A popular international program that connects creative minds is heading to Canada.

CreativeMornings, a free monthly lecture series already established in cities including San Francisco, London (England) and Berlin, will land in Vancouver on Sept. 2.

Mark Busse, founding partner of Industrial Brand in Vancouver, is leading a team of 13 hand-picked volunteers putting the series together on home soil for the first time. The inaugural event, at the W2 Media Cafe, will see Stewart Butterfield, founder of Flickr, take the floor and tell his story to registered guests. "I think if you invite the best and brightest, it becomes an opportunity for a really important dialogue," said Busse. But it's not only well-known creatives that will be featured; Busse wants some "undiscovered" talents to share their stories as well.

The sessions will include a 20-minute lecture, followed by 20 minutes of group discussion. Busse said there will be interviews with the speakers published prior to the sessions to provide some fodder for the talks.

Part of his motivation to spearhead CreativeMornings in Vancouver is that although Vancouver is "rapidly evolving as a creative community", it hasn't received the recognition Busse thinks the city deserves. So he approached the GDC as a corporate sponsor, and W2 has agreed to play host for a year, said Busse. Langara College will sponsor a breakfast for the first event, he added.

Busse is committed to CreativeMornings in Vancouver for a minimum of a year. He hopes to engage guests with the speakers and create some "magic moments" during that time. "If I see people writing notes (during the sessions), I'll go home happy," he said.

Busse said landing a big-ticket name such as Butterfield, who was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influencial people in the world, was partly due to the popularity of CreativeMornings elsewhere in the world. "Now we have a long list of people who want to do this," he explained. While Busse wouldn't divulge all of the prospective speakers for upcoming events, he said Ian Grais, creative director at Rethink in Vancouver and Toronto, is on the bill for October.

CreativeMornings was created by Tina Roth Eisenberg in 2008 "out of the desire to create a casual, accessible event." Busse said the program is "spreading like wildfire", with other Canadian cities showing an interest in joining in.

There are 150 seats available at the first Vancouver CreativeMornings, but the free tickets won't be released until Aug. 29, said Busse. That way, people won't scoop up a ticket too far in advance and not show, which he said is unfair to those who want to participate.