The Ontario government is investing $26 million in a digital innovation “hub” in Kitchener Ont., where businesses of all sizes and types will be able to meet, share ideas, and hopefully accelerate growth in the province’s digital media and mobile sectors. Just don’t call it an incubator. “I loathe the term ‘incubator,’” says Kevin Tuer, one of the hub’s organizers.

“In an incubator, you create a very safe and comfortable environment,” says Tuer, the managing director of the Canadian Digital Media Network (CDMN) – one of the organizations involved. “We’re not focused on doing that. Our key descriptor is ‘accelerate.’... If we accelerate our companies to an outcome, even if it’s a bad income, we at least stop resources flowing to something that won’t survive.”

The $26 million is going towards The Communitech Hub: Digital Media & Mobile Accelerator – a.k.a. “the hub.” It’s a new centre that aims to help emerging digital media companies grow. Aligned with the province’s innovation agenda, the government says the hub could help create thousands of jobs across Ontario by supporting entrepreneurs.

But according to Tuer and others involved in the project, the hub is just one piece of a much bigger picture – a plan that extends beyond Ontario’s borders.

First, a word on the hub’s structure: the hub is considered one of two “nodes” under the CDMN – a new Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research that received $10.7 million from the federal government in January through the Networks of Centres of Excellence program. The second CDMN node is the University of Waterloo’s Stratford Institute, a training facility and think tank connecting digital media, international commerce and culture in Stratford, Ont.

CDMN’s goal is to support the creation of about 100 new companies by facilitating access to specialized technology services, business coaching, venture capital and even an entrepreneur-in-residence program.

The CDMN as a whole is hosted by Communitech, a tech-industry organization with more than 550 members promoting the Waterloo region’s IT know-how and its businesses, including BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. and content-management software provider Open Text Corp.

According to Tuer, the new hub will use as its benchmark the Accelerator Centre, another Waterloo organization focused on cultivating technology entrepreneurship. But the hub and the centre won’t be the same, he says. The centre helps start-up businesses; the hub is for established companies as well as new firms.

The goal is to integrate the various groups – using the Accelerator Centre for complete newcomers, the hub for more mature companies looking to move up the business chain, the Stratford Institute for policies and research, et cetera. “They’re already working together,” Tuer says. “There is still some confusion, but we’re trying to make sure we message that properly and that we’re not duplicating efforts.”

The hub will be a place for hardware and software companies to create new technologies, collaborate, and hopefully spawn bigger and better businesses. Notably, the ideas fostered there won’t necessarily have to focus on interactive entertainment. Instead, the hub aims to foster digital media as it applies to several industries, including advanced manufacturing, health care, and finance.

The manufacturing focus puts the hub in line with what’s happening to Ontario’s economy these days: many of the province’s companies are – or were – in the manufacturing sector, but a lot of those businesses have been hit hard by the global financial meltdown that began last fall.

Kitchener has a significant manufacturing presence, but it “really suffered as a result of downturn in economy,” Tuer says. “We want to play a part in the reinvention of the manufacturing sector... to take advantage of new efficiencies. The basis is going be ICT.”

The hub’s will have 25,000 to 30,000 square feet and provide participants with access to people and technologies from sponsor companies, including Open Text, imaging-solutions firm Agfa HealthCare (its virtual hospital system will be available, so businesses can try their new wares on it), and Christie Digital Systems Inc. Tuer says Christie is offering its visualization system for prototype design work.

The hub will also have a meeting space large enough to accommodate up to 400 people, suites for accounting companies and legal firms, and a games area.

“I’m pushing for a table of Lego,” Tuer says. “The foosball table will be there.... This is going be big part of their life. You have to have fun along the way.”

The hub is slated to open in the spring of 2010. But the Kitchener node isn’t the only project. As part of its national mandate, the CDMN is looking to integrate with other hubs across the country. Waterloo is well known for its communication technologies and business-vertical software, while Vancouver has a thriving mobile scene, Toronto has medical tech and interactive entertainment, and Montreal is a hotbed of drug research and games development.

The CDMN wants to make them all members of the Waterloo agenda, so the organization has started discussions with other centres of excellence. “We have a number that we’re looking at, but none have come on board officially yet,” Tuer says.

Eugene Roman is the CIO of Open Text, Canada’s largest software company. The cluster concept makes sense, he says. He points out that there are three main technology hubs in the U.S.: Silicon Valley; the Boston corridor (microelectronics and pharmaceuticals), and Texas, where Texas Instruments, Hewlett-Packard Co., and Dell live. Those three hubs thrive because they attract people, reach out to new places (Boston’s companies connected with firms in Ireland, helping to make Ireland the IT gateway to Europe), and generate talent.

Waterloo has managed to do that, too. “You can count on one hand the places where innovation has grown,” Roman says. “Waterloo is one of those places, and we’re trying to expand the Waterloo model.”

That means reaching out to Toronto, Calgary Vancouver, Halifax, Moncton – anywhere innovation is happening, and bridging the gaps between Canada’s clusters. “This is not about Waterloo,” Roman says. “It’s about Canada.”

Open Text not only sponsors the hub, but plans to use it as well. It should be a good place for holding open discussions about collaboration. “These are neutral places,” Roman says.

He says Open Text is also involved because the company believes endeavours like the hub will one day help propel the Waterloo-Kitchener region, and the province overall, plus Canada, into the high ranks of ICT clusters globally. “There’s a group of people here who want to say in 10 years, ‘We made that happen.’”

 Stefan Dubowski is a freelance writer in Ottawa. You can reach him via sdubowski@rogers.com.

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