 Starting all attendees are in listen-only mode good afternoon everyone It's a pleasure to have you join us today for our webinar on innovation partnerships with post-secondary institutions My name is Susan Lowe. I'm with the economic development division of the Ministry of Jobs Trade and Technology And I'll be moderating and providing some technical support for today's webinar I'm located in Victoria, BC in the traditional territories of the like one and speaking people's namely the Songhees and the Esquimalt first nations I'm privileged to be a guest here and to live where can play in these lands. They've stewarded for thousands of years Before we get started with the presentation. I'll go over some technical Issues there's two ways to connect to the webinar for audio if you have a headset or a microphone and speakers on your computer You will probably want to choose computer audio if you're concerned about the bandwidth or the computer audio has stopped working for you Or isn't working for you You can select phone call instead On the audio window and it will give you a phone number and access code Which gets you into this webinar and a pin number, which is unique to you So don't share this with the others and that unique pin lets me mute or unmute your line if we're doing question and answers later So we have a little bit of time if you need if your computer audio isn't working out Well, and you want to try that phone call We have just a little bit more time here while I introduce people and you can pick up your phone and try dialing in Please note that the audience is muted by default when you enter the webinar If you unmute your microphone from your end, then if I give you the mic You have to remember to unmute it from your end as well I'm sure that's clear as mud, but we'll make it work So the a few other things with the the go-to webinar platform the control panel is how you can interact with us during the webinar the orange Oh my There we go. The orange Arrow is how you can hide it or unhide it It will eventually hide itself automatically in a few minutes if you're not using and Then you can use the orange arrow to unhide it You can also go full screen if you want to see things really big and then Raise hands button. Although we're not gonna be using the raise hands button During the webinar because there are 65 of you and one of me and I can't cat promise that I will catch you in time Or a reasonable amount of time So if you want to ask a question about something technical or something the presenters are talking about Enter a Enter a question for staff in that enter a question for staff field and that way I can enter answer questions directly Or queue them up for the Q&A periods we've got Five presenters and and one technical DJ. That's me So I do see some questions in coming in and I will try to get to them as quickly as I can If you miss something and you want to watch it again later The the webinar is being recorded. So It will be posted. It will actually be posted in about a week's time on our YouTube channel It just has to go through a layer of approvals first so Be patient that you will get a link to the recording So if you miss something you can go back and watch it again and share it with your friends and family and watch that Christmas Dinner because I know you want to I have a quirky sense of humor and hopefully it won't get me in trouble so The presenters for today we have and there's the ask the question So today we're lucky to have a number of presenters and after I introduce each presenter They'll give a wave so you can see them in our Hollywood Squares display. We have Jamie van den Bosch from commotion College and John Zimmerman from Ocean Roadie of Sports He's here for color commentary and he'll be talking a bit about his company's partnership with commotion College We have Rose Cluchis from City of Campbell River And then we have the dynamic team of Randall height and Naomi Tabata from North Island College. Hi So I am going to turn it over to Jamie to get us rolling and then I will attend to the questions as they come in Thank you for your patience All right. Yeah Over to you Jamie. Oh I'm gonna unmute you too as a bonus. There we go. Okay, Jamie Okay, I'm just gonna see here Can you see my PowerPoint yet? Yes, we can see it In that PowerPoint mode, there we go you're rolling Hi, everybody. It's an honor to be working here on the Traditional territory territories of Lacungan and West Sandwich territories, which I've been working on for the last 12 years And it's an honor and constantly inspired to be working on this cherished land I want to talk today about applied innovation as a driver of economic development and Next People and I want to look at the whole idea of innovation and innovation a lot of people asked What that's over were used word and I just thought these definitions were good ones Innovation is a problem-solving the lifelong desire to stay curious about why is in the world not just creating something for the sake of being innovative Also innovation can be a Encourages connection and creativity more probing searching where students are more invested in their Their outcomes of their education and this is really where colleges. I think they play a role A situation in Canada for colleges We know if you look at the Deloitte report if people look into that it's called the age of disruption And they looked at rapid advances in technology and how it's affecting not only our industry and education But industries and in general and they surveyed a lot of businesses 700 to be exact and As you see only 13 were prepared. So we seek Colleges and universities playing a key role here in helping with innovation going forward Just give you a look at cross-Canada we have 5633 partnerships and 693 social innovation partnerships as well and We we are a growing concern with over a hundred institutions now across Canada in colleges teaching universities and Polytechnics that are doing applied research one of the one of the areas that Colleges are known for our technology access centers, which is a new type of innovation Centers that were created six years ago. And as you can see only one in BC, but there's 30 across Canada So we have a national presence in the applied research we do across Canada The business innovation is over a thousand business innovations 2.4 million square feet at innovation space and over 250 million worth of highly specialized equipment, which Industry and community partners can access across Canada Situation in Victoria here commotion has 18,000 learners. We have programs ranging from Industrial trades engineering technology arts and science and digital studies and we have Economic impact