Career Trajectory: From Tech Enthusiast to Award-Winning Authority
We’ve followed Takara Small’s work as she evolved from a freelance technology writer to one of Canada’s most influential voices at the intersection of tech, business, and social impact. Her career began with bylines in national outlets like The Globe and Mail and CTV News, where she dissected emerging trends in Canada’s startup ecosystem. By 2025, she solidified her position as CBC’s national technology columnist and a BBC World News contributor, leveraging her platform to explore how technology reshapes societal structures.
Key Career Milestones
- 2018–2020: Launched investigative series on fintech regulation gaps, cited in Canadian parliamentary hearings
- 2022: Hosted CBC’s Death in Cryptoland, a top-5 global podcast exposing QuadrigaCX’s $190M scandal
- 2024: Spearheaded CBC’s first interactive documentary on rural broadband disparities
Defining Works: Three Articles That Shaped Tech Discourse
- Model-Turned-Tech Founder Sinead Bovell on Why the Future of Tech Must Be Global (3 Magazine) This 2025 profile of futurist Sinead Bovell dissects the racial and geographic biases embedded in AI development pipelines. Small traces Bovell’s journey from modeling runways to founding WAYE, an organization training 50,000+ Black and Indigenous youth in machine learning ethics. Through interviews with Nairobi-based developers and Montreal AI researchers, Small reveals how Bovell’s “decentralized innovation” model challenges Silicon Valley’s hegemony. The article’s impact metrics include a 300% surge in WAYE’s fellowship applications and a keynote reference at the 2025 UNESCO AI Ethics Summit.
- “When we limit tech’s architects to one demographic, we get tools that fail 80% of the world’s population.” – Takara Small, 3 Magazine
-
- This Canadian Non-Profit Is Helping To Fix Wikipedia’s Diversity Gap (Takara Small Portfolio) Small’s 2023 investigation into VentureKids Canada—a Toronto nonprofit teaching coding in underserved communities—showcases her knack for unearthing systemic solutions. By embedding with teen participants creating Wikipedia entries about Black STEM pioneers, she quantifies the knowledge gap: only 18% of English Wikipedia’s biotech entries featured women of color pre-initiative. Her data journalism approach, incorporating Wikimedia API analysis and longitudinal studies of editor demographics, proved instrumental in securing $2.1M in federal grants for digital literacy programs.
- Death in Cryptoland (CBC Podcast) This eight-part series unraveling the QuadrigaCX crypto scandal exemplifies Small’s forensic storytelling. Through FOIA requests and blockchain analysis, she exposed how founder Gerald Cotten’s “accidental death” in India masked a $190M exit scam. The podcast’s climax—a crowdsourced effort to trace cold wallet keys—became a case study in MIT’s 2024 Media Lab curriculum on investigative techniques for decentralized systems.
Pitching Takara Small: A Strategic Guide
1. Propose Stories Linking Tech and Marginalized Communities
Small consistently amplifies initiatives bridging digital divides, as seen in her VentureKids coverage. Pitches should highlight measurable impacts, like how a Nairobi edtech startup increased girls’ STEM enrollment by 70%. Avoid generic “diversity in tech” angles—focus on scalable models with verifiable metrics.
2. Cybersecurity Narratives with Human Consequences
Her QuadrigaCX investigation underscores her interest in cybercrimes affecting everyday users. A compelling pitch might explore how small businesses recover from ransomware attacks, mirroring her CBC piece on Toronto bakeries losing POS systems.
3. Avoid Consumer Gadget Launches
While she’s covered major players like Shopify, Small avoids reviewing consumer tech. A pitch about AI-driven farming tools would resonate; one about smartphone specs won’t.
4. Global Perspectives on Local Innovations
Her BBC work prioritizes Canadian tech with international applicability. A pitch about Montreal’s carbon capture startups helping Chilean mines reduces emissions aligns with her cross-border approach.
5. Data-Driven Stories with Actionable Insights
Small’s Wikipedia diversity piece used dataset analysis to drive policy change. Successful pitches might include a study of AI hiring tools’ bias against non-Western accents, paired with legislative solutions.
Awards and Achievements
- Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women (2023): Awarded by Women’s Executive Network, this honor recognizes Small’s influence in reshaping tech journalism’s role in policy-making. Previous recipients include Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, underscoring the award’s prestige in Canadian leadership circles.
- U.S. Young Leaders of the Americas Fellow (2021): This State Department program selected Small for her work documenting Latino tech founders in Toronto. Her fellowship research on Cuban fintech adaptations informed Canada’s 2022 digital currency regulations.
- AdWeek Brand Star Leader (2022): Celebrating her CBC podcast’s branded content strategy, which increased youth engagement by 140% without compromising editorial integrity. Judges noted her “blueprint for monetizing investigative journalism in the post-ad-revenue era.”
