Agenda On The Road: Waterloo

The Macleans article from Aug/08 is a little out of date. As announced earlier this week - http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/News/In_The_Media/Perimeter_Institute_Poised_to_Build_on_Success/ - PI is poised to double in size.

re:

How did Waterloo become the high-tech hub that it is?
There are many factors - one of the best collections of answers is in a presentation that UW President David Johnston gives called "What's in the Water in Waterloo?" (not online). Among the reasons that he cites are the Mennonite heritage of independence and collaboration. Other factors and examples of innovation include the UW IP policy (see below), UW's Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing (www.cemc.uwaterloo.ca - remember all those math contests kids write in high school - you can be sure that they help in recruiting the best), co-op education (builds and maintains incredibly valuable ties with employers) and on and on and on. And don't miss the "Intelligent Waterloo Video" at www.intelligentwaterloo.com - produced as part of the winning submission to the Intelligent Communities Forum in 2007 www.intelligentcommunity.org (note that once you win the ICF top prize, you're ineligible to apply again). We continue to work with ICF to explore ways of promoting good ideas and intelligent use of broadband technology around the world.

Can universities afford to let professors own their own research?
How can they NOT afford to - "royalty return rates" at academic institutions directly relate to the number and value of spin-off businesses from those institutions. When a university's development office gets between an innovator and a user, the flow of information - both problem reports and solutions - is severely impeded. This is crucial for startups. The philanthropic reinvestment from spin-offs dwarfs the amount that a development office would ever earn by trying to grab a cut of an inventor's income.

What attracts workers to relocate there? Is it simply a job, or is it more?
A job matters - and there are thousands of unfilled jobs in March/2009 in Waterloo, but there's much more. The area has a rich and vibrant arts community, excellent infrastructure (e.g., regional airport, telecom), a community that's "big enough, but not too big" (i.e., a sense of neighborhood/community and social capital), an affordable cost of living, and many other attractors.

Are universities revising curricula to reflect the skills people need to succeed in the innovation economy? What are those skills? A general arts and science degree is what is considered to be a basic university education. Maybe educators should promote engineering degrees is a basic and necessary component of one's C.V. and then people ought to be encouraged to specialize from there? Any thoughts?
Most importantly, how institutions stay up to date on an ongoing basis is critical. Waterloo has the largest post-secondary co-operative education program in the world. This helps to provide continual feedback from employers directly to university faculty (joint research), and indirectly through returning students, on academic needs. But don't discount the value of a general arts degree - an ability to think innovatively is highly sought after.

How is the service industry faring in Waterloo?
One of the best sources for sectoral employment information is the Waterloo-Wellington Training and Adjustment Board - www.wwtab.com - they are plugged into numerous sources of data, although the most recent online report, dated January/09 appears to mostly only include numbers up to 2007.

Are there adequate retraining opportunites for laid-off manufacturing employees?
Again, WWTAB would be the best source for this kind of information, or Waterloo Public Library (www.wpl.ca).

Speed-bumps or the other side of success: Has this success created "haves" in the community and "have-nots."
An excellent source of this kind of information is the Social Planning Council of Kitchener-Waterloo (SPCKW) - www.waterlooregion.org - their phone # is on their website and far more information is available than can be maintained online.

What is happening with manufacturing economy in Waterloo, or Kitchener, rather?
There have been significant closures and downsizings (closing NCR in Waterloo, Kitchener Frame, etc.) but it isn't all bad news - WWTAB would have the best information or leads to this information.

What growth issues are facing the region - land, transit, infrastructure?
All of these, plus an attitude from Toronto and Ottawa that civilization has yet to discover fire outside either of these two cities. (Sorry, that's unhelpful, but there is definitely a Toronto-centric mentality at Queen's Park.)

What's next? How will Waterloo fare in this economic climate? How do you prepare the future work force which will feed the innovation economy?
I think David Johnston would likely have the best answer for this. Back in 2006, he presented "10 Goals to Make Waterloo Region Canada's Knowledge Capital" - http://www.exchangemagazine.com/html/newpublic/Xmedia/ExchangeVol24No2/pdfs/ExchangeVol24No2pgs22-38.pdf - the goals were updated in 2007 - see http://newsrelease.uwaterloo.ca/news.php?id=4916 - and I would suggest that with connections to Cambridge, Kitchener, Stratford and Dubai - http://newsrelease.uwaterloo.ca/news.php?id=5033 - together with a host of other initiatives (Quantum Computing and Nanotechnology to name only two), intential innovation and unconventional collaboration, as we like to call it, will keep the community at the forefront of innovation.

dwm,

Thanks for all the great resources! Please tell me you will be at AgendaCamp...I'm dying to know who you are!

