Dowtown Victoria to get an orange glow

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WATCH: Victoria’s tech sector is looking to make a statement by giving the city an orange glow, as hundreds place orange lights in their windows. Isabelle Raghem reports. 

There will soon be an orange glow to Victoria’s downtown core.

It’s part of an initiative to shed light on a somewhat hidden industry in the capital region.

“We’ve come up with this idea to give every tech company that’s member of VIATEC an orange light bulb, they can get their own lamp, they put it in the window, so that throughout the city at nighttime there are these orange lights burning and when they look around they’ll wonder what’s with all these orange lights,” Dan Gunn, the chief executive of the Victoria Innovation Advanced Technology and Entrepreneurship Council, said. 

More than 300 orange low-power LED light bulbs will be handed out at a tech award show Friday evening to kick start the project.

The Victoria tech council says more than 800 firms in the region generate a combined revenue of $4-billion a year; a number expected to grow to $10-billion by 2030.

But Gunn says despite the billion dollar industry, it’s depth is rarely noticed by the public.

“When you don’t sell things you don’t market here and so while there are thousands and thousands of people that are supporting the community, largely understood and respected locally, there are three and a half million visitors that come here and fall in love with it,” Gunn said. They leave knowing about whale watching, and tea and flowers because there’s lots of promotion around that, they don’t really see the tech sector.”

“They leave knowing about whale watching, and tea and flowers because there’s lots of promotion around that, they don’t really see the tech sector.”

Organizers are hopeful the “Orange Light District” project will bring the tech industry out of the shadows and into the light.

Isabelle RaghemIsabelle Raghem

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