Organization: Simon Fraser Univ

Vancouver’s digital supercluster needs policies that protect its human capital

Digital industries in Canada operate in ways that are often at odds with other economic activities, owing to a fundamental difference: in the digital sector, the main input is human capital and the main output is intellectual property, whereas for most other Canadian industries the inputs are resources and the outputs are processed raw materials, manufactured goods and conventional services.

NRC president Stewart reappointed for another term

Iain Stewart, the current president of the National Research Council (NRC), has been reappointed for a term of five years. The reappointment – announced by Navdeep Bains, minister for Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada on June 20 — will allow Stewart to continue to work on the federal agency’s transformation, called the NRC Dialogue,…

Innovate BC’s new board of directors

Innovate BC, British Columbia’s primary technology agency, has a new Board of Directors, whose members were announced last week at the #BCTECH Summit. The board will become the province’s new innovation commission, chaired by Thompson Rivers Univ president and vice-chancellor, Alan Shaver. He will be assisted by 11 members and one ex-officio member, Alan Winter, BC’s…

Borealis AI expands to BC

Borealis AI will establish a computer vision research centre in Vancouver by fall. Borealis AI, an RBC Institute for Research, will develop a machine learning subfield that trains computers to see, process and understand the visual world even as computer vision is new to the financial services industry. Professor Greg Mori, computing science director of…

Niagara supercomputer available to all Canadian researchers

Niagara, Canada’s most powerful supercomputer to date, is now available to researchers across the country, thanks to funding from the federal and provincial governments and Univ of Toronto, where the supercomputer is housed. Niagara is being supported by the university’s high performance computing division, SciNet. The supercomputer is part of the national advanced research computing…

Superclusters: Success depends on far more than tech-focused innovation policy

The supercluster initiative marks a new and positive step in Canadian innovation policy. It is more than a research granting exercise. Instead, it is one that is designed to ensure a clear reaching out to all parts of the research ecosystem in industry, non-profit organizations, academia and government.