Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to present OCRI’s response to the city’s proposed economic development strategy. The strategy sees Ottawa recognized as a competitive global hub for innovative, knowledge-based talent, businesses and organizations. OCRI is committed to the economic development of the city and overall, we agree with the strategic objectives as outlined in the document and look forward to working with the City to achieve the stated objectives.

OCRI has been supportive of and involved with the economic refresh activity by City staff although not directly involved with the steering committee. The organization fulfills a leading role in economic development for the region including the entrepreneurship centre, global marketing (investment and trade activities in Ottawa and abroad) and regional innovation activities in addition to other OCRI activities for members.

Leading the way for Ottawa, OCRI fully supports the bolstering of key economic development activities in the region. Investment has decreased over the past few years and fallen far behind investment by other cities and regions. More investment will result in a more diversified local economy with strong international success.

Key economic development initiatives include the creation of strong ecosystems in the areas of: international trade and investment, entrepreneurship, and clusters (including cleantech, life sciences, wireless/mobile applications and digital media). (See our KBI white paper response for more detail.)

Talent is a key focus area for Ottawa. While we have high quality, local talent with many students graduating every year from our universities and colleges, we need to increase STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) participation to meet the demands. Strategies must be implemented to attract, engage and retain talent in Ottawa. Leadership and early entrepreneurship education are also key focus areas. (See our Talent white paper response for more detail.)

OCRI is a leader in providing a full range of commercialization and investment resources to companies across knowledge-based industries to accelerate their growth in the global marketplace. This includes support for startup company creation through Entrepreneur’s Edge, Lead-to-Win, Exploriem and other programs. OCRI works to bring capital to the region through investment in high potential emerging technology leaders in Ottawa.

OCRI programs and services touch many business people and youth in our community. Because of the broad range of services, it is difficult to fully understand the value that OCRI brings to the community. OCRI partners with the City of Ottawa to deliver a number of services to the community which I have outlined below. Key OCRI services that support Ottawa’s economic development include:

Entrepreneurship Centre

• Helps entrepreneurs make informed business decisions while starting or growing their businesses (seminars and workshops on management, legal and accounting)
• Youth focus via programs like Ottawa Innovation Challenge, Junior Achievement, Canada Youth Business Foundation, Summer Company and others;
• Operates resource centre at City Hall, kiosks in Orleans, Barrhaven and Kanata.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation

• Delivers Entrepreneur’s Edge series for entrepreneurship training;
• Delivers TalentBridge which engages entrepreneurial engineering students in work terms that develop marketing, sales and business management skills and connects students with supportive mentors from the local knowledge-based sector.

Global Marketing

• Provides assistance for export-oriented businesses seeking to market products and services internationally;
• Provides support for in-bound and out-bound trade missions with emphasis on Asia, Europe, U.S. and Latin America;
• Active founding member of the Ontario Technology Corridor (Ottawa, Toronto, Waterloo, London and Niagara) which was established for joint marketing abroad;
• Supports Ottawa’s established and emerging knowledge-based clusters (Photonics, Wireless, Software, eBusiness, Contact Centres, Life Sciences, Cleantech, Security and Digital Media.)

Investment and Commercialization

• Provides business advisory services, business acceleration, market intelligence and mentoring to build the next wave of knowledge-based companies;
• Hosts the annual Ontario Venture Summit (OVS) to showcase companies to qualified investors;
• Actively supports community-based initiatives including: Lead to Win, Exploriem, TiE, and The Ottawa Network.

Community Leadership

• OCRI hosts and chairs the Innovation Leadership Team;
• OCRI chairs the Ottawa Technology Round Table for industry, academic and research institutions, and federal, provincial and city governments;
• OCRI CEO is a member of the Tourism Leadership Team;
• OCRI contributes to the Digital Strategy Round Tables at Industry Canada.

OCRI is a diverse and dynamic organization that aims to be responsive to the needs of our local business community. If you are interested in learning more about OCRI and the many ways that our programs, services and individuals contribute to the economic well being of the city visit our website www.ocri.ca, stop by the Entrepreneurship Centre at Ottawa City Hall or get in touch with one of our program managers.

by Mike Darch, Shenzhen – April 13 and 14, 2010

Ottawa has experienced a series of economic tremors since the mid 90’s. The reduction of our government employment during the years that created a zero deficit for Canada, the technology downturn of this century that permanently altered the global supply chains and the recent global financial crisis that was made worse in our region by the bankruptcy of our major technology anchor, Nortel.

