Pilot procurement program makes first selections

Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) has pre-qualified the first 19 companies under its Canadian Innovation Commercialization Program (CICP), making them eligible for beta testing and/or purchase by the federal government. Pre-qualification means the firms' innovations will be shopped to government departments and agencies for suitable matches. Those that are chosen will then enter contract negotiations with PWGSC's Office of Small and Medium Enterprises. CICP is a $40-million, two-year pilot and the first government procurement program since the demise of the Unsolicited Proposals Program in the early 1990s. To pre-qualify, firms' products and services were evaluated by the Industrial Research Assistance Program. A second selection stage was performed by a private sector-dominated Innovation Selection Committee. The program was officially launched last fall (R$, October 14/10)….