Colleges Bring Market-Pull Innovation to Canada SMEs

Collaborations in applied research between Ontario (Canada) colleges and businesses are stimulating new R&D activity and spending by businesses—
and leading to actual innovations— that would not have occurred without college expertise and funding, according to a study by The Conference Board of Canada.

Moreover, the Board reports, “Ontario colleges are helping businesses and other organizations create new and improved products, services, and processes much more quickly, and with greater quality, than they otherwise would have been able to achieve without college support.” Currently, 20 out of 24 publicly funded colleges in Ontario incorporate a network of innovation centers called CONII–Colleges Ontario Network for Industry Innovation (http://www.conii.ca). The centers provide one-stop assistance for innovators. Their unusual innovation model was described to CIMS Sponsors at their Fall 2010 meeting by Trish Dryden, AVP Research and Corporate Planning at Centennial College, one of CONII’s founding colleges.

Call for FedDev Proposals: Industry Outreach Events

To raise awareness among small and medium-sized Ontario businesses about an opportunity to gain competitive advantage through joint pre-commercialization projects with Centennial, the Applied Research and Innovation Centre (ARIC) hosted two industry outreach events on February 24 and March 3, 2011. These workshops were information sessions on the Applied Research and Commercialization Initiative sponsored by FedDev Ontario. Centennial had received $525K to fund ten partnership projects through FedDev.

2011 Biotechnology Lecture Series

On March 8th and 9th 2011, Centennial College presented a Biotechnology Lecture Series in collaboration with Bioscience Education Canada. This lecture series hosted a dynamic group of speakers from all areas of the biotechnology industry in Canada, as well as some nationally recognized bioscience educators, to speak about cutting-edge research and the latest breakthroughs in the field of biotechnology.

OCE Discovery 2011

As part of the OCE Discovery 2011 focus on technology transfer partnerships, Centennial College’s Trish Dryden, and Blue Heron’s John Tuerk, participated in a panel discussion highlighting successful business partnerships with Ontario’s innovation network, a network which includes colleges, universities and research hospitals. Centennial College and Blue Heron have worked together on a number of innovative projects and continue to partner in the development of cutting-edge green technologies

College Applies High-Tech Solutions to Health Care

Health Studies and ICT students and professors at Toronto-based Centennial College are teaming up with companies to develop new health communication technologies.

And the result is a host of innovative approaches to meeting real-world health care challenges.

Centennial's Applied Research and Innovation Centre is involved with industry on a number of projects through the College and Community Innovation (CCI) Program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

One project involves the use of gaming technologies to help people manage chronic diseases such as diabetes. The college has partnered with NexJ Systems to develop a health-game prototype that includes an avatar represntating the individual. "The person interacts with the avatar and can see the results that would occur if they lost weight, controlled their blood sugar or exercised more," says Trish Dryden, Centennial's associate vice-president of Applied Research and Corporate Planning. "This is about using gaming to effect lifestyle change for health benefits."