Knowing which door to knock on when you’re a small or medium sized business looking for research, funding or commercialization assistance isn’t always easy.
A business owner or entrepreneur can spend weeks being shuffled around from one agency to another before making the right connection.
Recognizing the complexity of the landscape and the frustration many businesses people and entrepreneurs endure, a collection of organizations and helping agencies in Sudbury have joined together to establish a common engagement process through an online portal called Sudbury Innovates.
They include the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation, the federal government’s Fednor, the province’s Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology (NORCAT), the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI), the National Research Council of Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program, the Regional Business Centre, Laurentian University and two community colleges – Cambrian and Boreal – offering assistance with applied research.
“Everybody has a different service that they provide, so Sudbury Innovates will allow us to help clients in a more effective way,” said Bora Ugurgel, innovation and prosperity co-ordinator at CEMI. Businesses looking for assistance fill out a form on the Sudbury Innovates website identifying themselves and the type of assistance they’re looking for. Ugurgel or another representative of the member organizations figures out the best fit and gets back to the client in two business days.
