Technology parks are on the rise across the country as university-based researchers, startup companies, established industry players and governments strive to make Canada more globally competitive.
There are a dozen tech parks operating out of Canadian universities that bring the players together under one roof or in the same vicinity, and that number is expected to increase as more technologies make the big leap into commercialization.
"We know the angel (investor) market and the (venture capital) market and we bring them together into one area and it just keeps breeding on itself," says Dale Gann, head of the Vancouver Island Technology Park (VITP) based at the University of Victoria. "If we don't continue to provide great real estate and a business plan ... they could choose to move to New Jersey or Basel, Switzerland."
But Gann says operating a tech park is about more than just providing land, bricks and mortar.
"It's about marketing (companies) and exposing them and helping them find contacts and helping them find startup capital and bridge capital," says Gann, who is also the chairman of the B.C. Biotech Council.
But he adds Canada still lags behind countries such as India, which has 40 tech parks. In response, Canada's 12 tech-park operators recently formed the Canadian chapter of the U.S.-based Association of University Research Parks (AURP).
Gann, a co-founder of the Canadian AURP, says both the B.C. government and Ottawa need to develop strategies to build and sustain tech parks, whose owners range from provincial governments to private companies to Crown corporations. Such a strategy should include the interests of universities, industries and governments, he adds.
"We can't leave it up to one body," says Gann. "We can't leave it up to the academic world and we can't leave it up to the industry and we can't leave it up to government."
He says the VITP is meeting Premier Gordon Campbell's request for new technologies. But with potential new tech parks being considered for the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George and other campuses across the province, the provincial government's ongoing financial support is uncertain, he worries.
"They're there (financially), but maybe in an unorganized way," says Gann.
Federal Industry Minister Maxime Bernier says his Conservative government supports technology parks because they were developed by university and business communities. He says they are committed to funding research and development projects and notes the Tories committed $100 million to fundamental research in their latest budget.
The VITP houses 28 companies that employ 1,300 people. The facility has largely become a biotech hub with tenants ranging from Genologics Life Sciences Software Inc. to UVic's Genome BC Proteomics Centre, which recently was among six agencies across Canada that received $18.6 million in federal funding to be distributed over 18 months from Genome Canada.
Other tech parks are either on or adjacent to university campuses, such as Calgary Technologies Inc., near the University of Calgary and Regina Research Park, which is spearheaded by the University of Regina.
Many, such as the University of Waterloo's emerging Research and Technology Park, which has strong ties with the University of Guelph, seek to foster innovation in their surrounding regions, not just in the cities in which they're based.
The Waterloo site is a $214- million partnership of the University of Waterloo, the Region of Waterloo, City of Waterloo, Province of Ontario, Government of Canada, Communitech and Canada's Technology Triangle Inc. (CTTI), a not-for-profit, private-public economic development organization that markets the Waterloo Region and the cities of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo to the world.
Tenants include U.S.-based Sybase Inc., which develops database technology for emerging markets, its affiliates iAnywhere, Financial Fusion and Avantgo, and Open Text Corp., which bills itself as the world's largest provider of enterprise content management (ECM) software. Several companies are also slated to move into the park's recently opened Accelerator Centre.
CTTI chairman John Tennant says the research and technology park fosters collaboration between researchers and businesses, and helps companies build their profiles.
Entrepreneurial spirit is always elusive, Tennant says, no matter where you are. But he adds Waterloo's Research and Technology Park nurtures it, channels it, and provides it with linkages that bring technologies to market.
"(Waterloo's research and technology park) is starting to have a very significant influence in connecting very intensive businesses with the university's research component with co-op students as well as with faculty, research and alumni," he says.
The Ontario and federal governments, local municipalities and the University of Waterloo have invested $40 million in the park, while 300,000 sq. ft. of space is occupied: CTTI aims to have 1.2 million sq. ft. being used over the next seven to 10 years.
"The fact that it is on the university's north campus facilitates the access of those (firms) that are there to the researchers, co-operative students and faculty, and alumni as they move forward, so acceleration becomes a very important aspect of those companies," says Tennant.
He says Research in Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry PDA, has achieved the same effect by placing 15 buildings on the perimeter of the university campus. RIM is literally located across railroad tracks from the tech park.
CTTI chairman Jamie Martin says the 120-acre tech park was expected to be filled in 10 to 15 years, but he would not be surprised if it's fully occupied within three years.
A delegation from Brunei recently toured the park and the oil-rich country's government is contemplating locating a facility there.
"Collaboration is alive and working - and benefits everyone on the site," says Martin.
He says the recently opened Accelerator Centre will help companies that struggle to bring technologies to market. "So many of them just die on the vine - because they can't get funding," he says.
Accelerator Centre tenants, most of whom have yet to move into the building which opened in May, will receive breaks on rental space. But they had to qualify for entry by proving their research is beyond its initial phases and has the ability to be commercialized, and that their technologies have already generated some revenues.
Martin is a lawyer with Miller Thomson LLP, which operates nationally. He says the firm has re-located its Waterloo offices to the third floor of the Accelerator Building - two floors above the centre - as part of a nation-wide strategy to be close to centres of research excellence. The company has done likewise in Guelph and Toronto, he adds.
He says the availability of mentors and support companies within the technology park will be important for young companies as they grow. Waterloo-based Columbia Developments Inc. has also started construction on the TechTown building, which will include a health club, wellness centre, child-care centre, restaurant and meeting rooms.
(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)
