OTTAWA INNOVATION HUB PROJECT TOP Economic Forum Breakout Session Attendance Thursday, 7:15 a.m. 9:30 a.m. Ottawa City Hall, Festival Room DRAFT Facilitators: Steve West, President, MDS Nordion Jeffrey Dale, President & CEO, OCRI (Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation) Participants: (business cards provided) Piotr Anweiler Kristin Goff Eric McSweeney Shaunak Bapat Randy Goodfellow Rob Sproule Fabien Beaudet Julia Huffman Bill Stewart George Brown Dinesh Kakadia Graham Taylor Chris Cope Clement Langemeyer Marianne Wilkinson Brian G. Davidson Ken Lawless 1. Introduction Steve West S. West welcomed the group to the breakout session on the Ottawa Innovation Hub Project. Mr. West introduced the Innovation Hub concept as a project designed to take Ottawa to the next level of growth. It is a concept that is intended to engage Ottawa s business leadership in a discussion on what we need to accomplish to have Ottawa internationally recognized as a centre for innovation. Mr. West reported on the TOP (The Ottawa Partnership) economic mission to Toronto in February, 2006 where the Premier and his cabinet engaged in discussions relating to Innovation and Commercialization, and recognizing the tremendous desire to help our City and Province define how it will maintain its current successes and also evolve for future growth and successes. The will be managed by the TOP Steering Committee and OCRI will be implementing this project. S. West reported that input is required from the community on how do we engage all of Ottawa in this discussion, who should we be talking to, who are the key drivers in this community? This project will be a joint venture with the business community, provincial and municipal governments and the academic institutions in the region. Mr. West introduced Jeffrey Dale to discuss some of the specifics of the. 1
2. Presentation Jeffrey Dale (document attached) J. Dale reported on a recent TOP Forum held in December, 2005 that identified a need to better manage and position Ottawa s vast capabilities. In February, 2006 the Innovation Hub concept was presented to the Premier and his cabinet. He reported this project meets both the city s goals and the provinces goals to focus on Innovation to drive the next level of growth in our economy. The key question is what do we do next to maintain our economic momentum. Ottawa is reported to be the number one city in Canada as it relates to economic activity. There are many cities that are trying to position themselves as innovation leaders. Ottawa needs to develop our culture, services, talent, leadership and infrastructure to accelerate the speed of innovation that is going to differentiate Ottawa from other cities. J. Dale discussed the Bouillabaisse concept of Martin Hinoul from Leuven Belgium. I see about 400 regions in 80 countries that are trying their best at it. But, I can guarantee you that only 10% will succeed. Maybe 10 in Europe, another 10 in America and the rest in Asia. Mr. Dale reviewed Ottawa s economic mission to Queen s Park and the initiation of the project in February, 2006. He reported the proposal was submitted to the Ministry of Research and Innovation in early April with a request for funding in the amount of $450,000. The schedule is projected to be 9 months. He discussed the potential outcomes of the project as it relates to Wealth Indicators, People Foundation, Capital Growth and Market Access. J. Dale reviewed the potential engagement strategy for this project. Consultants will be speaking with key experts of the business community. A number of workshops will be held on best practices with community leaders as well as soliciting community input. A key group will be visiting international sites to view best practices on innovation (cities like Stockholm, Glasgow, San Jose, Israel). The ultimate goal will be to get key leaders in the community to endorse what the Innovation Hub project will be (where do we want to make our investments?). The will bring together all assets (highly skilled workforce, strong research base, strong base of companies focused on key cluster areas, infrastructure that supports economic growth) to enable Ottawa to become a global centre for innovation where people, capital and markets come to live, invest, and transact business. J. Dale discussed what the output of the Innovation Hub could be: (a) Physical infrastructure physical could be new institutes, research parks, incubators (b) Branding initiative (c) Virtual infrastructure 2
3. Participants Comments and Feedback Steve West asked the group in attendance for their ideas, comments and feedback on whether this proposal is on the right track. Bill Stewart thought that the proposal is the right idea. Mr. Stewart felt this was a very ambitious initiative and a lot of capital costs could divert from core innovation tools. He discussed the need to provide key value. Suggested that a program be implemented through relationship building with academia and universities that could utilize resources to research best practices. B. Stewart stressed the importance of collaboration as a key element in the process. Preferred a virtual infrastructure, rather than physical. Randy Goodfellow Mr. Goodfellow commented he has seen similar projects of this type before. He focussed on the importance of ensuring there is a common vision between the private sector and education. Leadership, cultural shifts and internal communications are key elements for this project to be successful. Communication needs to be clear to all parties; the word innovation means different things to different people. R. Goodfellow