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IT Geographics in Canada
The national capital of Canada is Ottawa. Canada has 10 provinces and 3
territories, each with its own capital city (in brackets).
Note: the creation of a new territory called Nunavut ("Our
Land" in Inuktitut). The Nunavut government, which came into being in
1999, represents all residents of the new territory, Inuit and non-Inuit
alike. Please see the Nunavut Planning
Commission for more information.
Today, there are many high-technology centers in countries around the
world such as Cambridge, UK; Singapore; Hsinchu Science-based Industrial
Park, Taiwan; and Bangalore, India. In the United States some of the most
notable are Silicon Valley in the San Francisco, CA area; Seattle and
Redmond, WA; the Route 128 corridor near Boston, MA; northern Virginia;
the Route 270 corridor north of Washington, DC; Research Triangle Park,
near Raleigh, NC; Austin, TX; and the Route 36 corridor between Denver and
Boulder, CO.
Where there is life support for technology companies and things to
attract and retain employee-associates, the clusters develop. Some of the
key support elements are a location with a critical mass of mutually
supporting companies, living and working facilities that will house and
satisfy a skilled technology labor force, common gathering spots,
telecommunications and Internet access and capabilities, air and ground
transportation infrastructure, post-secondary institutions, think-tanks,
and laboratories.
Canada is no different; there are seven technology locations in the
country:
Vancouver, BC
Toronto, ON
Ottawa
Calgary
Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge
Halifax
Montreal
The core of Ottawa's cluster is concentrated along March Road and the
west-end cities of Kanata and Nepean. Because of the closeness of it's
technology workers and close relationships among local employers, the area
is considered by some to be Canada's top technology cluster, ahead of
Toronto and Vancouver, each of which has many technology companies. The
Ottawa-Carleton region is home to more than 800 companies and 50,000
workers, with thousands jobs still vacant.
Local companies in the Ottawa-Carleton region include:
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Newbridge Networks Corp. |
Mosaid Technologies Inc. |
JetForm Corp. |
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Nordion International Inc. |
MDS Inc. |
Corel Corp. |
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Compaq Canada Corp. |
Theratronics International Ltd. |
Cognos Inc. |
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Digital Equipment Corp. |
JDS Fitel Inc. |
Northern Telecom |
[Tuck, Simon, Techies who clink together, think together]
A Deloitte & Touche LLP study cited in "GTA ranked top
IT&T destination," identifies three major information technology
and telecommunication centers in Canada. The study ranks the Greater
Toronto Area (GTA) as top locale in Canada ahead of Montreal and Ottawa,
and second only to Silicon Valley in the US as top technopolis for
investment in North America. The areas were evaluated against the criteria
in this table. [Solomon, Howard, GTA ranked
top IT&T destination]
The following is a list of some Canadian venture-capital companies
focused on providing money to high-tech companies.
Bright Spark Inc., Toronto
http://www.bspark.com/ (not yet
operational)
Principals: Mark Skapinker, Tony Davis, Richard Nathan
Typical investment: $400,000 per company
Financing: Bright Spark plans to raise $60-million to provide Internet and
software companies with early-stage financing.
Success stories: None yet
Mosaic Venture Partners, Toronto
http://www.mosaicvp.com/
Principals: Vernon Lobo, David Lawee, Dave Samuel
Typical investment: $2-million to $5-million per company
Financing: Mosaic raised $22-million in June, 1998, and is completing a
second fund worth $110-million.
Success stories: Zefer Inc., Direct Hit Inc.
Ecompark Inc., Toronto
http://www.ecompark.com/
Principals: John McMahon, Chris Hobbs, Jason Hawkins, Warren Plunkett
Typical investment: $250,000 to $1-million per company
Financing: EcomPark has $5-million in cash and will generate capital from
both the cash flow of its Generation Net subsidiary and profits from
investments.
Success stories: Zconnexx Inc., SamsCD.com Inc., Petopia.com Inc.
