Be Giant

By the time Chicago-born Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski had celebrated her sweet 16, she had already built an airplane, learned to fly it and received an open-ended job offer from Jeff Bezos to one day work at Blue Origin. In her early 20s, she was called "the next Einstein"; by then, she had traded aerospace for theoretical physics. Her discovery, along with several colleagues, of the "spin memory effect" was cited by Stephen Hawking before she had even completed her doctorate at Harvard University.

Canada has built a reputation as a leader in artificial intelligence research. The more difficult challenge has been turning that expertise into viable companies. Winston Li is trying to help close that gap. His Toronto-based company Arima specializes in synthetic data: AI-generated datasets designed to replicate the patterns and behaviours of real populations without exposing their personal information.

Canada's decision to buy up to 12 new submarines from German naval giant TKMS is more than just the country's biggest-ever defence procurement deal: it's a chance to build a new industry to maintain the vessels and join a global supply chain serving countries both within and potentially outside the NATO alliance. That's the promise built into the proposed deal Canada announced this week, according to experts and executives who spoke to Be Giant.

9 min read At the edge of the woods at the Forest Valley Outdoor Education Centre, in the north end of Toronto, there's a grove of 13 rare saplings growing in the shade. In early spring, the smattering of maroon petals on their branches , attracting carrion beetles and flies while repelling honeybees.

Be Giant's ethos is rooted in the idea that Canadians need not look elsewhere for opportunity; dreams can be built right here. Our entire catalogue of stories is a testament to what the future can hold here - from the entrepreneur upending defence procurement to the architect beautifying civic infrastructure and the scientist growing tiny human hearts. But when searching for inspiration, it also helps to look to the past.

One Tesla, two Teslas, three Teslas, five. For some of us stuck in big-city traffic, it's a numbers game, akin to that punchbuggy time-passer of days gone by when we counted Volkswagen Beetles from the back seat of the family station wagon. These days, electric vehicles are common in places like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. The number of electric vehicles (EVs) operating in Canada was already approaching 500,000 in 2024, not including hybrid and plug-in electric varieties.

9 min read In the early days of the pandemic, Andrew Murray was at a crossroads. He had just sold his first company, a software venture he had launched a few years earlier on the heels of his undergrad degree at Dalhousie University. He was locked down in his apartment in Charlottetown, P.E.I., trying to keep active. So he would go for walks along Confederation Trail, a path that meanders across the island along decommissioned railway tracks. Many days, he'd pass small dams, one after another.

Somewhere west of Pincher Creek, Alta., the vast flatlands of the Canadian Prairies begin to ripple and fold. This is where the last Lethbridge radio station fades to static, where the fields roll up into foothills, where grain elevators, cattle and windmills give way to signposts about ski hills and the remnants of historical coal mines. On the western horizon, the Rockies are sharp-edged, grey spattered with white - the Platonic ideal of mountain.

Cory Doctorow has been working in and around the internet his whole career, first in software and technology, then policy, including as the European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on digital rights and privacy.

Tucked into a strip of storefronts in North Vancouver's Lonsdale neighbourhood is Loam Bistro, a coffee and brunch spot opened by chef Rahul Negi and his partner Honoka Saito in 2024. Grab a table and you'll quickly discover that Loam isn't serving what Negi calls "the same monotonous brunch." To him, it's important that with every bite of an eight-hour roasted bone marrow omelette or sip of top-tier local coffee that diners can really notice the difference.