‘We can lead in disruptive technology’ Minister Duguid 

This is the first initiative that was launched under the $54 million dollar IBM Innovation Incubator Project, a project that IBM is contributing $24.75 million dollars with $22.75 million coming from the Government of Ontario’s Jobs and Prosperity Fund.  Other partners in this partnership are the SOSCIP Research Consortium and members of the Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs (ONE).

The objectives of this new hub are to provide capacity, networking, and infrastructure while leveraging the wide array of IBM cloud and cognitive business technologies to assist entrepreneurs, startups, and developers to move from innovative ideas to quickly move their business plans from research to commercialization.  

As part of this new partnership IBM will provide experts from within the company and from its partners in offering mentoring, support services, education, and legal counsel to assist startups, “…to help them innovate, get to market and expand more quickly to ultimately become the disruptors of tomorrow,” said Dino Trevisani, IBM Canada President.

Over the past decade, IBM has invested more than half a billion dollars to establish a series of collaborative innovation hubs across Canada, among them, are the incubator space in Hamilton and the Toronto Bluemix Garage which is one of Canada’s largest business incubators for emerging technology startups.

“The IBM Innovation Space demonstrates our commitment to increase innovation in Ontario by working collaboratively with the public and private sectors,” said Brad Duguid, Minister of Economic Development and Growth. Working together “we can lead disruptive technology and become a hub that is globally competitive,” Minister Duguid went on to add at the briefing yesterday at the newly launched 185 Spadina Avenue hub space in Toronto.

For more information about IBM’s continued investments in Canadian innovation, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ca/en/canadian-innovation.html