Centres of Excellence and Collaboration Key to Growing ICT Industry

Summary

The creation of Centres of Excellence through the cooperation and support of government, research institutions and industry is key to Canada's global competitiveness in the ICT industry.

At ViXS, we believe industry has the largest role to play in ensuring Canada's global competitiveness. Technology innovation and success comes from sustained competitive advantage, and it is up to each individual leader and company to ensure that their products, technologies and services are the best in the world and can serve the global market.

Where we see a role for government in helping Canadians create competitive advantage around key industries and technologies is by supporting appropriate infrastructure for collaboration.

To see how a successful ICT industry can work, one only has to look to Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is host to some of the largest and most successful technology companies in the world. There are no systemic reasons why Canada cannot rival that success. One can point to many reasons for the success in Silicon Valley, but in our view, a large part of its success has been the focused and consistent collaboration of government, industry, research institutions and educators. We believe that this can be affected through the development of Centres of Excellence. We envision the Centres to be a hub that will create the necessary gathering point for academic partners, connected companies, venture capital opportunities, and a training ground for the next generation of industry leaders.

These Centres of Excellence will create/enable ecosystems to develop around key technology areas. These ecosystems which can provide the full value chain of technology areas, will allow Canada to be more efficient, create Canadian jobs, and allow for greater competitive advantage in today's world.

Submission

July 13, 2010

The creation of Centres of Excellence through the cooperation and support of government, research institutions and industry is key to Canada’s global competitiveness in the ICT industry.

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the national consultation on Canada's Digital Economy Strategy. We applaud the Government of Canada's leadership to undertake this important discussion among industry players and stakeholders.

At ViXS, we want to take an active part in these discussions, and to help build solutions. We are in complete agreement with the goal of Canada regaining a leadership position as a digital economy. While the digital economy strategy goes beyond ensuring the global competitiveness of technology companies within Canada, we strongly believe that the strength of the ICT sector is at the centre of Canadians willingness and ability to adopt technologies as productivity tools; ensure that there are enough ICT workers being trained in our schools; and create a vibrant and adaptable workforce and economy in the future.

ViXS provides technologies at the heart of the digital revolution. We are the leader in providing smart network multimedia processor solutions that enable a rich video entertainment experience, powering consumers' entertainment by processing, managing, securing and distributing high quality video and audio, thereby allowing seamless multimedia control, conversion, and connectivity between many classes and sizes of digital entertainment devices.

We are headquartered in Toronto with global operations and offices in Europe, Asia and North America. ViXS has filed more than 240 patents worldwide with over 70 patents being issued to date. Listed for three years running as one of Deloitte's fastest growing North American companies, ViXS is setting new standards in the way digital entertainment is viewed and transmitted across an endless array of multimedia products.

Our success to date has been driven by the collaborative efforts of our team, government and our academic partners. We understand what it takes to succeed in the digital economy and we want to help share our knowledge and strengthen Canada's capabilities.

We have planted our roots in Canada because we know that the conditions in this country can create success for our company. We have a tremendous team of entrepreneurs and engineers who are pushing the boundary for product innovation. We enjoy the partnership of academic institutions that are dedicated to leading–edge research, while growing the next generation of workers. We benefit from the vision of governments who understand the importance of our industry and are willing to bring stakeholders together to grow our industry through smart policy and appropriate incentives.

However, we all understand that Canada's natural advantages are not permanent, and that over the past few years we have seen a decline in the ICT industry in Canada, particularly companies headquartered here. We must continue to seek new ways of nurturing the digital economy for continued success, and ensure that we have both the business expertise and engineering talent to continue to nurture new companies and new ideas as well as grow and sustain more established organizations.

We believe industry has the largest role to play in ensuring Canada's global competitiveness. Technology innovation and success comes from sustained competitive advantage, and it is up to each individual leader and company to ensure that their products, technologies and services are the best in the world and can serve the global market.

Where we see a role for government in helping Canadians create competitive advantage around key industries and technologies is by supporting appropriate infrastructure for collaboration. To see how a successful ICT industry can work, one only has to look to Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is host to some of the largest and most successful technology companies in the world.

There are no systemic reasons why Canada cannot rival that success. One can point to many reasons for the success in Silicon Valley, but in our view, a large part of its success has been the focused and consistent collaboration of government, industry, research institutions and educators. We believe that this can be affected through the development of Centres of Excellence. We envision the Centres to be a hub that will create the necessary gathering point for academic partners, connected companies, venture capital opportunities, and a training ground for the next generation of industry leaders.

These Centres of Excellence will create/enable ecosystems to develop around key technology areas. These ecosystems which can provide the full value chain of technology areas, will allow Canada to be more efficient, create Canadian jobs, and allow for greater competitive advantage in today's world.

At ViXS we are ready to take a leadership role with the government in the creation of a Centre for Excellence for Software for the Digital Home.

At ViXS, our focus is on the home digital environment, which has, and continues, to undergo transformations that reshape the way media is created, transferred, stored, purchased, consumed, and shared. We believe that the home digital environment will remain as a dominant platform for digital transformation, and a tremendous business opportunity for those companies that are able to exploit technological innovation and meet consumer demand.

Canada needs to enhance its research and development capacities in software applications, especially as they are related to the digital home environment. Canada has relied on the importation of software applications for our digital solutions. Instead, we should be promoting and growing domestic software design and development to compete internationally and tap into a multi–billion dollar market that continues to expand. We have the capacity to build innovative new products and solutions that will feed into the growing and dynamic digital home environment. However, there is a gap between the potential and what we are currently achieving in this important industry component.

This Centre will seek to partner with top researchers at the University of Toronto and University of Waterloo — which are leading institutions with distinguished leadership in engineering and digital research. We will seek to create a home and launching point for connected companies with access to industry leaders, mentors and venture capitalists. The Centre will look to fund graduate research to train the next generation of industry leaders and transformers, while supporting closer industry partnerships through a co–op model to enhance students' educational experience.

For ViXS, we believe that the Centre will require an additional mandate to drive outreach programs within our schools to turn young minds to consider a future in the digital economy through mathematics, science and engineering. Our ViXS team is committed to share our talents, passions and experiences to ensure that school–aged children are not self–selecting against careers in the digital economy. This outreach in elementary and secondary schools is crucial if we are to attract the broadest and best talent pool for our industry.

We look forward to additional opportunities to share our thoughts and ideas as you continue your important work to frame an action plan for Canada's digital economy. The potential is here for Canada to lead in the global digital economy. We look forward to our continued partnership with you in this crucial work.

Sincerely,
Sally Daub
President and CEO
ViXS Systems Inc.