of 1.2 billion And we believe that we create regional prosperity through our innovations sales training and education What do we do what is applied research many of you on here may not understand what applied research is From a college context, but I'm just going to quickly say how we see it as a professionally managed application of expertise technology and best practices to solve industrial and social changes We support the adoption of technologies and knowledge transfer full spectrum of industry Interactions and administration and project management of grants as well as we one of the important things is involving faculty and students in the involvement of applied research our model our model is evolving as we speak and we're looking at also doing a lot of social development coming up in the near future and commercialization services We're a little bit different from universities. You don't have IP. We are customer demand-driven or responsive to industry and We try our best to have our students job writing entrepreneurial through the approaches of applied research with industry partners We see colleges as a calis and like universities We we take research and turn money into knowledge and we also I think our strength is taking the innovation and turning into practical applications Komosen innovates is recognized as a leader in Canada, BC and applied research with over 150 industrial partners and clients We were one of the first colleges in Canada to get a technology access center grant and We also work with UBC UVic and we and also North Island College and we'd like to partner when necessary Just quickly some one example of a solution and a problem VRX is a local company They joined with the company In Richmond they created V-rock sports simulators they came to us because they couldn't Develop a project. We took a bobsled we 3d scanned it then did a wood model as you can see in the picture here and then we Actually ended up doing all the Composite work and milling and created this First-ever bobsled simulator which is sitting in the Richmond Olympic Museum in Vancouver Richmond, BC We've also done for them for Toyota Microsoft They had a joint launch of a Toyota connects and we actually that system you see there We designed and fabricated in our shop using our full-time staff of 12 people and our complement of students Colleges stimulate economic development development through practical innovation Which I've said before You see here. We also as a cause we actually get revenue for service So we actually not only do leverage research through grants, but we actually are doing FIFA service and we actually Contribute to economic economic development and that pie chart shows some of the kind of projects we work on I'm just going to skip here the regional economic development again We see colleges and university industry and government working together to provide Contributions to economic development and I'm just going to go on here. We have a new innovation center Called the backpack Innovation lab and you can see here. This is a ideation space We had a 50-foot wall that we painted with writable wall and here is where we do our ideation And the next picture here You can see that same space being used for presentations of all the student projects and in the background You can see our technical equipment some of which was used to do the bobsled and the pictures I showed you earlier And thank you very much and you can see my information here. Thank you, and I just realized I was muted There we go. Thanks very much Jamie. I Really want that whiteboard wall. I think I'm gonna have to figure out a way to come out there and move my office out there Okay We do have a bit of time for Q&A I I don't have anything written in the in the questions box But if anyone is on the call and wants to try raising their hand I'm going to try spotting to see who has a raised hand and then I can Unmute you and you'll be able to ask your question So that raise hand button is on your control panel, which is going to appear at the top right of your screen probably Yeah, we also have John Zimmerman who is one of the partners of most in college and John Thank you very much for for bringing your time. I'm gonna unmute you here and then we can ask you about your experience Doing an innovation partnership. Jamie. You're muted now. So I'm talking for you So John hi Hello, hey there. Um, so tell me a little bit first about ocean roadie of sports What does the business do and then we'll get into the innovation partnership part? We've we've existed here on the South Island since 2001 We started as a kiteboarding brand. So we do all manner of activities are related to getting on the water kiteboarding Kiteboarding for those I'm familiar as very similar to windsurfing, but we use a kite instead of a sail That led to us developing dry suits for use on the water as well And so a very vibrant part of our business is dry suit sails and those include sails not just to recreational sailors Kip orders, but also to the We have governmental sales search and rescue first responder some tactical sales as well to police forces and military And yeah, we've been partnered with the college with specific with with commotion since I believe it was 2014 We started with an insert grant working with them We've been delighted with the partnership with with the college and access to the Babcock Center and Jamie's team at the Technology access center there that they've got So, how did you first get connected with commotion? How did you? I actually attended a conference that was put on by Viatec for various forms of government funding or you know support from various levels of government and Rick Warner from NSERC got me in touch with the college for a level one NSERC ARD grant So it was a very low engagement. It was only about thirty thousand dollars Funding that we used in order to do a level one ARD project for the college to develop Or excuse me to basically put the the final touches upon a project that we've been working on for quite a while and We actually have since Now extended that to a level two ARD, which is a three-year commitment to the college. That's a much much more involved commitment on both sides Great. Thank you. Um, so what do you see as well? What what are you doing with commotion? I'm gonna let you answer and then I'm gonna throw Jamie in here as well and unmute him So you can talk you know what what commotion delivers to us and I think it speaks to the reason why I'm here is that You know We've been able to channel funding that wouldn't otherwise be available to us through the college So there's a nice Incillary benefit to the students that are exposed to what we're working