One lesson that is repeatedly taught over time, I guess not enough study history, is that you survive change by embracing it. Fighting a new global economic order will only mean, that when you finally adjust, the transition is more painful. For Ottawa, the swing to low cost production in the technology sector resulted in record job losses for our region. 

On this trip, we visited two companies, Breconridge and Huawei. Breconridge is Ottawa-based and our largest advanced manufacturing company. It has its headquarters in Ottawa, but here in Shenzhen it employs over 500 people in its Chinese operation. In Ottawa, the company does its engineering, new product manufacturing development and its high value manufacturing. In Shenzhen, it does its high volume manufacturing. It remains competitive by moving its manufacturing asset to the most cost efficient global location.

Huawei is Shenzhen-based, with 50,000 employees in the region and 95,000 worldwide. It has 17 R&D facilities around the world, and yet in September of 2008, it began building a R&D capability in the Ottawa area. The official opening of its facility is next week. So why open a facility in Ottawa when you already have 95,000 employees. I can only speculate, but in a single world, talent.

Huawei is a new company, with just over a decade history. The Ottawa region has been building ICT companies for over five decades, with an exceptional track record in innovation, large scale integration, software/hardware integration and market adaptation. As Huawei moves farther up the integration chain, Ottawa represents a major talent pool.

These two companies and their operations in Shenzhen and Ottawa illustrate the direction of sustainable economic development. We are in a world of global supply chains and you have to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses to compete in those supply chains. Breconridge is competing by executing its low end manufacturing in Shenzhen and Huawei is competing by utilizing the telecommunications R&D capability in Ottawa. Both cities and both companies are winners.

These company visits in Shenzhen have also brought home to me the practical side of other global trends. In my former company, Lansdowne Technologies, we did proposals for many large government projects. These often involved teams from many countries (and time zones) and tight deadlines. We often joked about bringing in the cots and throwing the pizza under the door as we worked 16 hour days to meet deadlines.

Our visit to both Breconridge and Huawei put a different meaning to bringing in the cots and tossing the pizza under the door. A global reality is that cities are now our economic driver and will be into the future. The jobs are there and the cities will only get larger.

I see China as a practical country. If the jobs are in the city, that is where people will go to find them. We had a free ranging discussion with Alec Hart the General Manager of Breconridge’s Asia operation. We received a briefing on the facility in Shenzhen, its manufacturing capability, its integration into Breconridge’s operations, its types of clients, the usual. Then we noticed on the site plan that there were two dormitories, several canteens and some sport fields. I recall in my first trip to China in 1995 that the factory we visited had a farm out back which produced the vegetables for the lunch that the company provided all employees.

Things do change. Shenzhen was a fishing village of 30,000 people 30 years ago. Today, it is a modern, even by Western standards, city of over 15 million. Alec tells us that the average age of his employees is 28 and few were either born or live in Shenzhen. The jobs are in the city, but the families are back home. Most employees live on the factory grounds, sending the bulk of their wages home to the family. Wages are relatively standard, so competition for labour is more based on the housing and living conditions provided. I was surprised to learn that Breconridge serves four meals a day. A major recruiting tool is your employees telling their friends that you have great living quarters!

I keep seeing China as a practical country. You could debate the direction of change, but it is happening so fast that any conclusions would be far surpassed by reality.

The 2009 Tech Venture Challenge will be wrapping up, with the finalists presenting their final pitches tonight at Ben Franklin Place, Ottawa.  TVC is Ottawa’s most prestigious business plan competition and is a member of MIT’s Global Network of University Business Plan Competitions.  

35 business proposals were submitted this 2009 season, and the 3 finalists this year are :

1. Smart Rotor Systems
2. The SATESS Business Plan
3. VSM Technologies – Wireless Vital Signal Monitoring 

The finalists, who represent the best and brightest and most from both the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, will present in front of top technology entrepreneurs, investors, business professionals, judges, and of course, family and friends.   The top prize is worth $10,000, second and third both get $5,000.  For more information on TVC, go to - http://www.techvc.org/.

The Carleton University Foundry Program (and therefor Luc Lalande) and Ontario Centers of Excellence are among the main sponsors at TVC.  The OCRI Entrepreneurship Centre (and consequently Manu Sharma) are strong supporters of the annual competition.

