Looking forward to this great session.

We are very concerned with this impact this change might have on local Ottawa businesses and we said so.

We discussed two major opportunities:

One is to make sure that any large projects have a provision to include smaller companies as part of the bid. They seemed open to creative ideas on how to accomplish this and we are considering the details of that.

The second item we discussed was the difference between Strategic Systems and Tactical Systems. We understand the need to have a few pan Department strategic systems – but we think that hundreds ofDirectors and DG’s should be able to acquire tactical solutions to be more innovative by relaxing the extremely tight procurement controls currently in place. This relatively new idea seemed to resonate, and we think it could be very advantageous to small companies (that form the majority of Ottawa companies) as well as helping Government be more innovative and creative. We will be having discussions on this point as well.

I have known some of the principles of the organization for years. They have a good reputation for being straight shooters and I know they are serious about wanting to work with us.

We are working very closely on this file and we will keep you abreast of progress and welcome your input.

Please contact Blair (bpatacairk@ocri.ca) – if you have ideas.

Bruce

Geneviève comes with over 20 years’ experience in communications and special events with a variety of key roles in encouraging and facilitating creative media growth in various markets including Vancouver as well as London, England.

Geneviève was the Events and Filming Group Manager for Westminster City Council in London where they facilitate over 850 events and 2500 filming activities per year. Her experience fostering relationships with key internal stakeholders (i.e. Council Leaders and Departments) and external stakeholders (i.e. Metropolitan Police, London Fire Brigade, Transport for London, Film London, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, BBC) should help considerably in the challenging multi-government environment that is Ottawa.

The City of Ottawa recognizes the huge potential that the film, television and the rapidly growing global digital media industry represents and is now prepared to make considerable investment into bringing outside production to Ottawa and growing our local resources. Acknowledging the wealth of resources and networks established by her predecessors, Geneviève looks forward to working with Ottawa’s key partners and stakeholders to get the cameras rolling.

First it sends a clear signal to our cleantech (and business) community that the City of Ottawa is willing to back our local cleantech companies as they develop solutions that reduce or eliminate the negative ecological impacts of personal or commercial activities.

Secondly, it solidifies the Ottawa region’s growing reputation as a centre of expertise for the conversion of waste and residual materials to energy and co-products. Ottawa’s own Iogen Energy is responsible for a ‘world’s first’ as Ottawa residents were the first to fill their tanks with gasoline containing an advanced cellulosic biofuel made from wheat straw (an agriculture residue) from a farm right here in the Ottawa region. Incredibly successful but little known (to many in the Ottawa region) Ensyn Technologies converts forestry and other residual biomass to renewable pyrolysis oil including at the Crane Massachusetts facility that produces the paper used for US Currency and at what will be the world’s largest fast pyrolysis plant (producing 20 million gallons of renewable pyrolysis oil) in High Level Alberta.

Third, public-private partnerships like this enable our region’s cleantech ecosystem to participate in a global cleantech market that will be worth $3 trillion by 2020. Regardless of the ‘flavour of the day’ in climate change and other politics the underlying drivers that require more resource efficient and less environmentally impactful solutions such as a global population of 7 billion people faced with ever increasing resource shortages means that this sector is here to stay and our current and future economic and environmental prosperity in the Ottawa region will increasingly depend on the success of our cleantech companies.

Prior to the reception, OCRI, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Ottawa’s technology clusters are also hosting a presentation by Dr. David Jacobson who will explore emerging technologies and applications trends. The internationally renowned speaker will discuss what to expect from the emergence of machine to machine communications, scalability and security in cloud computing, the social networking of machines, intelligent automated services and much more. It promises to be a fascination presentation and the perfect lead in to the reception.

I hope that you can join us for these two exceptional events.

Cheers
Bruce

As the Ottawa Senators celebrate 20 years in our community in 2012, it’s interesting to note what financial impact they have had on the Ottawa community. I believe many residents of Ottawa would be shocked to learn that the Ottawa Senators Foundation has contributed over $65 million dollars to our community. I learned that over $5 million of that was generated in just this past year. In addition, Ottawa has hosted numerous premium music concerts (too many to mention) over the last 20 years. When I was a teenager, one often had to go to Toronto or Montreal to see concerts/artists of that stature. It’s fantastic to finally say we have them right here in our own backyard!