on Seeing some real real world problems being solved while they're in the classroom Or working in the Babcock Center there And what it's allowed us to do is two things that are really important to us We're not a huge business But we've actually doubled our staff since starting to work with the college Some of that is directly related other other it's just kind of Unassociated but We've been able to pick up some new employees from the college We now have three of them that have come out of the come out of the college stream Uh, so that's been fantastic because we've been able to introduce the the Student to the brand into our business before they become an employee Uh, but also what it's done is it allowed us to get a real sense of legitimacy within an industry that were quite small The industry itself is quite small. So You know the revenue that we produce isn't doesn't justify the investment of something like what the Babcock Center represents and so for us to have access to Those types of cutting edge pieces of machinery and the wherewithal to operate them that comes with the college's Background has been fantastic for us both in terms of credibility within the industry And also in terms of how helping put us, you know Shoulders with above some of our competitors that are still, uh, you know, not able to do the testing regimens or The rapid prototyping that we're able to do with commotion cool Hey, jamie. Um, how does this fit in with um the the academic programs at commotion college? That's a good question in the last couple years. We've been focusing on how do we integrate back into the education part of it we we've been spending in our first Five or six years on the external working with people like john and his companies To actually develop our expertise and get what we call street cred where companies uh lake ocean rodeo Can see us as a viable source of innovation and technical services And so the next the last two years we've been looking and working closely with our vp of education to Bring it back into the college and see how we can actually have more students getting access to these projects so that They have more experiential learning of what we've been calling at commotion applied learning So in the case of john john, we've had he said he's had some commotion students that he's employed And we've had one in particular that actually When we started the along the road with john we did an engage grant which is an insert grant 25 000 With ben what he was in his between his first and second year mechanical engineering technology And then he did such a great job that ocean rodeo says hey, let's keep going We got another grant which is an a re grant and we hired ben when he graduated to work With us and with ocean rodeo on the next iteration of their innovation cool john do you have any advice for businesses smaller businesses that I think this might be a viable option for them I'm sure I mean the What I really like about the college is um And this isn't a shot across the bow of the universities at all, but universities are great at really high level White paper thinking which I think applies quite well to medium-sized or larger businesses that have the Orability of time to kind of really take a deep dive For a business our size we need to see a road to commercialization quite quickly or we're not going to be interested in a product And that's just that's just the truth of the game or we've got to convert on our dollars that we spend And so working with the college and i'm not saying they're not capable of higher level research But the hands on you know get your hands dirty break it and fix it kind of approach the college brings has been fantastic and so You know if you're a business that is considering getting involved with research spending Or any type of government assistance with your research I would highly recommend the technology access center route and in particular working with commotion Uh, just given the fact that they they get the job done And you know, we were able to say We need to get these parameters met and we we worked towards this goal And and it's it's worked out really well for us in terms of actually getting product to the market and be able to Turn that into dollars in our back pocket to allow us to do more work with college Cool, uh, jamie. Do you want to add anything else? Oh Oh, hang on. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I muted you because of the background. You're self muted actually You gotta unmute yourself There we go, thank you. No, uh, I have nothing to add. John. That was well said. Thank you Okay, great. Uh, well, thanks for sharing that. Uh, that's that's the snapshot from locally I actually, uh, I want to get a sense and I want to engage some of our participants here We have a lovely little poll Thing here. I'm going to ask our attendees. There will be a A poll that will pop up on your screen. Here we go. I'm going to launch it And I want to get your Your sense Are you aware of any innovation partnerships in your community? So we're going to collect responses and this is a way of waking you up because I can I can tell If you are not watching and you're multitasking So wake up So I've got some some, uh responses come in. We're 61 percent have voted So, uh, we'll give it a couple more minutes here We don't wait. We can't chat back and forth on this platform, but I can use this poll to Keep you awake And get a sense for who's heard of these things All right, I'm going to give it Just a couple more seconds here. I'll let it be open for one minute. We got 10 more seconds Let's see if we can get some more votes in You can do this even if you're connected by the phone. By the way, just just do it through your computer Alrighty, so I'm going to close the poll and then this should Allow me to share the results So we have, uh, 27 percent Are very familiar with one or more partnerships in their area 46 percent have heard a little about something like this and 27 percent are not aware of anything like this in their community So that gives us a sense. We have a pretty broad range of knowledge Among our attendees and 84 percent of you voted. So that's pretty good. Uh bees get degrees. We like to see that So, um, we'll go on next we have, uh There a bit of q&a time So if anyone wants to throw in a question to jamie and john about their experience at kamosen or ocean river sports You do that by entering a message where it says enter or ask a question to staff and it'll pop up for me I'm not getting anything yet. So I will move on but I can come back to your question and ask it later We'll have time at the end to ask those questions. Um, and if you're having challenges as well, um Just use