a draft OP-Ed re Technology Incubation and the Clean Tech Sector

Green Sector Needs more than Encouraging Words from Government

Economic Development officials the world-over are heavily in pursuit of the next ‘bio-tech’ sector to create new employment opportunities in their Cities. The 2008 version of bio-tech is the ‘Green’ or ‘Clean Tech’ Sector. Toronto Mayor David Miller has talked openly of his goal to brand Toronto as an ideal location for such businesses to locate.

Warning to Businesses! We talk a great game but when the rubber hits the road, expect little support beyond rhetoric and encouraging words.

How so?

First, let me state that Canadian governments have done an excellent job to lay the groundwork for technology innovation. While we can always do better, our Universities are creating dynamic, intelligent and innovative graduates in sciences, math and computer science. In Toronto, one has to look only as far as the MaRS building at College and University (its building program co-funded by all 3 levels of government and private contributions) to see that excellent facilities do exist to incubate and commercialize clean and green technologies.

So in that regard, we are well positioned for the creation of a clean tech sector. However, if incubation spaces exist only to help companies to get to a pre-revenue, pre-commercialization stage, then much of the money we invest in facilities such as MaRS will have been wasted. Not only are those public dollars wasted but further millions of dollars of private investment threaten to fail to generate returns to ‘Angel Investors’ and further reduce the effectiveness of government strategies to grow this sector. If Angel Investors and then Venture Capital begins to look elsewhere, the ‘Clean Tech’ strategy will be doomed.

So while our governments have created these great frameworks, bureaucrats are still left scratching their heads wondering how to position their jurisdiction as a leader in ‘Clean Tech’ development. So what is the problem? Why, with all the investment in education and innovation are we failing to create and attract companies with innovative technologies through incubation to implementation and commercialization? Policy alone cannot stimulate economic growth.

A colleague of mine from a small yet innovative MaRS-based company I work with recently attended a session hosted by Toronto’s Economic Development department. City officials were asking the important questions about how to help grow this sector. Responses from the private sector attendees were fairly succinct and based upon a few mutually shared experiences: “Working with the government is like banging your head against a wall.”

Similarly, I attended an Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference in Montreal where Transport Canada officials asked: “How can we help create new technology to solve our transportation problems.” My answer to the room was that the problem was not in innovation but in implementation. There are lots of great ideas but without public policy ‘labs’ to test technologies and demonstrate their potential, Canadian companies are often forced to shop the world for clients to be first-users and early adopters. In those instances, Canadian companies face protectionism and local advantage that we don’t enjoy at home.

Here is the problem as I see it. Politicians want a clean-air machine. They have, I believe, largely convinced themselves that if they just set up technology incubators and create the conditions for innovation, a magical climate-change reversing ‘pill’ will be invented that we can all take, go to sleep and wake up a week later to ask Dr. Gore if its all better. Unfortunately, such a solution may never come along and I’m a big believer in using the solutions that are at your disposal, even if they are new and untested.

The fact of the matter is, human behaviour and the systems that we have built to support our lifestyles are largely unsustainable and require significant change if we are to tackle carbon challenges such as climate change, smog and resource depletion. That means we all need to change. That we all need to change requires that government mandate those changes – volunteerism only goes so far when it involves economics.

Furthermore, great innovations come in leaps and bounds – not in baby steps or from tinkering around the edges. I’ll paraphrase two of Albert Einstein’s famous quotes that come to mind: “We cannot solve the problems of today with the same thinking that created them” and “if an idea is not absurd at the beginning it is unlikely to succeed.” I also think Steve Jobs makes a great point when he says “People don’t know what they want until you give it to them.”

So what is my point and how does this all weave itself together? Let me get back to that MaRS-based company that I work with. Toronto Star readers may recall Judy Steed’s fine work in 2007 for her ongoing ‘Business Challenge’ reports. Judy profiled Skymeter, whose innovative approach to GPS signal processing has enabled them to create a market-busting approach to road tolling. Forget traditional road tolls – Skymeter’s beauty is the ability to privately and even anonymously charge for roads when and where they are used. To simplify – it’s a smart meter that would collect Gas Taxes or Road Taxes in a similar fashion to how a Water meter determines your bill – based on actual use. Plus it’s also a parking meter that removes all the hassle of finding and paying for a parking space.

Skymeter is just one example. There are numerous other companies with fantastic new technologies, many of them developed in conjunction with our Universities and Centres of Excellence. Skymeter is receiving fantastic attention in Cities and countries where governments are seeking to marry innovation to public policy to tackle our toughest problems. For instance, the government of The Netherlands is very keen on Skymeter as a potential tool to implement a nation-wide Distance-based taxation system for vehicles and roads. However, all government buyers ask the same question: “Where is this being used?”

