In this month's newsletter:
- Eastern Ontario economic development conference attracts hundreds
- Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus had “positive” meeting with MPPs
- Cornwall entrepreneur creates new social media app
- Economic development agency helps attract high-tech California co.
- Arts and culture summit boosts momentum for permanent arts council
- New national partnership launches national initiative to help entrepreneurs
- Nuclear achievements museum could open in Deep River area
- Township to build powerful telescope and world-class tourism centre
Eastern Ontario economic development conference attracts hundreds
Hundreds of economic developers, municipal politicians, and planners came away from this year’s Ontario East Municipal Conference with a wealth of information they can use to advance economic development in their own communities.
“We had an exceptional turnout,” said Craig Kelley, OEMC liaison for the Ontario East Economic Development Commission, which runs the event in partnership with the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
About 700 participants turned out for the three-day event, the largest municipal and economic development conference east of Toronto.
The conference and tradeshow is extremely popular amongst the region’s mostly rural economic developers, politicians and planners because it is affordable and it focuses primarily on rural economic development issues.
The plenary sessions focus more on economic development, planning and municipal issues related to smaller communities. Indeed, 28 workshops took place, providing crucial information on subjects as varied as new government policies and laws, changing economic-related trends, and innovative initiatives happening in Eastern Ontario communities.
The Ontario Government-run workshops covered much more provincial legislation, regulations and policies, said Patti Mitchell, co-chair for OEMC for the Eastern Municipal Services Office of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
“They also covered a wide range of best practices that will benefit both councillors and staff,” Mitchell said. “They can take what they have learned throughout the conference and apply it to their municipalities.”
While the workshops were hosted by the provincial government, most were delivered by local municipal representatives.
Stephen Seller, conference co-chair and a municipal advisor who works alongside Mitchell, said feedback suggested that two workshops were particularly popular.
“The first was delivered by John Fenik, Mayor of the Town of Perth, who spoke on his view of staff, council and community relations. The second was a practical discussion on Parliamentary procedures, delivered by the Clerk of the City of Cornwall,” Seller said.
Praise for the event came in forms beyond conference feedback forms.
Vivian C. Bloom, Mayor of the Municipality of Hastings Highlands, wrote organizers to thank them for the conference’s “great lineup.”
An attendee of the annual event since the 1980s, Bloom wrote that the conference continues to provided valuable information sessions that are geared toward smaller municipalities, something she said is lacking at other similar conferences.
“I am impressed and applaud you to see how it has grown in the intervening years and I thoroughly enjoyed my experience this year,” she wrote.
When participants weren’t attending workshops, peer networking, or touring the sold-out tradeshow, they were visiting communities outside of Kingston. They were transported to the town of Napanee and the village of Bath where they visited a couple of innovative businesses, including the booming Bombardier Transportation facility.
A favourite tradition continued in 2012 where, instead of eating Thursday night’s dinner at the hotel, participants were each given $35 vouchers to eat at a select group of superb restaurants around Kingston.
It was an immensely popular maneuvre and it made sense from an economic development perspective, said Kelley.
“It’s economic development 101,” he said. “Support local and buy local.”
Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus had “positive” meeting with MPPs
Members of the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus are feeling “positive” after a recent meeting with provincial cabinet ministers on several issues that affect the 13 counties and municipalities their organization represents.
The 13 wardens and mayors met with eight ministers at the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference in Ottawa in August.
They talked about many issues, including economic development, communities’ infrastructure needs, and about reducing the number of staff that businesses must employ in order to be eligible for Eastern Ontario Development Fund money.
Among other issues, they also asked the province to move quickly on decisions to allow local governments to take over tourism information offices that the province closed in the spring due to budget cuts.
The provincial politicians couldn’t provide any definitive answers at the meeting, but Andy Brown, the Caucus’s secretary treasurer, said the wardens and mayors left the meeting feeling “positive” about the reception they received.
“It would be great if ministers could give you the final answer right there and then, but unfortunately it doesn’t work that way,” Brown said. “It’s more the forum to have some open discussion and ask some questions and get some responses.”
Brown, who is also CAO for the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, has assumed Caucus secretary treasurer duties because the Caucus’s chairman, Mel Campbell, is warden of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville.
Brown said the Caucus brought compelling evidence for the need for money for infrastructure improvements by bringing the ministers a statistics-filled report on the state of municipalities’ abilities to sustain infrastructure in the region.
