Canarie And AURP Partnership To Support Rapid Commercialization
March 04th, 2014
CANARIE, a vital component of Canada’s digital infrastructure supporting research, education and innovation, and the Association of University Research Parks (AURP) Canada, a national association representing 26 research and technology parks across Canada, today announced a partnership to exploit ICT technologies in an effort to enhance collaboration between industry and academia and to encourage innovation and economic development across Canada.
Through this partnership, AURP Canada will provide a white-label offering of CANARIE’s Digital Accelerator for Innovation and Research (DAIR) program to strengthen commercialization opportunities for the nearly 1,400 knowledge based businesses located in research and technology parks. DAIR provides free cloud-based compute, network and storage resources for small businesses to develop, test, prototype and demonstrate next-generation products.
Cloud computing is a transformative technology, enabling businesses of any size to rapidly deploy and scale new products cost efficiently. DAIR’s made-in-Canada cloud provides users with the cost certainty, scalability and long-term usage horizon that can kick start commercialization of research and the formation of new businesses.
AURP Canada is the united voice of Canadian research and technology parks, where businesses that employ more than 65,000 knowledge-based workers are located. These businesses generate $4.3B annually to Canadian GDP.
“Digital technologies and services are transforming businesses everywhere and driving productivity growth and firm competitiveness,” said Industry Minister James Moore. “This dynamic partnership will help make Canada a leading digital nation. Congratulations to CANARIE and the Association of University Research Parks Canada.”
“Canadian research and technology parks are helping start-up companies and born-global export-ready companies get to market” says Carol Stewart, President of AURP Canada. “In today’s competitive economy, our companies need support services offered through parks that will allow them to accelerate this process. The partnership with CANARIE and the Powered by DAIR program will fill a gap for our companies and build a stronger national ecosystem.”
“Researchers incubating great ideas need support in moving from concept to commercialization,” says Peter Wilenius, Vice President, Business Development at CANARIE. “CANARIE’s relationship with AURP Canada demonstrates our commitment to partnerships in the innovation ecosystem that spark collaboration, innovation and growth of the knowledge economy through the use of ICT.”
The AURP Canada partnership bolsters the impact of two organizations that are uniquely positioned in their ability to connect industry, government and academia to support commercial applications of innovative ideas leading to sustained economic growth. AURP Canada bridges the gap between incubation and commercialization, and CANARIE provides the advanced technologies that can drive a strong competitive advantage for companies competing in a global market. Going forward, the partners will look for other opportunities to increase the connectivity between industry and academia through additional programming that supports commercialization.
This relationship significantly expands the reach of the Powered by DAIR partner model, in which organizations supporting businesses secure a block of DAIR computing resources and offer the service as an extension or complement to their existing portfolio. In addition to co-branded resources, administrative and marketing support is provided to assist the partner in providing cloud incubation support to its clients. The Powered by DAIR model helps the partner to build its brand, delivering greater value to its client base and obtaining greater leverage for its investments in innovation, incubation and acceleration services.
This partnership augments the growing list of existing Powered by DAIR relationships with Canadian technology incubators and accelerators, including the City of Fredericton’s goFred network, Startup Calgary, TEC Edmonton, Accelerator YYC, and the ICT Association of Manitoba (ICTAM). DAIR is also being deployed in support of colleges’ applied research initiatives. Algonquin College, New Brunswick Community College, and Red River College are the first among several colleges that are taking advantage of DAIR’s free, state-of-the-art cloud resources to support applied research alliances between colleges and local businesses.