Stay tuned for our thoughts and impression of the event and the pitches on tbridge.ca.  Congratulations to all the semi-finalists.

TalentBridge fills an essential gap in the development of young entrepreneurs in Ottawa. Its design as a business internship modelled on a technical co-op provides a unique learning opportunity for students – important especially since it is outside of your primary academic discipline. Without over generalizing, I would say that it is fairly typical of business placements for university student to be in data-processing, reception or other basic tasks. TalentBridge, in my opinion, differs and differs from that model in an unique way wherein it provided me with a high-level exposure to marketing, sales & business strategy to students that I would have had very limited opportunity to access otherwise.

So I was often asked over the course of summer about my thoughts about the program looking at it as a computer science student. I would say, TalentBridge recognizes that computer science students learn in co-op through coding, biomedical science students learn in co-op through research, so students with an interest in business should learn through active participation in business activity. TalentBridge’s position as a facilitator that is around to plan and manage the co-op student/employer relationship while ensuring that all parties goals are met helped ensure a better learning experience for myself and helped Rove Mobile (the enterprise) get more value out of my skill set. To have Manu Sharma, the program manager, as a sounding board on a regular basis (we spent one day a week with Manu at the Entrepreneurship Centre) was in my opinion a huge differentiator for the program. We had active mentoring at two levels, with Rove Mobile as well as with OCRI, and that was a huge learning opportunity in itself.

What else? I see TalentBridge stepping into the role of a key talent aggregator in the Ottawa community. SMEs often do not have the time to search for young talent that will only contribute for four months, universities do not have co-op programs for business students targeted at SMEs and students don’t have the time to apply at hundreds of small companies across Ottawa, many of which they could not have heard of unless they were already plugged in to the tech community. I believe that with time TalentBridge will emerge as the central location for students to look to gain a life experience, primarily because the structure of the program protects the interest and aspirations of the students without compromising on the degree of their engagement with the industry.

I have only two more weeks left with the program, and when I leave I will carry with me a strong message in support of the program. I see TalentBridge as the missing bridge between students and the tech community in Ottawa that will allow students to get their foot in the door with an SME, on the basis of their merit and their merit alone. As the core messaging of the program lays it out, it is a pathway to training the next generation of business leaders by letting them get a head start within the ecosystem and start contributing and building a reputation for themselves. It is great to spend time on the deep end.

Passion Drives Success
 
“A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position”
–John Maxwell
 
What do you do when you have an idea for something new? What support is there for you? How can you develop your inspiration before you lose it?
 
As I am spending time with OCRI’s Talent Bridge program immersed in the world of Business Development, Business Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Innovation etc, I am surrounded by individuals who are constantly striving to find answers to some of these questions. In parallel, I am also rethinking and developing my own thoughts around these topics.
 
The idea of innovation today is so convoluted that the word itself seems to have lost meaning. The misconception consists of people believing that you can stick a creative individual in a room and expect new ideas and thoughts to flow out like clockwork. Let us remember for a moment the creation of Post-It© Notes. The adhesive was not designed for the purpose of removable notes but instead a result of research into a super adhesive. This accidental discovery has led to more than 600 Post-It© Products selling in over 100 countries. The Post-It© story was a success because the idea and use of the adhesive was supported by one person who persevered with the notion that it would be marketable. This was a story I heard during our meeting with Luc Lalande in his office at Carleton University when we met him as a part of our Talent Bridge meetings with supporters and champions of entrepreneurship and innovation in Ottawa. The story left an immediate impression and put into context the message that Luc was trying to convey – innovation best thrives in open supportive environments.
 
Luc Lalande is the Director of the Innovation Transfer Office at Carleton University. During our meeting, Luc spoke of innovation and Carleton’s efforts towards supporting and nurturing innovation on its campus as also in the Ottawa community. Here are some of his thoughts that I was able to capture in our meeting.
 
What is innovation?
 
Luc mentioned that he faces constant challenges with support for young entrepreneurs that have new and interesting ideas. He explains that innovation is not about having a creative individual in a lab researching the next upcoming great idea. Innovation is finding the one in a hundred reason that an idea will work and building on that.
 
How can we support innovation?
 
