Thank you, Jim. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Leadership Innovation Conference, at the University of Waterloo.
I’d like to thank Minister Goodyear for his remarks, and thank you Jim for setting the stage for us. Of course, thanks to each of you for coming to this first-of-its-kind gathering of leaders, innovators, investors, and entrepreneurs.
This conference could not have come a moment too soon – for Canada, for Ontario, and for economic eco-systems across this country looking for the path that leads to jobs and prosperity.
Friends, we all know it’s true: we have an urgent innovation challenge in Canada.
Only a couple of weeks ago, the Conference Board of Canada reminded us that it’s not just a bad dream. Canada is actually 13th of 16 industrialized countries when it comes to innovation performance.
It’s really incredible: a member of the G7; the fastest recovery from the great recession among the advanced democracies; conservative debt-to-GDP ratios; the most resilient financial system in the world; and seemingly an innovation laggard.
Why? We’ve got everything we need. We’ve got the human capital, thanks to Canada’s world-leading rates of post-secondary education attainment. We’ve got the financial capital, with an estimated $600 billion in so-called “dead money” on corporate balance sheets; and we’ve got the political capital. Our government partners have provided one of the most accommodating research and development tax structures in the OECD.
Despite these factors, Canada and Ontario are still at the back of the innovation pack.
That’s why we’ve convened this conference. We’re here because we can help shake this country out of its complacency on innovation.
Because that complacency bears a cost.
We know that the global economic centre of gravity is shifting steadily: to the east, from the west. And to the south, from the north.
Broad economic growth in places like China and India presents opportunities and challenges in equal orders of magnitude.
We have mature markets and a knowledge-based workforce, but we can’t simply out-grow China; we can’t simply out-industrialize India.
And we can’t hang on to the United States and hope for the best.
We need to innovate our way to economic competitiveness in this new century. We need to position ourselves – our entrepreneurs, our students, and our graduates – to harness the economic potential of a global, rising middle class, whose ranks are swelling every day with tens of millions of aspiring families and communities.
We need to master and bring to market the knowledge, expertise, high-value goods, and services that middle class societies will seek, need, and use in the years ahead.
The global shift in economic power is a crisis if we throw in the towel on innovation. It’s an opportunity of unprecedented proportions if we make innovation and entrepreneurialism Canada’s economic signature.
Here in Waterloo Region – in Canada’s innovation capital – we have something special. We have an innovation ecosystem that we are developing not only for this region, but as a model for Ontario, and Canada.
It’s that unique culture that brought me here two and a half years ago.
I knew that as a researcher, educator and an administrator this was the right place.
For people like me – students and researchers with a thirst for new knowledge, and for entrepreneurs looking to bring that knowledge to market – the University of Waterloo is a magnet.
You can peer over a thousand horizons – from quantum, to nano technology, to software engineering, to digital media, to geography, to public health – and you will see Waterloo’s innovators’ footprints.
My service as president of this university is dedicated to deepening and enriching that special inquisitive, risk taking, entrepreneurial culture.
I think those of us who have gathered here today will agree: the world is taking note, and the word is getting out. From our unconventional universities to our unorthodox entrepreneurial identity, there’s something special in Waterloo.
In fact, just before Christmas, a leading international ranking of start-up eco-systems, called Start-up Genome, ranked Waterloo as among the best entrepreneurial systems in the world.
Silicon Valley; Tel Aviv; New York; Vancouver; Berlin -- Waterloo...
This community punches way above its weight as an innovation leader, and as an entrepreneurial system. And if I may add – that is without the benefit of a major airport with global connections. Imagine if Waterloo Region was as connected to the world logistically as it is through its world-class technologies and industry.
The funny thing about innovation ecosystems is that no one really knows precisely where they come from; no one really knows exactly how they start. No one knows specifically which steps to take, in what order, to build an innovation system.
In other words, we haven’t figured out how to bottle and ship innovation systems.
What we do know is that, no matter where they are, they have some key things in common.
Great innovation systems have university research at their core.
Only by deepening our understanding of the world around us do we open new horizons for innovation and progress. Only research systems free the flow of human knowledge. That is our greatest natural resource, and our greatest economic asset.
What to do with that knowledge?
Great innovation systems position new knowledge for economic utilization. They do this by closing the gap between discovery and development.
The University of Waterloo’s creator-owns intellectual property policy is designed to harness the power of an economic truth: if necessity is the mother of invention, incentive is the mother of innovation.
That one forward-looking IP strategy – combined with our experiential learning platform – turns researchers into successful IP licensees, and pulls entrepreneurially-minded students, researchers, and administrators to our campus.
These policies have established a deep entrepreneurial culture in our community, and culture is everything.
Great innovation systems have great venture capital systems; and on this count, Canadian systems are successful only in spite of themselves.
We need to work with our government partners to tip the VC balance in Canada’s favour, starting with leading innovation centres like Waterloo Region. There is a reason that Silicon Valley accounts for 1/3rd of all VC investment in the United States: VC is a vital enabler. It fuels start-ups, it gauges viability, it creates wealth, and helps create a critical mass of know-how within the regional start-up community.
A dynamic VC community also connects local sources of innovation to global players and to global best practices – wherever they originate. It’s about more than money – it’s about connection. This region should be at the table when it comes to the global dialogue around economic growth, entrepreneurialism, and the role of research in society.
To ensure we achieve this, we need a stronger VC capacity both here in Waterloo Region, and in innovation centres across the country. But first we need a plan to make that happen.
Over the next two days, we need to warm up the national dialogue on this hugely important subject, and start looking at some high-impact, realistic policy options to recommend to our government partners.
Great innovation systems have great entrepreneurs – and I think the entrepreneurial instinct is the special factor in the mix. Research systems, community connections, and venture capital are critical enablers. The act of entrepreneurship is how we press go. Entrepreneurship is how markets are disrupted, businesses and lifestyles are changed, and economies revitalized.
Great innovation systems – especially when they are deliberately regional in nature –also know who they are, where they fit in, and they know how to leverage their distinctiveness. Silicon Valley was the silicon chip – that was their ticket to ride. This is the Quantum Valley.
This region boasts the world’s largest platform of quantum information research; new investment and commercialization platforms and a critical mass of tech and entrepreneurial genius to actualize this potential.
As we’ll talk about more over the next two days, we will all see that the Quantum Valley has arrived. And it is here to stay.
Our task at this conference is to consider how we can leverage the unique strengths not only of the Waterloo innovation system, but how we can foster entrepreneurialism and innovation in communities across Ontario, and Canada.
We’re asking the right questions, and making the right priorities. And we’ve got the right people in the room.
Thank you for accepting my invitation to attend this one of a kind convention.