that thing and I'll try to get to you So, um, I'm going to change presenter now and we will have rose from the city of camp over rose is an economic development officer with the city of camp over river and I'm just going to do the right muting and unmuting and then hand over the screen So that rose can share her presentation So All righty rose Thank you, and thank you for the province to the province for this opportunity to present today I am in the beautiful city of camp over river on the traditional territory of the wii wii kai wii wii kum and the mocha first nations um So today I am going to be speaking fairly fairly generically and I see I'm up ahead of slide about uh economic development at the community level and applied research so Economic development professionals are tasked with staying current with best practices and this is sometimes challenging because uh of the speed of change in in The economy and in impacts to the economy So, uh, you know, we know that communities that are fortunate to have a strong relationship with their higher learning institutes like we have here in camp over river We know how important those relationships and partnerships are and how important the partnerships are between the institutes and businesses and non-profit uh organization, so I'm going to speak a little bit about that today Great rose just before you get going. We're not seeing your slides yet. Uh, Yeah, I think we're still seeing the poll so That thing that popped up I can uh, I can set that send that to you again If you need it, let me just I'll try sending it to you again and uh Oh, here we go. I will hide the poll and change the presenter There we go. That might have been my bad. Sorry folks Newbie on the controls All right. Do you see it now? Got it Good So I won't repeat everything I said with slide one, but you can see the beautiful picture of Campbell river there So hang on a second All right Can we see the slide? Yes, we can see the slide Thank you. Very good. Okay. So I thought I'd start by talking about where Campbell river is for those of you Who have not had the good fortune of coming to our beautiful community Campbell river is located on the east side of Vancouver island mid island and uh It is it is a beautiful community. I encourage you to come and visit us if you haven't been here So Campbell river has a strong history based in the resource sector, but Has increasingly diversified its economy and I'm going to speak a bit more to that on the next slide Um, I thought I would just give you a bit of reference for me from my office It takes me 15 minutes to get to to the airport, which has several flights daily to Vancouver and It's a half hour flight Half an hour later by train. I'm downtown and we are close to a number of other things like a great ski hill At mount washington and we're within three hours of major universities. Of course, we have our important Partnership with north island college who you'll hear a bit more from later Again kind of talking to the local economy. We have some very active sectors here in Campbell river Uh, and you see them on the screen, so I won't repeat that But like a lot of other bc communities Campbell river was hit hard with a mill closure several years ago And that can have a big impact on a community But what we've seen here is that Campbell river has really rallied and taken the road of reinvention and Building on what are still some strong resource sectors such as forestry and aquaculture But also by supporting small business through programs such as our modern entrepreneur program because we recognize that these are also strong contributors to our local economy and opportunities for partnerships with With for applied research partnerships so one of the Hang on a second One of our initiatives here in Campbell river is our cr advantage, which is our municipal broadband network kind of recognizing that Some of the challenges that communities outside of large urban centers have Is access to the infrastructure to support innovation So we as a city Invested in a municipal broadband network. So we actually put the fiber in the ground And are able to offer high speed enterprise level so equal upload and download Access to the internet to businesses that exist here in Campbell river And of course we're looking to draw business into Campbell river that require that kind of technology and today Most businesses require Access to reliable and affordable internet access. So this is a big project for us And again, we think that we see it growing and supporting all kinds of innovation and research so I thought I'd talk a little bit on today's topic on research partnerships And you know, we already heard from Jamie earlier about what What applied research is so we know that it is an opportunity to solve a specific problem And here in Campbell river we have for example sectors that That rely on Creative creative solutions to problems and therefore rely on applied research partnerships I'm not going to speak to too many examples of it because I know Naomi and randall will be speaking to that when they come to their turn in this presentation But again, we know that partnerships with post-secondary institutions allow this research to happen and And that drives innovation in the community and I know it's a buzzword today But it is a necessity for the survival of of existing businesses And it's a necessity to grow new businesses in a community I thought I'd give an example of what we see here on the ground in Campbell river I wanted to talk about some projects again. I know that NIC is going to talk about a bit more, but we have some really cool and innovative Uh businesses and and entities here in Campbell river For example, we have the bc center for aquatic health sciences located in Campbell river One of the country's leading aquatic research facilities And I we may hear more about that later But we also have private businesses located here that have recognized the opportunity and the need for ongoing Research to allow their own businesses to innovate and grow and one example here is Poseidon ocean systems Uh, so there are business here in Campbell river that Are committed to ongoing research to find solutions to some of the most challenging problems In in this case in the aquaculture industry and what they're facing today with some cutting edge products And so this is a business that has Understood the need to continue Uh that commitment to research and development So our goal in economic development is to Create resilient communities that would be the case for all my colleagues in this profession And we know that partnerships with post-secondary institutions like in our case north island college