The Caucus is hoping the provincial government will create two dedicated infrastructure funds: one for roads and bridges and one for long-term sustainable infrastructure.
While the report needs updating with the newest available Census data, Brown said he believes the document makes a compelling case for more infrastructure money.
“For Eastern Ontario municipalities, it’s an excellent document. It provides a business case for infrastructure funding into the future,” he said. “It’s not just anecdotal information.”
Cornwall entrepreneur creates new social media app
Ryan Brink is looking to change the way people connect with their family, friends and co-workers—one video at a time.
The Cornwall-area native has joined forces with a few friends to launch Crewcam, a new smartphone app that allows users to share personal videos among a select group of people.
Unlike other video sharing apps, Crewcam—http://crewc.am—lets users share videos with personalized groups of people, or “crews,” such as family members, friends, co-workers, and sports teammates.
“The idea is that people would be more willing to share more videos if they knew it was going to specific people,” said Brink. “That’s kind of how it all came together.”
The free app has been available through the Apple Store for a few weeks now, and it’s already garnering plenty of positive reviews from iPhone and iPad users.
Brink, who is currently pursuing a degree in information technology at Carleton University, founded Crewcam with a few friends, and it didn’t take long for them to transform the idea into a reality.
Brink and his pals were working for a high-tech firm in Kanata earlier this year when they presented a demo of the app to the company’s board of directors.
The project took a big step forward when a group of angel investors decided to chip in to help cover the start-up costs.
So what’s the next step for Brink and the Crewcam team?
The ultimate dream is that Crewcam becomes the next big social media platform, with millions of users around the world. On a smaller scale, Crewcam could be targeted at users who would rely on the app for specific purposes.
For example, a teacher could use Crewcam to communicate directly with his students about assignments outside of the classroom.
Whatever the end result is, Brink and his “crew” have certainly come up with a unique way for people to keep in touch.
“The goal is to make it an application that people use every day,” he said.
Economic development agency helps attract high-tech California co.
Little Think Tank Studios, a California-based animation and video game production company, will be relocating to Prince Edward County this summer thanks to government funding that a local economic development agency helped to obtain.
The Silicon Valley startup will be setting up shop in the Prince Edward County Innovation Centre, an incubator for new technology companies located next to the Picton Harbour.
Little Think Tank Studios creates video games that can be played on a PC, tablet, or mobile device. They are designed to be easy to learn while still incorporating all the fun of hardcore games.
Steve Chan, the company’s Harvard-educated CEO, sees many advantages to relocating to Picton, including the help that Little Think Tank Studios received from the Prince Edward/Lennox & Addington Community Futures Development Corporation.
It was the mentorship offered at the Innovation Centre combined with the PELA investment package that gave the location its initial appeal.
Access to skilled labour from Ontario’s colleges and universities, particularly Loyalist College’s Animation Department and Queen’s University’s Computer Science Department, were also a major draw.
The area’s low cost of living, compared to California’s Silicon Valley, high standard of living, and access to the county’s many amenities, sweetened the deal.
The 15,000 sq. ft., 24-suite PEC Innovation Centre, which officially opened in the fall of 2011, has already attracted nine startups in its first year of operation.
Conrad Guziewicz, the centre’s developer, is aiming to draw 16 more tech entrepreneurs from both Canada and the U.S. over the next year.
PELA CFDC is pleased with the job opportunities that have already been created at the Innovation Centre, says a release from the organization.
The arrival of Little Think Tank Studios and other high-tech businesses will continue to create employment opportunities and help attract younger, highly-skilled workers to the area, which will help strengthen, grow, and diversify the local economy.
Arts and culture summit boosts momentum for permanent arts council
More than 100 arts and culture practitioners gathered for an arts summit in Cornwall in September in hopes of building momentum for a permanent local arts council.
The arts council would represent the city, the United Counties of Stormont Dundas and Glengarry, and the Akwesasne native community.
The day-long summit’s main focus was to explore what is needed to form a permanent regional arts council and saw presentations on best practices from other communities.
"We [heard] a series of guest speakers talk about how to collaborate together as an arts and culture community as well as what role arts councils play for other communities and how they are funded," said Bruce Davis, Cultural Development Coordinator with the SDG Community Futures Development Corporation. Davis organized the event.