We will definitely be addressing the U of Waterloo's role in the region's success both at AgendaCamp and during the live broadcast.

Education has come up at all of our AgendaCamps in addressing the various economies of Ontario. In this final show on the innovation economy, it will of course be one of the major themes. Will you be at the broadcast at CIGI?

I'm registered for, and plan to attend both. I've also filled in the profile information. Here's a couple more points I left out above.

In the hundreds of submissions from around the world to the Intelligent Communities Forum - www.intelligentcommunity.org there tend to be three main patterns:

1. The most common is what I call the "Phoenix Phenomenon" - the community grows based on what appears to be a solid base, the bottom falls out of the sector, the community essentially crashes and largely burns, then out of those ashes, government or others invest heavily in technology and try to rebuild for the knowledge economy.
2. For little more reason than serendipity ("accident", "good luck", etc.), the community starts to gradually build a tech sector - usually minimal planning but a fair amount of luck.
3. In an intentional way, non-government community leaders make strategic decisions to expand a local economy. Technology was a direction of choice as many as fifty years ago.

Sadly there are not a lot of #3 stories, but that's the Waterloo claim. Our community has had major transformations over the years - from agriculture and spirits (Seagram's was founded here) to manufacturing to finance and technology (be sure to count the insurance companies in town, not just the tech companies). You could do much worse than to interview Dr. Ken McLaughlin from UW's History department or read his latest book - "Out of the Shadow of Orthodoxy: Waterloo @ 50" (it's got lots of pictures, so it's a pretty easy read!) - see newsrelease.uwaterloo.ca/news.php?id=4854
You might also be interested in "A Chronology of Computing at The University of Waterloo" - www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/40th/Chronology

Finally, Canada's Technology Triangle - techtriangle.com has, or at least used to have, a document called their "technology map" - it was a pretty large format (poster size) graphic that lays out "who begat whom" in the tech sector. (I believe you'ld have to call and ask for it to be sent out, possibly as a PDF but I don't believe it's on their web site any more.)

Can't resist another posting, having reviewed more of the links mentioned above. In particular, I'm a little dubious of the message in the Record's article (January 24, 2009 - "How the BlackBerry changed Waterloo...", Matt Walcoff). This was discussed somewhat in the AgendaCamp. If you believe in the providential leader or so-called "Great Men of History" theory, then the Record story will resonate. The conclusion from that seems to be how amazingly lucky the area has been. Thank heaven for Mr. Lazaridis and Mr. Balsillie. Don't get me wrong, I think they are very special people, but I don't think that this is really an accurate picture - and this is good news for other communities interested in replicating the model.

That people like Churchill and Roosevelt and Napolean and even Adolf Hitler were really just average Joes who landed into extraordinary times and circumstances is an approach with much higher credibility with current professional historians (ref. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory - it's not the greatest reference, but it'll do for this). The fact of the matter is that along with many other high tech workers in many different organizations, the early RIM pioneers worked for quite a long time on their devices to get it right. I freely admit to being one who said they're nuts - why would I need a slow poke "radio modem" when I had a perfectly good higher speed modem through any telephone. (Hang on a sec, my BlackBerry's buzzing. Ok, where was I?)

The point is that there was and continues to be a community of research, innovation and collaboration. Clearly I can't predict which of the technologies will explode - we can make strategic investments in certain sectors, but I can only do as good as to expect that out of all the work, sooner or later something will come. I'll guarantee that if none of the work were done, nothing would result. With decent management, it's entirely reasonable to expect some positive results eventually. Check out Tech Capital Partners - www.techcapital.com - a local venture capital fund, and the Accelerator Center - www.acceleratorcentre.com - for more on this - they're the experts far more than me. I know that Edison's people tried an awful lot of materials before they found a workable light bulb filament.

So I tend to believe that the message from the "Innovation Economy" is that if you're willing to invest (i.e., risk) the time and money and effort to produce a new and better way of doing something, that there is a reward for that risk. It's not just greed for personal gain, it's much more about helping people to do something better. I think that's part of the heritage here and definitely part of the culture. (step down from soapbox.)

Here's a few more specific pointers on the job front:

1. Globe and Mail (Mar. 13, 2009): "...RIM plans to add 3,000 employees this year..." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v5/content/subscribe?user_URL=http://www.theglobeandmail.com%2Fservlet%2Fstory%2FLAC.20090313.B1RFIN%2F%2FTPStory%2FBusiness&ord=58394733&brand=theglobeandmail&force_login=true

2. CTV News/YouTube (Feb. 10, 2009): "Open Text and Tech Region Hiring" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSu4q8wouKM