What then is the missing link between Innovation, incubation and the wonderland of commercialization and success? The most important ‘I’ word here is Implementation. Had Apple required government for the iPod to succeed, we’d still be having blue-ribbon panels to discuss the idea. Governments must find the courage to test, pilot, demonstrate and otherwise support the export development of technologies made in Canada. Until we do, we will create more Alexandar Graham Bells – people who have to go away to succeed only to have that success nationalized once they return. The 2.0 version of Bell’s work is RIM and Blackberry.

I am not for one minute suggesting that Premier McGuinty implement provincial road tolls or that David Miller stand-up where Metrolinx has failed to and force the issue of fair taxation of motorists. However, I am suggesting that governments need to identify ‘test beds’ and put money forward for pilots and demonstrations. For instance, how would charging Courier vehicles for every stop in the downtown core affect the issue of illegal stopping? The City has a problem and Skymeter has a possible solution where all others have failed. This is a win-win-win-win. Traffic solution for the City, pilot for a local company, exposure of innovative clean tech sector, rewards to private investors. What am I missing?

Until Government realizes that it must step up to the plate and that politicians must take some portion of the risk that private investors and entrepreneurs are taking to develop these solutions then they will be doing little more than printing documents with great stated-goals that are never ever met. Ultimately that will lead not only to the failure of our economy but to our failure as a society to deal with our most pressing problems.

If, as Mayor Miller has stated, Climate change is [his] generation’s greatest challenge, than doesn’t that require the boldest steps?

Handguns and Handjobs

Look at the Birdie!!! Don't look at the Camera, the Flash or the photographer! Look at the Birdie.

Now that your attentions are diverted from the real problem we face with violence in our schools, the desperation that an element of our youth face, or the mere fact that we will always have a criminal element in society running an underground economy made larger only by the number of things we prohibit...

LET'S BAN HANDGUNS...Puuhhhllllleaaase!!!!

Typical lefty bleeding heart response. I'm not huge on guns. In fact, two years ago I turned down a chance to go to a shooting range in Las Vegas, later learning that I missed the golden opportunity to fire an Uzi, a 357 Magnum and an AK-47 - at nothing less than images of stereotypical muslim cut-outs.  (tongue planted firmly in cheek, heavy sarcasm font.) Apparently I missed something close to the Zed and the Gimp scene from Pulp Fiction.

But, I did shoot a .22 calibre rifles when I was in Boy Scouts - at a shooting range in the basement of a High School no less! Simpler times I guess? I think it's important to note that I grew up in conservative London Ontario, not Evansville Indiana or some such place. After Toronto's second-ever school related shooting, I'm troubled that Toronto's Mayor simply keeps re-iterating his desire to infringe personal rights and ban handguns, as if the guns being used in crimes are legal or registered in the first place. 

Guns are already licensed at this point and I believe, registered - or at least they were at one point in Canada. In the past, the Mayor has said that the guns being used in crimes are largely coming in from the US where handguns will never, ever be banned. Not even American liberals, serious ones anyway, would ever suggest banning handguns, so this issue dies at the border. Which is exactly where the problem lies - aside from the social causes. So the Mayor's strategy - as well communicated as it is, is sadly off the mark, please pardon the pun. We may as well have a turnip as Mayor given the chance of success of such a strategy. 

While I agree that much of the responsibility for addressing this problem lies at the feet of the Canadian federal government, I believe Mr Miller needs to speak to different people in Ottawa and address different problems than he is with his lame, unimaginative and to date falling on deaf-ears "Ban Handguns" message. The problem is with our porous borders and our pathetic federal criminal justice system, which lacks skills, funding and manppower in terms of enforcement  CSIS? RCMP -who? The US has made a cottage industry from law enforcement! We're also plagued by judges who seem incompetent of reading the winds of public opinion and applying that sentiment to their sentancing.

If Mr. Miller is serious about getting guns off the street and I believe he is, he must push for more support to enforce EXISTING laws from federal law enforcement agencies. Who is Canada's DEA, ATF or FBI? If it is the Toronto Police that is responsible, then perhaps funding should be redirected from hassling pestulant squeegie kids to hassling dangerous gangsters with violent rap sheets. The power to redirect those resources lies within the Mayor's office. Rudy Giuliani didn't just wait for the Feds to clean up Times Square and if that is what our Mayor is claiming he'd like to, then he should genuinely get tough, not put on a tough-guy act when times are tough.

It's ironic too because in the past, the left has traditionally argued for the decriminalization of some things that others consider detrimental to society-at-large. I'm talking mainly about Marajuana, which most honest and educated political scientists will tell you ought to be decriminalized and I frankly agree. I'm not saying decriminalize handguns either - licensing has an impact, as the City of Toronto ironically will also tell you when it comes to Massage Parlours. So the Mayor essentially finds that licensing suffices for handjobs but not for handguns? Or he just believes that prostitution ought to be legal? I didn't see that in his platform, did you?

And here is my conclusion and its probably stating the obvious. City Hall is really good at pointing the finger at others while doing very little to innovate or find solutions to problems that they actually have control over, particularly under this administration.