The great thing is that success works the same way: it spurs itself on. Knowledge leads to more knowledge, good ideas lead to better ideas and the ones to benefit are average citizens like you and me who become wealthier, better educated and generally happier people. It’s not for nothing that they talk about the “culture of success”. Excellence takes time to grow, but once it arrives, it spreads like the flu and drastically improves everybody’s life.

Canada is making progress towards achieving excellence, but it’s very slow. One success story is the Waterloo region which has become a Silicon Valley of the North thanks to the world-class computer science department at the University of Waterloo. The area’s crown jewel is Research In Motion and co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis have already started to give back by donating 300 million dollars together to research institutions around town. Over half of that went to the Perimeter Centre for Theoretical Physicis whose latest coup was to hire Steven Hawking as a Distinguished Research Chair. Balsillie also tried to bring in an NHL franchise, though he has so far been unsuccessful.

The Waterloo region is a shining example of the virtuous circle of success: excellence spreading from the classroom to the R&D department, to average citizens and maybe even soon to the hockey rink. Unfortunately, it’s the exception rather than the rule, and this doesn’t look to be changing any time soon.