Science, technology and business have a meeting with Prince George. Those topics get together with some of the city's most innovative people on Friday and the invitation is open to join them.
The BC Growth Opportunities Tour stops into our city thanks to the BC Innovation Council (BCIC), a provincial agency dedicated to sparking science and technology ideas into viable business opportunities. That sector of the economy can exist in any location of the province.
A collection of larger-scale businesses will be at the front of the room. Each will pose a real-life challenge they are facing, and asking the innovators in the audience to discuss solutions. A fulsome conversation will be encouraged, and from that open conversation might come the solve for that problem, but it might also get people in the room talking with each other, leading to closer local relations into the future.
The junket is called the BC Growth Opportunities Tour or BCGO. Carl Anderson, the president and CEO of BCIC, explains the process.
"We start off with a morning coffee and a confab. Every presenting company has about 10 minutes to pitch who they are, what they do, and what their 'ask' is. Then we have breakout sessions, and take regular breaks so there can be chat back and forth about what's going on in the breakouts and who one another might be in the room. It is problem solving but it is also active, task-based networking."
The companies confirmed for Prince George have some significant clout in the marketplace, so disclosing their challenges and inviting personal feedback is a rare opportunity for rising Prince George tech innovators. Some of them include IBM Canada, the BC Construction Association, Timbertracks, Rio Tinto, FortisBC, and more.
Anderson said this kind of exercise was an emblematic way of showing interior tech people, especially the ones just beginning their aspirations, that they don't need to move to some other place to ply their trade.
It was also to nudge free a new, totally portable sector of the economy that can fiscally stimulate any town or city in the province. Even small tech companies can have major effects because they can largely do business unconnected to the major industries so many B.C. communities rely on.
"There has been a big change in the world: ubiquitous high speed internet," Anderson said. "You can be anywhere in the world and have a tech business. You can be out in any region and still have a a worldwide reach. So we are showing people what the realistic opportunities might be in their own backyard."
Anderson said a new phenomenon was underway in B.C. that was lending to the technology sector's momentum in the interior. Vancouver residents were "finally getting the message that the Lower Mainland is too expensive a place to live when there are wonderful alternatives in other parts of the province." Tech entrepreneurs, with their inherent portability, were "leading the migration to the interior."
When they calculate the benefits of leaving the Lower Mainland, they bring with them all their education, prior experience, contact lists, and most importantly their business ambitions.
Easier real estate prices and less dead-time in traffic also give startup entrepreneurs more of a cushion at the beginning of their ventures, he said.
"The interior is getting new people, tech-smart people, business focused people, and they are going to drive a new way of thinking in the smaller cities of the province," said Anderson. "You could use words like leadership or mentorship, but that's only part of it. Lots of interior people are already leaders and mentors, but what it's really driving is a new way of thinking about how to do business, what opportunities are within your grasp, what a community's true capacity is, and that leads to infrastructure."
Infrastructure like airports and fibreoptic lines is the physical kind, but people and their knowledge is another. BCGO is one vessel for sparking the interaction needed for that human infrastructure to flourish. The BCIC tracked more than 600 connections made during the first wave of this tour, with many deals being inked out of the process, and Anderson said that was a conservative figure. This year was expected to be even richer in networking.
The Prince George event happens today from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Ramada Hotel's Skylight Room.
It is free of charge to attend, refreshments will be provided, and those interested are asked to register at 10:30 a.m. For more information go to the BCIC website or contact the Prince George business/tech accelerator agency Innovation Central Society located downtown at HubSpace.