And there is more to come in 2012 as our city pulls out the red carpet to welcome the 2012 All-Star Game next month. The estimated financial impact for our local economy during the All-Star Game weekend is $30 million dollars. This includes over 7,000 hotel rooms booked for thousands of hockey fans, locally and across the country as well as over 400 members of the media who will be in attendance. This is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the beauty and pride of the national capital region as viewership is estimated to be over seven million people throughout North America alone. Just as important, the All-Star Game will be broadcast in over 150 countries worldwide. You can’t buy that kind of promotion.

On a closing note, I’d like to shout out a big thanks to the Sens for your 20 years in our community. It’s been a blast and here’s to the next 20, bigger and better!

As in mainland China, I do not see pessimism and fear of collapse. I do see aggressiveness, a constant search for economic opportunity, the hunt for the deal. During a meeting with two of the leaders of the Hong Kong Medical and Healthcare Device Industries Association, mention is made of the changes that have occurred in recent years. Originally, members were all manufacturers and the manufacturing was all done in Hong Kong. Today, the majority of the members remain manufacturers, but the manufacturing is not done in Hong Kong. Many of the new members are service companies that understand the demand in mainland China and often throughout Asia. Their role is to put together the product and services that meet the demand. And, the interest goes beyond the original deal. They point out their knowledge of the market. Several examples are given of opportunities that they have exploited by taking individual technologies originally directed at medical devices to other sectors. Always looking toward the deal and commercial opportunities.

Another example of the adaptation is the relationship to investment in mainland China. As China modernized, Hong Kong served as the entry point of foreign direct investment (FDI) into China. With the rise of personal wealth and the stated policy of having Chinese companies go global, the investment flow is reversing. Hong Kong is becoming the financial vehicle to move personal and corporate investment out of China into the rest of the world.

As the economy of China evolves, so does the role of Hong Kong. The opportunity has moved beyond legal, financial and intellectual risk protection as investors look to participate in the growing Chinese and indeed larger Asian economies. Equally or more important today is its role as the gateway out to the global economy. Hong Kong: never the City State to stand still.

Global economics does not stand still. Many of the clothing related businesses came to Guangzhou. The development of Shenzhen began and the smaller electronics manufacturing sector in Hong Kong began a shift to there.

Fast forward nearly three decades. With Shenzhen’s concentration in Information and Communications Technologies, it continues to have rapid growth. Guangzhou is facing a different challenge. Many of the industries that were the foundation for its growth are either in decline or suffering competition from the next generation of developing country. The region is the wealthiest in China and to maintain that position, it is repositioning itself from low cost manufacturing sectors to knowledge based industries. While parts of China are still in the initial stages of modernization, Guangzhou is already well into its second generation of modernization.

As with all things in China, the size and speed of the transformation are noteworthy. The transformation began nearly a decade ago with the creation of a Park to attract foreign companies. Next step was an adjacent Park that concentrated on the development of local companies addressing the domestic Chinese markets. Now the third stage is in development to ensure that all the urban infrastructure and services are available in the Parks to attract and retain companies and talent. The third stage is also looking to develop a stronger base in the Knowledge Based Industries. It is being developed as an intelligent and sustainable community. In total, the three stages cover hundreds of square kilometres.

Once again the influence of the 12th Five Year Plan is evident. Our discussions begin with the potential of linking our companies for co-development. There is considerable examination of best practices and how they can be applied in Guangzhou and in the relationship between Guangzhou and Ottawa. There is openness to the potential of applying Ottawa technology related to intelligent and sustainable communities to the infrastructure being built in Guangzhou.

Although the visit is short, it is interesting to observe a region in China that is already into its second generation of development. In particular, is the willingness of the region to learn and to adopt best practices and technology that will accelerate the ability of Guangzhou to meet its aggressive objectives. Not only is China moving to become globally competitive, but its regions are moving to ensure their competitiveness within China.

Back home in Ottawa, we struggle with issues of financing both to start the next generation of knowledge-based companies and to help build our small and medium sized companies into globally competitive companies. We must convince our next generation of technology entrepreneurs and engineers that science, engineering and math are critical for their future prosperity. We must fight to convince our media that Ottawa is a global innovation centre.

