Report calls for Ontario network of centres for information & communications technologies

A study launched by the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) is calling for the creation of a network of centres to stimulate commercialization in Ontario’s information and communication technologies (ICT) sector. The plan includes a proposed fund of $50-60 million over seven years to finance the centres’ operation and provide funding to selected firms, with the majority of funds coming from public sources augmented by angel and venture capital money.

Entitled Project 041 or ICT Innovation Centre Model the resulting report aims to create 40-50 new firms, generate 5,000-10,000 new jobs and stimulate $2-3 billion in new revenue over the recommended funding period. It assumes that the new institute would utilize existing regional organizations such as OCRI and Waterloo-Kitchener’s Communitech for service delivery and back-end support, although the public/private pre-seed commercialization fund would be separately managed with a management team that would be compensated with equity.

The fund would provide seed funding of up to $50,000 to test and validate ideas and $100,000-500,000 for firms requiring early-stage financing. It’s estimated that the networked centres need $10-20 million, while the fund would require $45-50 million.

Prepared by DC Technologies Ltd, Kanata ON, Project 041 represents a summary a study undertaken by the Ontario government as part of its response to the federal innovation agenda. The consulting firm interviewed 46 organizations from industry, government, academia and “fourth pillar models” including Canadian Microelectronics Corp, Inno-centre Montreal and the Southern Arizona Tech Council.

In addition to OCRI and Communitech, the regional organizations considered for the network include: London Technology Alliance, and York Technology Association amongst others.

“The real question here is, ‘is it time for something specific for the ICT sector.’ We think it is,” says OCRI president/CEO Jeffrey Dale. “The province has given the auto sector $500 million and biotech has received $30 million but there’s nothing for ICT which has between 6,000 and 10,000 mostly small companies.”

Dale and others have been meeting with officials from the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Industry Canada to further develop the concept, and have also held meetings with commercialization officials at the National Research Council.

Dale says the two funds announced in the last provincial Budget provide a perfect match with what the ICT network is attempting to achieve (R$, May 27/04).

“We’ve asked for $5 million from the prototype fund and $10 million from the investment fund,” says Dale

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