Ottawa and toronto: partners not rivals

Go Sens Go! Leafs Suck. Ok, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, let’s talk about why we need to work together as cities, provinces and as a country. With a global economy we will all succeed together or fail together. Our ability to think, innovate and compete as Canadians will define our future.

We can have our sports rivalries, but we need to work together in everything else. OCRI (the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation) is pleased to be part of the development of the MaRS Network between MaRS, Communitech (Waterloo) and OCRI. Our collaboration network was established because we need to develop new ways for our companies and innovators to collaborate. As our economy is becoming increasingly global our companies are facing more and more challenges – finding good ideas, attracting and retaining critical talent, and having access to risk capital.

Our MaRS Network is about to start developing and delivering some great programs to support the creation and growth of Ontario companies. We are developing new entrepreneurial programs that will provide start-ups with the guidance and insight to quickly start their companies. For existing companies, we will work with them to identify future directions and develop relationships with our academic research community to provide them with new ideas and direct linkages to new grads. And with the newly announced Ontario Research Commercialization Program (ORCP), new funding opportunities for companies will be available early next year. It is ambitious and it will only work if we all work together, except in hockey where we will do battle.

So stay tuned to our websites and get involved in defining the solutions and let us know what you think. You can also check out our OCRI blogs and podcasts on OCRI Radio.

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