They provide the solutions that these industry sectors face and that's definitely supports Resilience we know that uh it it also supports workforce development through skills training initiatives by creating new approaches to to education, especially Continuing education opportunities And workforce development is a challenge in many communities In british cambia and an area that needs more thought and development. And of course it builds relationships That promote a culture of innovation and all these things contribute to a resilient community Uh, which is our goal here in camber river. So that's my presentation. I'm looking forward to hearing from n i c Thanks very much rose. I uh, I have an opportunity now to take questions I know Naomi and randall are going to be joining us soon I'll just take controls back here so that I can So I can have control. We all know that's what I want Uh, great. Oh and sharing my webcam. So I'm not just a a disembodied voice. There we go So, um, I hope our our our attendees are getting this we don't have too many questions coming in at this point, but um I wanted to just pause here. I have another poll lined up so we can get you guys engaged again And this time I'll remember to to take it off The poll screen so we don't get interrupted going to our next thing. So here we go I'm going to get you guys going again. I'm going to launch this poll Here it comes Come in at your screen. Oh, yeah, I can see all those Little those little not attentive flags coming off as people come out to the polls These questions are a little bit longer and you can you can select more than one answer on this poll So take a bit of time to read There we go. We've got some votes coming in So I was I'm just going to talk and talk and in the in the interim here I was lucky enough to visit the city of camel river a couple of years ago when the Association of think of rylan and coastal communities had the conference there And I was amused because of the number of coastal communities whose representatives stood up and named themselves The capital the bc capital of something to do with salmon There was the bc uh salmon fishing capital the uh the home of the biggest Salmon in bc. I think every community there had some kind of connection to salmon So it was kind of funny to listen to people as they went around and definitely a lot of pride in that so it's it's a good reason why the The aquaculture partnerships are a big part of the camel river community. All right, so we've been going For a minute and 35 seconds on the on the poll. We got 84 voted I'm going to close this and share the results now so we can see where people are excited about And now I can't actually see this. It is far too small on my screen There we go. So 81 percent Oh 85 approach for developing and retaining the workforce Opportunity to attract or retain businesses Everybody wants to be put on the map. So the other three are are fairly even but there's a fair amount of interest in Applied partnerships there. So great. This will be I believe it's part of the recording so you'll you'll get that at the end and without too much additional noise from me, I'm going to turn it over to Naomi and to Randall here as I get caught up on my slides. Here we go and Unmute the right people Okay, so now Naomi I I believe I'm giving you the screen That would be great. Great. Okay, so coming at you live Okay, Susan, can you see my screen? I can Oh good. Okay. So, um, maybe stay on for a second and just make sure you can see but Randall you've got that Yeah, so hopefully you can hear me. Okay. Well, yes, I am Hi everyone, I'm Randall height. I'm vice president strategic initiatives here at North Island College I'm actually at our co mocks valley campus right now and One of my teams one of my areas is the center for applied research technology and innovation And Naomi does an excellent job of running our team There and she's at the camo river campus Yes So, uh, and I see we we have about 9 000 students in terms of Headcount about 2400 full-time equivalent students at the college. We've been around for about 43 years and this campus Picture that you see right here is our co mocks valley campus So we're about in the middle of Vancouver Island. Many people say it kind of looks like ski lodge So it's a pretty great place to To learn as you can see here, we have campuses at the co mocks valley. So that's about the middle of the island there In camo river where in Naomi is which is about 45 minutes Drive north of the co mocks valley campus. We have another campus in port al bernie, which is on the West coast farther west coast on the ukulele area as well And then we have a brand new campus up in port hearty Which is kind of the top of the island as you can see there And then we have a learning center a small learning center in ukulele Which is just right by a tofino and a great place to vacation as well Great, so i'm going to give you a bit of an introduction about cardi, which Is our center for applied research technology and innovation and james done a great job of talking about the context of applied research Sort of across the country and and what applied research and innovation Looks like so i'm not going to jump too much into that or defining it But i'll just let you know that here at north island college. We do have a A dedicated center for looking at partnerships around applied research technology and innovation opportunities To partner with local organizations and businesses And this one i'm going to skip because i think james done a great job of that And then because um rose is talking a bit about the the context jamey and john have talked about About what what the benefits of applied research are we thought we would just pepper you with some examples Of different types of applied research that happens Here at n i c and hopefully that will give you some Some some ideas that you might be able to see applications in your own community So as as rosa's mentioned cambell river has a key Economic driver is aquaculture and in total there are 6600 jobs In aquaculture and one and a half billion dollars supporting the local economy There's of course finfish and shellfish and we work with several companies And so what we'll do here is we'll give you an example of a few of those Oh randall i'm sorry i thought that was your that was that last one was your song Okay, so here we go here. Here we go into examples. So um A very recent example that we're we've just wrapped up as a partnership with a local company on denman island They are hand on pacific shellfish and they were finding that those pesky crabs were eating up all their oyster seed and they were getting Vast devastation of their crop as a result