I am very proud to be a Canadian with our history for continuing to invest in innovation and R&D. Although we have lost our global positioning as one of the top 10 countries in terms of innovation and productivity based on the OECD and the World Economic Forum rankings, I am encouraged by the dialogue of Canadians in both business and not for profit organizations. The voice of the crowd is consistent that in order to position Canada for growth as a nation that we need to strengthen our commitment Innovation.
One of the executive community roles I am involved in is the Innovation Nation Platform for Canada organized by the Canadian Advanced Technology Association, (CATA) one of the significant community advocacy organizations promoting advanced technology and innovation capability development in Canada.
The core pillars of the CATA ” Innovation Nation as a Platform include:
- Developing a National Brand for Canada based on Regional Advantages;
- Creating an Industrial Strategy for Canada, linked to strategic approaches to government procurement, supply chains, outsourcing, exports, and increased international mandates;
- Responding to the Flat World of global competition with the removal of trade barriers, provision of support to equal the playing field for Canadian competitors and investment in the infrastructure needed to preserve and expand market strength;
- Maintaining the best practise aspects of Canada’s SR & ED tax incentive program;
- Attracting, retaining and training best talent;
- Fostering executive leadership for industry growth, including a commitment to lifetime learning;
- Developing the IT capacity of women and encouraging women to join the technology market and enrol in technology-related studies;
- Creating best practises for Public Safety and National Security with an eye to protecting privacy, including fostering the growth of the advanced security sector; and
- Advancing measures to speed ICT adoption by the public and private sectors, particularly for small to mid sized (SME) businesses.
There is a great deal to action and it clearly starts with a committed group of people. Canada has the raw materials (resources, talent, education, diversity, close to a strong neighbour etc) - what we need perhaps the most is to develop accelerated time to market and global mind sets to embrace change more rapidly.
Our Canadian history of conservatism and politeness need to be sharpened with increased agility, and innovation competencies. Fortunately our diverse acceptance of diversity in culture due to our multi-cultural mosaic enable us to take advantage of different skills rapidly. Unfortunately, like our US partner, rapidly promoting and embracing women into Information Technology (IT) or Bio Tech careers is an area where we are not flourishing as well. This is the area that I am leading as Canadian Co-Chair with a number of other equally committed senior women in the CATA Women In Technology Leadership pillar.
There is a great deal to do –and developing open community dialogues on innovation and continuing to embrace transparency in a global economy certainly will help us achieve our Innovation as a Nation Platform. If you have any ideas on how Canada can continue to improve, please let us know at info@helixcommerce.com or respond to our blog posting today.