ORION report highlights socio-economic impact

The Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION) has released the summary of a confidential report highlighting its socio-economic impact on the province's research, education and innovation (RE&I) communities. The report found that institutions connected to ORION's high-speed fibre optic network directly contributed $4.4 billion to the provincial economy and $8.7 billion nationally.

The annual direct contribution of ORION-linked users in the professional, scientific and technical services sector is $891 million annually.

"These are pretty large numbers ... they're surprising and very pleasing," says Dr Drain Graham, ORION's president and CEO. "The impact of ORION ... shows how fundamental connectivity is to the research landscape."

Prepared by the Conference Board of Canada, the summary report is a key component of ORION's Nexus project — a year-long strategic planning process to guide the self-sustaining, not-for-profit organization for the next 10 years.

Other components of the Nexus project include a survey of students in the K-12 grades, an on-line survey of 500 stakeholders, an last year's ACTION workshop and report detailing the needs, challenges and opportunities for advanced computing in Ontario (R$, July 18/14).

"The Nexus project and Conference Board data provide direction in our digital infrastructure and coordination activity," says Graham, adding that ORION focuses on the connectivity portion of digital infrastructure, while Compute Canada is responsible for high-performance computing. "We strengthen users and players in our space and bring them together in intelligent communities."

Graham says ORION closely adheres to what he calls the five ‘Cs' —connectivity, computing (in conjunction with Compute Canada), content, community and cloud.

The Conference Board report also found that research-related activities at ORION-connected institutions contributed 142,000 workers to the province's employment count. "We've become the backbone and connect (Ontario's intelligent communities) to the world," says Graham. "We expect connectivity to be everywhere . It's like the air we breathe."

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