Ideapark Inc., Vancover
http://www.ideapark.com/
Principals: Dave Schulz, Rory Holland
Typical investment: $200,000 to $1-million per company
Financing: IdeaPark is looking to raise $30-million to $50-million by
March, 2000.
Success stories: None yet
Nrg Factory, Toronto
(unit of NRG Group Inc.)
http://www.nrgfactory.com/
Principals: Matthew Saunders, Michael Furdyk, John Rae-Grant
Typical investment: $250,000 per company
Financing: NRG Factory has $4-million from an angel investor.
Success stories: None yet
Jefferson Partners, Toronto
http://www.jefferson.com/
Principals: David Folk, Jack Kiervin, Jonathan Black, David Harris
Typical investment: $250,000 to $500,000 per company
Financing: Jefferson Partners has $50-million of uninvested capital.
Success stories: Vienna Systems Corp., the Bulldog Group Inc.
Exclamation Inc., Toronto
http://www.exclamation.com/
Principals: Christopher Barnard, Stephen Yuzpe, Marc Lavine
Typical investment: $1-million to $1.5-million per company
Financing: Exclamation has raised $4-million from private investors and
institutions, and is raising $2-million from a merger with a company
listed on the Alberta Stock Exchange.
Success stories: Bigtree.com Inc.
Paul Alofs, Toronto
Principal: Paul Alofs
Typical investment: $250,000 to $500,000 per company
Financing: Mr. Alofs plans to raise $20-million to $30-million by
year-end.
Success Stories: None yet
[Evans, Mark, Internet incubators]
Canadian Federal Laboratories related to IT
The Canada
Centre For Remote Sensing in Ottawa, Ontario
The Canadian Space
Agency in Saint-Hubert, Quebec
The Canadian
Space Agency/David Florida Laboratory in Ottawa, Ontario
The Centre For
Information Technology Innovation in Laval, Quebec
The Communications Research Centre
in Ottawa, Ontario
The Communications Security
Establishment in Ottawa, Ontario
The Geodetic Survey Division
(of Geomatics Canada) in Ottawa, Ontario
Geomatics Canada
(formerly the Surveys, Mapping And Remote Sensing Sector) in Ottawa,
Ontario
NRC Institute for Information
Technology in Ottawa, Ontario
NRC Institute for
Microstructural Sciences in Ottawa, Ontario
NRC Integrated Manufacturing
Technologies Institute in London, Ontario
Other Research Centres Related to IT
Applied Software
Engineering Centre
CANARIE - Canadian Network for the
Advancement of Research, Industry and Education
Information Technology Research
Centre
University and College Research Centres (Information,
Communication and Computers)
Canadian Institute for
Telecommunications Research (University of Victoria)
Canadian/Communications
Research Group (University of Calgary)
Centre d'études sur
les nouvelles technologies et les organisations (École des Hautes Études
Commerciales)
Centre de recherche
informatique de Montréal (CRIM)
Centre francophone de recherche en
informatisation des organisations
Electronic Commerce
Centre (University of New Brunswick)
Groupe de recherche en
informatique (Université du Québec)
Groupe de Recherche en Systèmes
d'Information (École des Hautes Études Commerciales)
Institute for Computer and
Information Technology (University of Saskatchewan)
J.V.R. Cyr Bell Canada/Nortel
Chair on Technological Entrepreneurship (École Polytechnique de Montréal)
Knowledge Media Design Institute
(University of Toronto)
Knowledge Science Institute
(University of Calgary)
Laboratoire de gestion de réseaux
informatiques et de télécommunication (École de technologie supérieure)
Laboratoire de
recherche en informatique et bureautique (Université du Québec)
Réseau de gestion
des technologies de l'information (Université Laval)
Rigi (University of Victoria)
Scientific Computation Group
(University of Waterloo)
Symbolic Computation Group
(University of Waterloo)
Telesim Project (ATM Traffic &
Network Simulation)
Western University Research Consortium on
High Performance Computing and Networking (WurcNet) |