of the crab So we went in we had one of our faculty members and three students do some studies on different netting types that could be applied To their least area and see which offered the best protection from the crabs for their oyster seed So that was an insert project similar to what jamie and john talked about. It's the $25,000 grant that's very easy to access and Really provides a good opportunity to develop a working relationship and we've done quite a few of these small grants that have been Really really useful in terms of building a relationship and getting a a single project Out the door quickly and serving the needs of business and industry Um This is this is um a picture of the of the whole team from that project We have our faculty member in the pink shirt in the center The owner and her daughter are there on the right and our two of our students are pictured there on the left And it's really a great opportunity Um because not only does the the funding support all the the participation of all these folks But it does perform or the funding does support some of the materials that we purchased that's actually Still on the farm today. So it's it's a win-win all around Another example here also in the aquaculture sector is is we had a local company in the co mox area that was very very adamant that the The location of eelgrass in the co mox estuary and it's how close it is to their shellfish operation Directly impacted the sweetness in the flavor of the shellfish product So they wanted to look at where does the eelgrass? Live and how could they plan future development or future plantings of their seed? So that was a close proximity to the eelgrass and therefore benefited by gaining that sweet flavor so um We did this study and you can see in the picture that we have one of our instructors and two of our students who did gps studies um surveys of the estuary to determine where the eelgrass was and as a result they created a Map of the estuary and a plan for how the company should or could move forward in its future Seedings of the area to maximize the sweetness of their product And this is me again. Okay. So that this project is more on the social side. So we have um as throughout I was going to say throughout the island, but even beyond that there's a great or interest in local food and we had a a great interest in looking at what are the barriers for produce or providing local food that at an institutional level And this project started a few years back and we had support from our Our local regional district the comox valley regional district as well as from the mokano foundation and what we looked at was How could we enable institutions to buy local food? Was it a pricing barrier? Was it a Or was there other kind of barrier that was getting in the way and we had a really interesting to your project that enabled That looked at all the policy changes that would be that would be required And and it really turned into be something quite unlike what we had originally envisioned But really moved the conversation forward around social procurement policy on the island local food procurement and and in fact, I think Um, this audience probably knows that in in the recent Um government change the new agriculture department is looking at a feed bc initiative And it's interesting because this project we called it feed comox valley. So I I personally think that's probably not a coincidence, but um, we're not we can't quite make that jump. Um yet Uh, here we go Oh randall Yeah, I just before we get into this this example of how we work with the film industry I just want to say basically that you know, we solve problems uh for companies in the industry and often times We find when we talk to business owners that they have problems And they can't even think about solving some of them because they're too busy doing day-to-day operations And one of the great things you can do through applied research is like Naomi said It's quite easy to get an engaged grant It gives us basically $25,000 from and sort of federal funding to look at Hey, do you have problems that we can solve through applied research? That's quite yet and We can do all kinds of outside of the box things we can work in collaboration with Jamie and others at comox and college and other places an example of that is here from the film industry So just recently actually, uh, the bc film and tv crew industry replaced Ontario as the largest in Canada and so we have some film and tv Movies that are being filmed and more and more netflix and other things like that here on vancouver island But as we talked with the industry, they had a real problem because there weren't basically simply trained crews here So companies didn't want to come here as much. They would come here for scenery and other things They would get in and get out quickly But it was expensive because they had to have their crews come here So once they told us that we were able to say well, what if we train them here? And we were able to fill out a labor market partnership where we got federal and provincial funding Basically do the curriculum for a program and the film and tv crew industry um It's a three three billion in bc almost uh almost four and a half billion in canada We received about five hundred thousand dollars through that program to create the curriculum and pilot delivery once So we trained 137 Students to be grips set designers production assistants and lighting technicians They actually worked with the instructor that's on the on the right there and our instructors we actually used from industry They were filming a tv show called chess speaks shores in the parksville area And while they were on a break in filming they actually came and talked with us And then they were able to take those students and the best of the class and able to hire them Right into jobs and they actually the students actually built some sets that will be featured in this season three of that tv shows, so we're very excited about that The picture on the right is actually our president john bolman We was featured in the 2016 version of mclean's magazine For our work with first nations. We serve 35 first nations Not only on vancouver island, but also on the west coast on the mainland there bella bella bella cool area Area and we're very happy to do that and to be recognized for our work with first nations And and this project in particular We had some of our faculty in the port hearty area work with with some of the quacahuac elders And they explored leadership concepts that existed in the language and how that related to um developing leadership concepts amongst youth so a really neat project really hands on really applied And that