Our first meeting is with the Chongqing State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. Established in 2002, their role is to oversee the 38 local companies owned by the state and having 1.3 trillion RMB in assets. Government organization, large bureaucracy, slow to react: NO! They have US$ 30 billion over the next five years to enhance their corporations, increase their international reach, and introduce innovation. They have analyzed their sectors of strength, the needs of their corporations to expand and the regions in the world best suited for mutual cooperation and growth (yes, Canada is one). And they are not just talking about it. Already investment deals have been done. Certainly natural resources are a target, but only one of six that also include high technology and information and communication technologies.

Our next meeting is with the New North Zone Technology Park. We have a half hour briefing on the significant gains that they have made since our last meeting less than a year ago. They have established an innovation centre and it is expanding rapidly. New sectors are being added including bioscience and intelligent transportation. After listening, I cannot help comment to them on how refreshing it is to hear so much good news. Back home in Ottawa, I am bombarded by reports of the expanding sovereign debt crisis in Europe, the failure of the U.S. government’s Select Committee to reach consensus on budget reduction measures, and how all this will affect the global economy and my pocketbook. And here I am having an hour long dialogue on opportunities for mutual growth and prosperity. They laugh when I tell them that I must make a strong commitment to learn Chinese so that I can listen to Chinese media rather than North American and European media.

One of our longest standing partners here, is the Chongqing Foreign Trade and Economics Relations Commission. We have long worked with them to coordinate incoming delegations to Ottawa looking for trade opportunities. An important present government policy is the increasing of imports into Chinese industries, and that it is one of their roles. They know that Canada and Ottawa have shifted their knowledge based sectors to a more service rather than manufacturing orientation looking to concentrate on sustainable high value add components of the global supply chains. They are anxious to partner and learn from us. They also want to discuss how they can help increase trade and investment with Canada and Ottawa. No buy America, no discussion of increasing border security, no protectionism. We walk away with several projects to our mutual benefit.

Our last stop this day is with one of the state-owned businesses, the Chongqing Machinery & Electronics Holding Corp. The Canadian Consulate in Chongqing had brought them on a familiarization tour to Ottawa and Waterloo in September. The meetings had been good, but I felt that we had missed the mark a bit. Ours are innovative companies, mostly in the SME sector. They tend to provide innovative components to a larger solution. I felt that the Chongqing company was looking for those larger solutions. As it turned out, I was right but the presentations in Ottawa and Waterloo were similar. The company officials listened and went back and made a recommendation that consideration should be given to the investment in technologies that will enhance their future products rather than solely on investing in mature products that may have a limited future life. Senior management listened and the company will follow up in Ottawa and Waterloo.

What a refreshing concept, you do your homework, you present a logical argument and the client listens. I will take the optimism associated with doing business in China over the pessimism of the United States and Europe any day.

In past blogs, I have talked about the growing importance of innovation, commercialization and globalization that is evident in China’s 12th Five Year Plan. That message was clearly evident in the remarks by Yu Jianhua (Assistant Minister of Commerce of PRC) and Cheng Siwei (Vice-Chairman Standing Committee of the 9th and 10th National People’s Congress). Cheng Siwei went on to observe that Canada could easily just sit back and live off the wealth of its natural resources. But it was not. Instead, it was embracing innovation developing companies like RIM and continuing to build a globally respected financial system.

Taking the comments from the two countries together, the conclusion would have to be that Canada is respected by China for our natural resources, but also for moving beyond those resources to develop competitive industries in the knowledge-based global economy. On the other hand, we cannot be complacent with our past success, must recognize the new global economic reality and governments and companies embrace and partner with the emerging economies of Asia. We have looked South to the United States and we have looked East to Europe, now we must look West to Asia.

All that high level policy is fine, but how does it translate to reality at the working level. Having worked with Beijing’s Z-park for six years, their progress never ceases to amaze me. Besides being in awe of the shear extent of their reach and the number of companies in the Park, I also appreciate their constant drive forward. Just as it was mentioned that Canada is not content with its abundance of natural resources, so is the Z-Park not content with its past success. It is working hard to develop the next generation of companies, but it is also putting in the resources to help its growing companies to move out into the global economy. And it is not inward looking. Park management is looking at how global investments can forge links that make Beijing and its companies stronger.

The message is clear. Canada and China must move to put the policy and strategies in place that create the framework for mutual global competitiveness and prosperity. At the regional level, our institutions and companies must work within that framework to make mutual prosperity a reality.