Ottawa's Innovation Centre to offer business incubation and acceleration services

Ottawa is joining the growing list of Canadian cities with a homegrown technology incubator and accelerator with the opening of its long-awaited Innovation Centre this fall. The facility — under construction in the historic Bayview Yards district near the city centre— will feature a digital media lab and a makerspace to facilitate 3D printing.

Targeted sectors the aerospace, cybersecurity, digital media, software, clean tech and advanced manufacturing and their interfaces.

The centre received $15 million from the province of Ontario in 2013 for construction and fit-up, matched by $15 million in cash, in-kind and services from the municipality. Last week it received an $8-million infusion from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario. The FedDev support will go towards the creation of an advanced media lab and a cybersecurity program managed by Carleton Univ's Technology Innovation Management Program, as well as equipment and furniture.

"We wanted to differentiate and be truly enabling in these two areas (digital media, 3D printing) and FedDev saw the Innovation Centre as a job creation opportunity so we got two very substantial outcomes," says Steve West, the former CEO of Nordion and the centre's board chair. "FedDev also enabled our MadeMill — a combination of digital media and advanced manufacturing prototyping — that will allow start-ups to prototype products."

The facility is expected to create up to 280 jobs.

The centre's lead anchor is Invest Ottawa, a municipal economic development agency and successor to the tech-focused Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation. Invest Ottawa receives $3.2 million a year from the city covering all types of economic activity and was headed until recently by Bruce Lazenby who has departed after five years at the helm. A search for his replacement is underway.

Other tenants announced to date include Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, the Univ of Ottawa, Algonquin College, Carleton Univ and La Cité.

Ottawa was once widely known as Silicon Valley North, leveraging tech behemoth Nortel Networks into a regional powerhouse of telecommunications and related sectors. Those days are gone although the region still possesses considerable ICT research and high-tech strength.

Ottawa has the highest per capital R&D spending in Canada, the second highest concentration of science and engineering employment in North America and is #2 in the number of tech firms nationally. It has the country's largest concentration of clean tech researchers, boasts more than 400 ICT companies and is hosts R&D operations for all the major telecommunications firms.

"Ottawa is a huge science and technology driver," says Bob Chiarelli, an area MP and the provincial infrastructure minister. "There have been spectacular changes in the last decade."

The Innovation Centre has been in the planning stages for approximately 10 years. During that time, Toronto's MaRS Discovery District and Kitchener-Waterloo's Communitech hub have experienced rapid growth and become key focal points for commercialization and innovation in their respective regions. West says there are valid reasons for why Ottawa has lagged other jurisdictions.

"MaRS was private-sector initiated with an initial focus on life sciences and we don't have that in Ottawa. Waterloo had humble origins and it rode a wave that Ottawa wasn't able to ride. Our wave became a puddle when Nortel failed and we didn't have that momentum," says West. "Ottawa is also a complex place politically and it didn't have a strong provincial presence. That has changed with area MPs and MPPs that are also Cabinet ministers. The train has now left the station. The Innovation Centre is truly the spark that Ottawa needs."

Also planned is a 49,000-sq-m, 10-storey tower to provide office space for growing companies and service firms and organizations. West says the tower will complete the facility's envisaged innovation ecosystem, although its funding is still undetermined.

"We need proof points before we get there (constructing the tower),"We want to get collective ownership around the centre first and measure the return on investment ... Our job is to make the building a reality and stimulate innovation," says West.

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