Luc explained that innovation is not a linear model where steps can be mapped out and a set timeline can be planned. But, when the idea strikes, Luc is there to provide support where he can. Currently at Carleton University, there are four programs that provide help to innovative ideas: Technology Venture Challenge, Social Innovation Challenge, Open Source Talent First Program and the Foundry Program.
 
These contests and programs provide the chance for students with ideas to meet and network with others that have similar or complimentary ideas as well as those that can support them. Luc has the passion to see success in the ideas that are brought to him and helps with the process of working it out into a business without making a judgment call on the individual. The programs have their up’s and down’s (successful start-ups as well as not so successful endeavors), however, the support will always be there.
 
How should we approach innovation?
 
The key to seeing where an idea may lead, is realizing that one idea leads to another. Luc uses the example of Crocs©. The company started by designing a boating and outdoor shoe with material that is slip-resistant with a non-marking sole. Since then, the brand has become a fashion trend styling from the original product to rain boots to canvas shoes and even 3-inch heels. The idea essentially moved away from what it was initially pitched as, and since then it has taken different shapes of its own. An openness towards and belief in the potential in unseen and unexplored opportunities has evidently worked well for Crocs, and that’s precisely how most innovation should be looked at.
 
Final Thoughts on innovation?
 
Luc Lalande believes in nurturing the ideas that are presented to him and developing them into something bigger without worrying about formulas and established practices around traditional technology transfer and innovation support. Innovation at Carleton University provides support to students that want to go after it – even if it may not work for them initially. The support system Luc has created firmly establishes that Ottawa is still a great city for innovation. 
 
Our meeting with Luc established a need for more programs like Talent Bridge. How else would I have gotten such an opportunity to have a candid interaction with someone like Luc for a conversation that has added a new perspective to my understanding of entrepreneurship and innovation? Together with my experience in Rove Mobile, where I am working closely with the management and the sales and marketing team, the Talent Bridge meetings and visits are a great source of new information and experience for me.
 
More stories to come.
 
Emily Chan
Talent Bridge – Summer 2008

First Five Weeks in Rove Mobile
So, I have been in OCRI’s Talent Bridge program for almost five weeks now. I thought I will take a few moments to speak about my experience with the program during this period. As an introduction, my name is Steven Robins and I am a student at University of Western Ontario where I am doing my undergraduate degree with a joint concentration in Business and Computer Science. I am an Ottawa native, having lived all my life in the Ottawa suburb of Barrhaven before I moved to London, Ontario, for my studies. TalentBridge happened at the opportune time for me. I was out looking for a challenging summer assignment which will have a flavor of something different, but would open my eyes to some new facets previously unknown to me. So what is it about TalentBridge that got me all excited and had me commit to spending 14 weeks of my summer with OCRI’s Entrepreneurship Centre and Rove Mobile in a program that I had not heard of before.
TalentBridge, for me, is an unique opportunity to apply what I’ve learned in the classroom, to the “real world.” I will share some of my thoughts/learnings from my first five weeks in the program. It has been very enlightening to see which parts of my business education are actually put into practice in the SME environment – and what pieces aren’t, either for lack of resources, or it simply doesn’t work. The most noticeable difference between the classroom and the SME is the time crunch.  In the classroom, before making a decision, you take the time to collect all the information, analyze the alternatives, design an action plan, as well as a variety of exit strategies.  At Rove, we simply don’t have the time to do all that.  Working at Rove is teaching me that there isn’t always the time, or resources to work through that complete process, that in small business a company routinely stakes its future on the outcome of a single event – a tradeshow, a customer, a new hire.
The considerations that take place in making decisions are also different from those we experience or work with in the classroom.  In the classroom, we make our decisions based on ROI, the fit between elements in the marketing plan, the fiscal ratios of the company, but we never think about the intricacies of people’s personalities – how you can get people to buy into a decision, and actually implement it in an effective way.  Building an organizational culture is talked about in a classroom, but the numbers is what matters.  I am increasingly finding out that in business it’s about developing your people. Through these few insights I thought I will highlight the best part of TalentBridge – as it applies to me in this moment of my own personal learning.  We get to see every day the way that people with lots of experience in business make decisions, what they pay attention to, and how the carry themselves.  It’s a chance to learn not just the what of business, but the how.
Stay tuned. I will be back with more Talent Bridge stories.
 
Steven Robins
Talent Bridge – Summer 2008

A New Begining

This post is also published under “Entrepreneurship and Innovation Support” at www.ManuSharma.Info