The summit concluded with an election for the region’s Arts & Culture council. The immediate objectives of the new board are to develop a financially sustainable business model and to establish governance protocols and bylaws.
”We need to start seeing arts and culture as serious economic drivers in this community. but to do that we need to be able to provide the arts and culture sector with the tools needed to expand and grow as businesses as well as assist in coordinating cultural efforts,” said Mr. Davis. “This arts and culture council will be able to provide those tools.”
The establishment of an arts council was one of the key recommendations of Culturescape, an extensive document that contains a series of recommendations aimed at furthering cultural development in the Cornwall region.
The plan was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture (Creative Community Prosperity Fund), the City of Cornwall, the S D & G Community Futures Development Corporation, and the Eastern Ontario Training Board.
New national partnership launches national initiative to help entrepreneurs
Many Canadian entrepreneurs may find growth barriers a little easier to overcome due to a new partnership forged between an industry-led national movement that intends to enhance entrepreneurship and a private firm that helps startups.
Startup Canada and StartupPlays launched a new initiative in September that shares targeted and tactical startup strategies with Canadian entrepreneurs to help remove some of the struggle from starting a business.
StartupPlays is a combination resource centre and startup network that converts entrepreneur experience and knowledge into processes it shares as blueprints or “plays” in a customizable personal playbook.
In September, Startup Canada launched a beta integration of StartupPlays within its website to provide entrepreneurs with access to advice, tips, and tools used by successful startups around the world. These step-by-step business guides can be found at http://guides.startupcan.ca.
“Creating mentorship opportunities and improving the sharing of industry knowledge have been identified as key challenges by entrepreneurs across Canada,” said Victoria Lennox, Co-Founder of Startup Canada. “So we are excited to partner with StartupPlays to deliver some targeted solutions in these areas.”
StartupPlays provides a diverse selection of business guides, ranging in topic from marketing and operations, to finance, sales, and product development.
Its expert network features many Canadian entrepreneurs who are both serial veterans and overnight successes. They include entrepreneurs like Dan Martell, CEO/founder of Clarity; Cameron Herold, former COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK; and Sam Zaid, founder of Getaround, who won TechCrunch Disrupt 2011.
Since March 2012, Startup Canada has been on a national tour hosting town halls and other fringe events to develop community-led action plans that address key challenges facing entrepreneurs. The feedback will be used to create a national blueprint for implementing key recommendations from the Tour. This will be presented to the federal government in November.
Startup Canada sponsors include Microsoft, Gowlings, Ernst & Young, Best Western Hotels, the Canadian Innovation Commercialization Program, Export Development Canada, the Business Development Bank of Canada, Backbone Magazine, and HootSuite.
Nuclear achievements museum could open in Deep River area
The Upper Ottawa Valley Chamber of Commerce is considering opening a nuclear achievements museum in the Deep River area that would double as a tourism booth.
The museum might also provide economic development services for the Town of Deep River, Ottawa Valley Business recently reported.
AECL has closed its information centre in the community. A reopened centre would attempt to maintain the community’s profile as a high-tech innovative community.
The museum would celebrate past and current technological innovations that have come out of the AECL laboratories in Deep River, the publication said.
Township to build powerful telescope and world-class tourism centre
A new high-tech tourism attraction is in the works in the Madawaska Highlands.
The Madawaska Highlands Observatory intends to construct Canada’s most powerful telescope inside a world-class visitors’ centre.
The Wide-Field Telescope will be the centerpiece of a 1,200 sq. ft. solar-powered visitors’ centre, which will be the largest off-grid commercial building in Canada, according to the project’s website (madawaskahighlandsobservatory.com).
Also the largest visitors’ centre in the world, the facility will feature audio-enhanced exhibits, a 140-seat theatre, boutique, and restaurant. It will be circular in shape, offering panoramic views of the Madawaska River valley 150 metres below. Nearby campsites for visiting astronomers will enjoy the same vista.
The year-round facility will also offer the use of 30-inch and 40-inch visitors’ telescopes. With the dark night sky views available from the observatory, visitors will be enjoy the best views of the universe in the world, the websites says.
It’s anticipated that 50 new jobs will be created at the centre while another 100 jobs will be created indirectly as a result of its construction. This would make the centre the township’s largest employer.