was funded by shirk, which is another federal funding agency Um to the to about the same amount as some of the previous projects. That's also a $25,000 project The shirk deals more with the social aspects and there's also one that deals with health aspects too So we can um from the science from the health or from the social aspect Get federal funding um your local institution may be able to do that as well And then be able to make big differences obviously first nations in this case Their language is disappearing with their elders And so we wanted to do with this and some other projects that we're working on ways to not only capture That first nation language but to pass it on to other generations And then we also have a number of technology specific projects So this one is a bit of an intersection. It was a technology project But it was to be applied in an aquaculture setting and what we had was we had some sensors that were going to be Raised and lowered and an automatic system Into the water to do water quality monitoring at a variety of aquaculture sites And what we wanted to do was to develop a system that would stream the data To the cloud for real-time access regardless of whether we had cell service or not So these two students that you see in the picture and their instructor worked to develop the sensors Well, well, they bought the sensors But they worked to develop the software that would link the sensor To a communications protocol and they ended up building out the control boards building out the communications technology and software to enable that to happen and and both of these students have been now hired as a result of their Of the work on this project We've also worked with the shellfish the sector recently so for example the bc center for aquatic health sciences And if you like oysters, you've probably heard of fanny bay oysters This was an example of recently of an industry problem They harvest oysters every year and sometimes they don't find out that there's issues with them until there's a reported case of norovirus Part of the problem with that is is it might just be someone getting the flu or some other issue outside And it might not even be related to the oysters at all But sometimes it takes the market and causes them to basically throw away All of the oysters that they harvest in market also causes problems with them in terms of You know their brand and people being worried that it's not safe and other things like that so We received an insert grant thanks to some great work by Naomi to be able to develop an assay to ask for more virus to be able to find it and Indicated in oysters before they're harvested so that they don't have to waste them It is sort of like the flu in humans in that it might pass and perhaps through ocean movement and other things like that that the Oysters can be harvested at another time and be used So this is an example of us working with them We recently completed this project and it could be a quantum leap for the industry and just another example of how we can solve industry problems Yeah, and I think for for the industry the main outcome here is that The new assay developed is is not a Quantitative assay like they have at the federal government labs But it is a good screening tool and it can be delivered at one tenth of the cost of the existing tool So oyster growers who tend to be smaller companies who tend to be You know either mom and pop operations or either very small staff They can now afford to do some screening before they send their product out to market Okay, and that's that's the key examples that we wanted to give to you today Um, I think um, it's really important to note that you've kind of had a bit of an island perspective here But it it's really important that all community colleges in bc Or almost all of them have some kind of applied research or innovation program and almost All colleges are eligible to apply for these insert grants that we're talking about so they're very easy to access entry-level grants that that um a Company in your community might benefit from and certainly Jamie or I could link you with with uh Folks at at a community college near you who could help with that or we could help you in some way as well But feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions I also want to add that we're also looking at renewable energy projects in the future for cardy We're looking at solar Wind and also marine renewable energy So I will be at the conference coming up in Vancouver next week on that So please come up and say hi if you're interested in working on anything with us We have worked with some companies who've had some preliminary talks with tesla and others and we're hoping to Be doing quite big advancements in renewable renewable energy wind title and run of river in the next few years That's it for us. Thanks our contact information's at the bottom. We'd love to work with you That is awesome. Thanks very much Naomi and Randall. I will uh, I'm gonna take back People want to write down those email addresses really quick and then I will take back the screen You can also contact me later through the economic development at gov.bc.ca email If you want to get a hold of of any of our presenters today Here we go. Just switching things around Okay, so we have we have some q&a time here. We've got about 20 minutes left in our Webinar time of course everyone loves when a meeting finishes early Uh, I actually I have a couple questions and I'm gonna unmute our our whole panel and let you guys fire away here About uh about this one, but the question I have listening to this is uh, and jamie yourself muted So if you want to talk you're gonna have to do that yourself Question I have is uh Where do these ideas come from? How do these things get started if let's say I'm a local elected official Secret I am Say I'm a local elected official and I want to I want to take advantage of this opportunity Do something good for my community. Where should I get started? I I can take that. I I think the best place to come is come to the local college and have a conversation With somebody in a position like like randles or jamie or myself And and we can start navigating What the next steps might be so We we'd connect you with a company that might have similar interests or a student or faculty member who might be able to help Solve a problem and then and then we start looking at different opportunities to move forward Great. Anyone else want to add anything there? We get ideas certainly from like Naomi said from elected officials We get from industry who maybe had problems for years and they can't even think about solving something Um, and we can certainly help them