A new Regional Innovation Centre for Barrie to be developed through a $1-million provincial government investment is expected to help local entrepreneurs launch their businesses and scale up, adding jobs along the way.
The provincial government announced during its March budget that Barrie will be the home of a centre to promote entrepreneurship and innovation. It will be Ontario’s 17th centre in a network that stretches across the province.
“We are incredibly excited to see it come to fruition,” says Stephannie Schlichter, Barrie’s director of economic and creative development. “It truly allows us the ability to build capacity to programs already exiting in the Barrie and surrounding area.
“When you think about some of our manufacturing industries, some of our emerging health and life sciences sector, all of that came from entrepreneurs and innovation," she adds.
The question now, Schlichter says, is identifying the needs the new centre needs to fill and how to leverage the funding in the community to do more and build on to the infrastructure that is already there by refining programming to support entrepreneurs.
Regional Innovation Centres provide entrepreneurs with the resources and support they need, connecting them with networks, funding and resources. They provide training and workshops, access to experts, mentorship and market intelligence.
They are intended to help entrepreneurs and innovators succeed in international markets by helping them work through the challenges of developing their ideas to make them marketable and attract talent, capital and customers.
According to the provincial government, its network of innovation centres helped in the creation of more than 10,000 jobs through the support of 5,500 technology-oriented firms.
Entrepreneurs may turn to the Small Business Centre of Barrie, Simcoe County and Orillia for initial support, but can also get support from the Sandbox Centre, Georgian College’s Henry Bernick Entrepreneurship Centre as well as the new Regional Innovation Centre, depending upon their needs.
“The Regional Innovation Centre … will draw more business and entrepreneur investment and talent to the area,” says Mira Ray, executive director of research, innovation and entrepreneurship at Georgian College, which includes the Henry Bernick Entrepreneurship Centre.
“What these centres end up being are what the community needs it to be,” so it changes from region to region, Ray says, adding that the services provided by current and future supports will dovetail each other to help launch and scale business in the area.
Up until now, there has been a something of a hole in the map of the network of these centres. The province’s investment, Ray adds, is an indication of support of the opportunities not just in Barrie but the central Ontario area.
“They are all levers that we pull on to attract and position ourselves uniquely in the marketplace as a place to come and do business,” Schlichter says of the community supports now established to help businesses grow.
She sees the innovation centre helping to develop the entrepreneur’s business concept, working on market testing, help identify gaps and setting a path for the future.
“Our government wants businesses to thrive in Ontario, which is why we are investing $1 million to have a Regional Innovation Centre located in Barrie that will support all of Simcoe County’s entrepreneurial ecosystem,” says Andrea Khanjin, MPP for Barrie-Innisfil. “This investment will create more jobs, attract more businesses and create more partnerships and collaboration, allowing Simcoe County residents to work and do business closer to home.”
The centre is in its planning stages with no date set yet for its launch, but the funding announcement is for this year.
