IPOLITICS: From door-knocking to digital: Next Campaign Tech Showcase puts cutting-edge strategies on display

To recap the event, iPolitics spoke with all three co-founders of Next Campaign, Hasneet Singh Punia, Harneet Singh, and Brett Thalmann.

In advance of a widely-anticipated federal election campaign, political strategists, elected officials, and aspiring candidates gathered in Toronto earlier this week for the Next Campaign Tech Showcase. The non-partisan event featured expert panels and tech exhibitors, allowing politicos to see up close the latest technology for strategic campaigning.

To recap the event, iPolitics spoke with all three co-founders of Next Campaign, Hasneet Singh Punia, Harneet Singh, and Brett Thalmann.

Let’s start with a recap of the Next Campaign Tech Showcase that was held earlier this week. What were the highlights? 

Harneet Singh: I think it was a resounding success. We have over 200 people join us in-person, and over 30 speakers and experts sharing their insights from the stage. We also had more than 15 technology solution providers showcasing their services and solutions.

Overall, so far, we’ve received great feedback from everybody who attended. They’ve talked about how well-organized the event was, from the content and programming, as well as the opportunities to see those solutions and tech in action, that was really the cherry on the cake.

The tech showcase was meant to build on the success of our first summit last year, and allow for the opportunity to explore technology in a little more detail. The Next Campaign Summit brings all those policy minds, advocacy groups, and a lot of focus on ideas, but this focused more on bringing technology to the front, and how we can showcase how campaigns can leverage cutting-edge technology.

As you mentioned, the event featured several different expert panels. If people weren’t able to make it, what did they miss?

Brett Thalmann: We covered a range of topics, including modern voter outreach, digital advertising, data analytics, and how AI can revolutionize campaigns. We also covered outreach to multicultural communities, so we had a diverse agenda.

We had close to 20 exhibitors, including some great technology companies, like StackAdapt, TikTok, Environics, and others that were able to showcase their tools. So, people who attended were able to meet and even demo tools for them to use in future campaigns.

Can you speak about the timing of this event, given what’s currently happening in the Canadian political world? 

Brett Thalmann: We had hoped to do this event in advance of the major elections. Obviously, the Ontario election was already well-underway, but we had in attendance a lot of elected municipal officials and aspiring municipal candidates, as well as federal electoral district associations and MPs, who are gearing up for this year’s federal election.

Do we know when the Next Campaign event will be?

Hasneet Singh Punia: We’re actually going to hold one later this year in November. We actually dropped that bomb on our attendees earlier this week. So, the event went so well and we got so much great feedback that they asked us to come back again.

We’re still working on where it’s going to be, and what exactly the event will be, but there will likely be a lot of analysis with regards to what happened in the provincial election. We’ll get some good wrap-up from people in charge of the campaigns and, if a federal campaign wraps up before we go in November, we’ll also hear feedback on that and get to see some of the new tools and technology that were used.

Is there anything I missed? Anything else that people should know?

Brett Thalmann: The only thing I would add is that we really had a cross-section of multi-partisan speakers and attendees from across the political spectrum. It was great to see people often on other sides of campaign battles coming together to share their experiences and insights.

Hasneet Singh Punia: Another really cool part of the event was having the Ontario Big City Mayors’ caucus partner with us and having some of the province’s leading mayors discuss how politics has changed from a mostly door-knocking effort to a more online, digital effort. If you’re not doing that, it’s not going to work. So, that was really cool to hear from the mayors talk about that in an open atmosphere. I think it offered a lot of insight to potential candidates and campaign strategists.

Harneet Singh: The whole idea is Next Campaign is attempting to be at the forefront of innovation and campaigning. It’s a platform where we bring different ideas from different ends of the spectrum, and allow minds to come together, and technology to come together. Everybody can learn at the same time and help push the world of campaigning forward.

This is a repost from iPolitics. Check out the original Q&A here.