do that. It basically allows you to get more more staff At no cost to you in some cases Um, and faculty experts and students the next generation and you've heard from all of us that often they get hired and they can often are young and eager and and And couldn't be your your next employees and we also hear of internally from Faculty and from students and maybe they want to solve things or have seen things And then we'll go out and look for companies that might have those issues as well So we're always looking to partner people as well. And like Naomi said You go to your college Even if you don't know what to talk to tell them your interest in doing some applied research And they should have an idea who does that at your institution Great Now I noticed that in some of the projects that you talked about it wasn't only It wasn't only gadgets and widgets that you were working on there was Some social social sector research as well So if communities want to You know do some research into a particular aspect of their economy. Is that something You know Is is a an innovation partnership like this something that a community could use to add capacity to their economic development function Anyone Jamie do you want to take a stab at that or do you want me to go? I you can go ahead You're allowed to know this social fit for that No, it is um, there's there's lots of sort of economic development and Social change aspects that we can deliver via research. There's so many variables though in that realm Including the funding opportunities So you you saw a lot of widgets and you saw a lot of science examples because that is Where it's really easy to touch base into and to seek funding the The social science side, it's not impossible. Then there's certainly lots of funding opportunities But it's not the same model necessarily No one else wants to add a thing So I'm nearly cutting out for me. So I'm not sure if uh, I didn't quite hear I'm not sure if all of you did There are a few parameters Usually it has to be a company with more than two employees. They have to be in business for at least a couple of years For us to be able to do that But they're you know, if you're not sure at all it's certainly come and talk with any one of us and we can help you with that Great and nonprofits can apply for these as well, right? Yes, nonprofits are eligible for the social science side of the research grounds. Yes, okay So I'm going to add something there at the recently the social sciences under shirk uh, put out a college pilot project and it's been going on for a couple years now And uh, that was rolled recently into under the n-circ umbrella, which is under the cci program community colleges innovation program and There was recently in the last budget. There was 10 million dollars and there was a competition And it was over 83 applications and those applications in that particular situation They can be nonprofits And they have a different criteria than the n-circ engineering sciences criteria Okay, thanks Well, um, I have a few Kudos and confidence coming in on the questions, but that that's not what we're really here for Um, I'm just gonna to hand it over to the audience one more time if anyone wants to uh to verbally ask a question instead of having to to type it in If you want to use that raise hand button on your on your screen I'm going to give there's a couple more minutes and then I will let you all go and have your lunch Because I'm here. There's some hungry people Um, I'm not seeing anything come in. So, uh, what I'll do is I will um I'm going to say thank you to all of our presenters and uh, jayme john rose randall and neyomi. Thank you very much for being part of The webinar today, which as some of the uh attendees will know is is my first time Doing one of these economic webinars. So nothing crashed. So yay The next webinar that's coming up march 22nd is uh same lunch hour bring your bring your bag lunch The bc ideas exchange is a collection of success stories from across bc And we'll be hearing from port moody The city manager of port moody talking about their brewers row initiative as well as the fields forward initiative in creston Creston valley has their mobile fruit press Um, that they are taking around to farms. Um, and I'm not going to give away the the answer So the registration link is a nice. I've shortened it for you. It's there on your screen bit dot lee slash mar 22 webinar It'll also be coming out. Uh, you'll probably get an email later this afternoon with your invitation to it as well and uh So another thing that you might want to take advantage of in in your communities is we are launching a tech dev 101 workshops And these introduce tech and innovation basics to a community They are aimed at sort of the whole ecosystem So local government staff and elected officials community economic development officers Chambers of commerce community futures the whole ecosystem of economic development We're trying to get everyone in a room in a community to talk about the tech sector in your community Your assets what opportunities you have and how to use tech and innovation as an economic development driver So we have four of those already scheduled. We're going to port el bernie We're going to camel river and will also be in kimberley and castle gar sometime in the next month and we have I think I believe we're looking for 12 more communities to do that. All you have to do is find us a venue We will bring the presenters the materials And hopefully you'll help us invite the the important people in your community to that so email economic development at gov dot bc dot ca if you want to request that workshop in your community and Um Yeah, after this webinar there will be a feedback survey that comes up as I mentioned This was my first in this series. And so I would really love to hear what you think If there's anything we can improve upon or any other topics that you'd like to see coming up We're we're now booking topics into the fall. We're going to take a summer break But I have a big lineup of topics and I'm very excited about This recording will be posted in approximately a week. Um, there will be a link on gov dot bc dot ca slash economic development It just has to get through all of this screening It's the government, right? Uh, and don't forget to register for that next webinar, which I will try to go back and give you the link again There we go. There is the link to that bit dot lee slash mar 22 webinar And with that I'm going to say thank you very much for joining us And I'm going to end the webinar. Thank you everybody. Have a great day Oh, now I have to find the button to end the webinar All right, end webinar. Here we go. Bye everyone