reported this process means a lot work must be completed in advance. Julia Huffman advised the group the best advice to learn about the development of a company was to attend one of the OCRI programs offered (TEB or luncheon programs). Marianne Wilkinson key item to this project is human capital. Not going to get innovation without the people. Incubators required very few key resources and are up and running at a very low cost. She reported a number of people who were laid off from high-tech jobs have used their monies for start-ups. M. Wilkinson suggested that ideas people are generating must be marketable. Suggestion was to have both physical and virtual presence. Eric McSweeney discussed positive aspects of Incubator. Attention is focused on few number of companies which gives them the best chance for success. Downside would be focus on resources on a limited number of companies. Mr. McSweeney reported he preferred the focus be on a physical infrastructure. Ken Lawless reported the speed of innovation is irrelevant and there is a need to enhance capacity in the city. K. Lawless reported this is a process to design a system that would accelerate the growth of companies. Three components were suggested for this process: 1. Focus on capital pools which is done very well in Ottawa (50% of all venture capital in Canada is in Ottawa). 3
2. Focus on retention, expansion and attraction of companies, and the need to be sure that Ottawa is receptive. 3. Focus on quality of the deals, the market intelligence needs to exist for projects to be completed. Rob Sproule reported a key element in the project is to ensure communication portals are set up. Mr. Sproule discussed the importance of a 2 way portal that would need to exist between educational institutions and the business community. Dinesh Kakadia Carleton University, reported it would be difficult to find someone who understands both the company and the university industrial partnerships. The bridging between the business community and educational institutions is often earned through trust and fostering of partnerships, and less likely through portals. Steve West recapped the discussion and reported that the structure of process that will be in place for this project will need to interface with various groups, along with a well defined methodology to facilitate channels of communication. Graham Taylor - advised that outputs of Innovation Hub have to be expressed in terms of people, community and research. If it is related to Branding, this could be measured in terms of creating capability for a company to access resources on what they need regardless of where they may be. Linkages outside of the city are an important item to make project successful. Clement Langemeyer - described innovation hub as a project that sets up networks among people to projects where stakeholders work together. OCRI has done well in the past to build networks. This may mean more projects, introducing different kinds of projects to the Ministry, projects that people all see some value in. Mr. Langemeyer suggested Elaine from the Ottawa Public Library would be very useful in participating in future discussions. J. Dale thanked everyone for participating in this discussion. He reported that meetings on this project will start in the fall. S. West advised the group that a communication channel (blog) would be setup for this dialogue to continue. A suggestion to setup a mailing list was also put forward. J. Dale asked the group the following questions: (a) What will make the Hub successful? (b) What would cause the Hub to fail? Randy Goodfellow - Process is good but will require some focus. If the process is too broad, not much is going to be accomplished. That is what the success or failure could be. 4
Ken Lawless identified expertise of key community leaders is vital in bringing together the different groups in the validation process. Important to get main experts mobilized, and to create a culture that allows us to maximize the use of people. The project will fail if people in this room do not engage. There is a definite need to get top 100 companies, research and educational institutions to engage in the process. Clement Langemeyer Key element is to learn from other peoples failures. Suggested looking at hubs that did not achieve any attractions as well as looking at clusters\hubs that grew very quickly. He discussed the Phillips organization located in Holland who were building there own research park and inviting other companies to build within the park. Suggested doing an environmental scan of successful and failed projects. Eric McSweeney innovation is a much larger initiative than start-ups. Whatever project is put into place it be good for both bigger companies and startups. Failure of the project could result due to a new City Council or Administration who do not view Economic Development initiatives in their mandate. Maryanne Wilkinson Failure of the project could also be due to lack of funding from the Federal government. Provincial funding has been very positive. J. Dale put forward key questions: (a) What is going to get our business community interested in investing in this project? (b) How do we get the business community to say I am willing to invest in this initiative, once it is determined what we come up with? Eric McSweeney Ask the community what would be the perfect solution for you, something that demonstrates tremendous value for the business, business says WOW, I need this! ACTION: OCRI to develop a blog and\or mailing list that will provide information to participants that attended June 29 session. 5