BC Supercluster Initiati0ve-

29 May 2017 BC Supercluster Initiative

Posted at 01:55h in BC Tech Blog by

The Government of Canada released the details of the Innovation Supercluster Initiative last week. In collaboration with the Province, the Premiers Technology Council, RUCBC, BC Business Council and Dr. Santa Ono, Chief Advisor to the Innovation Network, we wanted to share a brief timeline of the anticipated activities over the next several weeks.
  1. A Supercluster Primer for British Columbia. Similar to the effort that was undertaken by McKinsey to promote the Toronto-Waterloo supercluster, we have engaged Monitor Deloitte to prepare a positioning document on BC’s unique and globally competitive strengths and capabilities in digital technology (data, analytics and visualization platforms) and applications across BC’s foundational industry sectors (natural resources, health, digital entertainment, industrial/transportation). We anticipate that this study will be finalized in early June and we will be sharing a copy with all of you. There are also other superclusters developing with participation of BC stakeholders.
  2. Solidifying Industry Leaders. As confirmed in the program, the Innovation Supercluster Initiative is designed to be industry-driven, meaning that the key success factor will be in securing the leadership commitment and matching funds from a core industry consortium. Over the course of the next week, we will be convening meetings with many of BC’s leading anchor companies to seek the sizeable financial commitments needed for a successful bid as well as working with them to design an appropriate governance framework for the collaboration.
  3. Securing support from SMEs, post-secondary institutions and supporting organizations. In the ensuing weeks, we will be seeking the support of a broad range of participants including small and mid-sized companies; post-secondary and research institutions; and supporting organizations to demonstrate the breadth and depth of participation that will make the supercluster initiative a success in BC.
  4. Preparing the Proposal. The deadline for submissions in the first phase of this program is July 21, 2017. Needless to say, we will be working expeditiously over the next several weeks to progress our collective efforts.