Building the Economy of Ideas

Insiders’ perspectives on what’s right – and wrong – with Alberta’s innovation system

Oct 1, 2009  

Interviews by Michael McCullough
Click here for the Economy of Ideas podcast

The Innovation Czar Doug Horner

Since being named minister of Advanced Education and Technology in 2006, the former banker, businessman and MLA from Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert has earned the respect of many in the technology sector for his advocacy of industry interests, willingness to listen and implementation of Alberta’s Action Plan.

What we’ve been able to provide with the Action Plan is alignment – alignment of the various providers within our system. I think you go anywhere in the world and what you’ll find is in one area they know of some service delivery or commercialization piece but they may not necessarily be cognizant of what’s going on in other areas of their own jurisdiction. We had the same issue. What’s going to help us is giving that alignment to the entire Campus Alberta commercialization activity. So if you walk into TEC Edmonton and you’re at a certain place in the value chain in the development of your idea, they’ll immediately be able to identify anywhere within the system you need to go to get that help to turn that into a viable idea within the province. It comes back to the cluster idea, to have all the pieces available and the concierge service that tells them where and who and how. And that is a tremendous competitive advantage.

In the past there were all these roadblocks: getting IP [intellectual property] out into the open where it can be used, not knowing where to go for your venture capital, your business plan, your mentoring, those sorts of things. Not knowing where to go for your prototype. You spend a lot of time finding that out. You lose a bit of your entrepreneurial zeal when things start to get a little bit tough.

Companies may find themselves in the valley of death at some point. We have to bridge that with mentorship, good business plans, good deal flow. One of the things we heard [in our consultations with industry] is there’s this great basic research and all these good things happening, but there’s no deal flow happening. So we have to create better deal flow. All of that is why we’re doing what we’re doing…. Investors are looking for that cluster of things that support the company they want to invest in. So we had to get all that stuff aligned and in play. Then we had to create the Alberta Enterprise Corporation – then the investors are saying, “They’re actually putting some skin in the game here. They’re leveraging my dollars. Now I can go do the proper due diligence that I need to do. And then I can make that investment with the knowledge that all that other stuff is there.” The venture capitalist looks to money and support and then the market and the financial side of it. Management is a critical factor. Support for that management is a critical factor.

We’re an energy province. We’ll always be an energy province, whether that’s in hydrocarbons or alternative energy. We’re taking the lead in those areas as well. It’s our technology and the commercialization of that technology that’s going to keep us at the forefront of the energy requirements of the globe. There are areas where we have strength. It’s energy and the environment, whether it’s alternative energy, environmental stewardship and hydrocarbons. It’s the bio-industries, the life sciences, the biofuels. It’s the health services delivery: cardio, diabetes, neuroscience. These are the areas of strength…. And that’s where I think you’ll see us going.

All the other things going on are enabling technologies. You’ll notice I didn’t mention nanotechnology. If you’re going to have alternative energy, you’re going to need new composites that might be “smart.” The only way you’ll have new composites that are smart is if you have a very strong nanotechnology, world-leading research and development and commercialization cluster within your economy. ICT [information and communications technologies] is another crucial enabling technology for any of these three areas.

We’re doing what they asked us to do. This is not Doug Horner’s plan. This is not the Ministry of Advanced Education and Technology’s plan. This is our industry’s plan…. By the end of this fall, I would say we’ll be 90% there…. Next we have to market what we’ve done. We have to market the one-window approach.

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