Tag Archives: Pierre Lapointe

2013 (5th annual) Canadian Science Policy Conference announces some new (for this year) initiatives

An Oct. 29, 2013  announcement highlights some of the speakers you can expect at the 2013 (5th annual) Canadian Science Policy Conference (CSPC) being held in Toronto, Ontario from Nov. 20 – 22, 2013. The conference whose overarching theme is ScienceNext: Incubating Innovation and Ingenuity features (Note: I have bolded this year’s new initiatives),,

CSPC 2013 Welcomes Minister Rickford:
We are thrilled to announce that the Honourable Greg Rickford, [Canada’s] Minister of State (Science and Technology, and Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario) will speak at CSPC 2013, more details to follow. Be sure not to miss it, register now!

Are you the next Rick Mercer? Bill Nye?
CSPC presents its first ever humorous speech contest, Whose Science is it Anyway? Thursday, November 21st at 9pm. To enter, send your name, contact info and 2-3 lines about your story to aanchal.kamra@gmail.com. Attractive prizes to be won! Deadline: 5pm, Friday, Nov. 15 (Finalists will be notified Monday, Nov. 18)

CSPC is now Accepting Donations:
We are quite pleased to announce that with the generous support from Ryerson University, CSPC can issue charitable tax receipts for donations. If you wish to donate please contact us or visit cspc2013.ca for more details. www.cspc2013.ca

> CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

• 600+ participants, 28 panel sessions, 150+ speakers including:

– Hon. Reza Moridi, MPP,Ontario Minister of Research and Innovation

– John Knubley, Deputy Minister, Industry Canada

– Robert Hardt, President and CEO, Siemens Canada Limited

– Wendy Cukier, Vice President of Research and Innovation, Ryerson University

– Pierre Meulien, President and CEO, Genome Canada

– Paul Young, Vice President Research, University of Toronto

More exciting names are being added to the Program.

Inauguration of the Awards of Excellence in Science Policy – a first in Canada

• 3 pre conference full day workshops/symposiums

– Science Policy Nuts and Bolts
– Science Diplomacy
– Communication of Science

> CONFERENCE HONORARY CO-CHAIRS

• The Honourable Michael H. Wilson, Chairman, Barclays Capital Canada Inc. and Chancellor, University of Toronto

• Mandy Shapansky, President and Chief Executive Officer, Xerox Canada Ltd.

> CSPC 2013 CONFERENCE THEMES

• Private Sector R&D and Innovation: New Realities and New Models

• Emerging Trends: Science & Technology in International Trade and Diplomacy

• Science and Technology Communication

• Graduate Studies and Research Training: Prospects in a Changing Environment

• Emerging Issues in Canadian Science Policy

A couple of comments. I notice that Member of Parliament (NDP) Kennedy Stewart,, the Official Opposition Critic for Science and Technology, and member of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, is included as a feature speaker this year. Last year (2012), he held an impromptu, after official conference presentation hours sessions on science policy. Good to see that he’s been included in the official programme for 2013. Perhaps next year (2014) will see the Liberal critic for Science and Technology. Ted Hsu as a speaker.

Pierre Lapointe is another speaker whose name caught my attention as he is the President and Chief Executive Officer of FPInnovations, one of the partners behind CelluForce (the other partner is Domtar), the Canadian nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC, aka, cellulose nanocrystals, CNC) initiative. In my Oct. 3, 2013 posting,  I noted that CelluForce had stopped producing NCC as they had a stockpile of the product. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there’ll be any mention of the stockpile since Lapointe is on a panel organized by Genome Canada and titled: The complexity of driving the bio-economy: Genomics, Canada’s natural resources and private-public collaborations.

Double honours for NCC (ArboraNano and CelluForce recognized)

Congratulations to both ArboraNano and CelluForce (and FPInnovations, too)  on receiving a Celebrating Partnerships! Award from the Association for the Development of Research and Innovation of Québec (Canada). The May 25, 2012 news item on Azonano by Will Soutter focuses on ArboraNano,

The Association for the Development of Research and Innovation of Quebec has presented a ‘Celebrate Partnerships!’ award to ArboraNano, the Canadian Forest NanoProducts Network, for its collaborative work with CelluForce, NanoQuébec and FPInnovations in the commercialization of nanocrystalline cellulose.

ArboraNano received the award on May 17, 2012 in a ceremony conducted at Marché Bonsecours in Montréal.

The May 17, 2012 news release from CelluForce offers additional details,

In its third edition, the Celebrate Partnerships! Award recognizes partnerships between entrepreneurs and researchers from Quebec and encourages them to develop these partnerships further. Award recipients are distinguished based on the economic return resulting from their collaborations, helping to build a stronger, more innovative and competitive Quebec.

“Nanocrystalline cellulose is perhaps the most promising discovery of this Century. I salute our industrial and government partners, respectively Domtar, NRCan [Natural Resources Canada], and Quebec’s MRNF and MDBIE, for having the foresight and the courage to embark on the world’s first NCC adventure. I offer my congratulations to the devoted researchers and employees of all of our organizations for this well deserved recognition,” states Pierre Lapointe, President and Chief Executive Officer at FPInnovations.

That quote from Lapointe reflects the fact that this was composed in French where the formal style can seem fulsome to English speakers. Although even by French standards that bit about “the discovery of the Century” seems a little grandiose. Sadly, I’ve just  remembered my own comments about the Canadian tendency to be  downbeat on occasion, from my May 8, 2012 posting,

We tout innovation but at the same are deeply disconcerted by and hesitant about the risktaking required to be truly innovative. (I have to note that I too write pieces that can be quite restrained and critical of these types of endeavours.) Really, it’s as much a question of culture as anything else. How do we support innovation and risktaking while maintaining some of our quintessential character?

rather than celebrating the moment. Such a quandary! In the meantime, I trust the recipients had a good time at the party.

ETA May 29, 2012: I have been brooding about my headline since technically it is one award not two. (sigh) I’ll take the easy way out, since each partner got an award, it’s a double honour.

CelluForce springs forth from the FPInnovations/Domtar partnership

New company, CelluForce (a joint venture between FPInnovations and Domtar), has sent out a rather odd (from my perspective) news release. From the June 3, 2011 news release on the University of British Columbia website,

Domtar and FPInnovations are pleased to announce CelluForce, the corporate identity chosen for their new joint venture, launched in July 2010. CelluForce will manufacture nanocrystalline cellulose, a recyclable and renewable nanomaterial, that will be commercialized throughout the world. The new company’s identity was developed to reflect both the origin of the nanomaterial, extracted from tree cellulose, and one of the multiple properties of the product to be sold by the new company.

That was expected, here is one of the unusual bits (from the news release),

The typeface of the CelluForce logo uses two colours, to clearly illustrate the fundamental value of the partnership between two entities in the company — partnership between the two co-shareholders as well as with CelluForce employees and customers. The name is topped
with a “C” formed of numerous tetrahedrons, which combine the blue and green colours that symbolize each partner. The spray of tetrahedrons gives a sense of forward movement, like the new technology’s leap into the future. The logo was designed to be easily animated on multimedia platforms. The company’s temporary website, www.celluforce.com, already displays the brand’s new visual identity.

This is the kind of information I’ve seen in employee handbooks or given as part of an employee orientation so that people get the company logo/brand identity right when they’re ordering materials and/or representing the company. I’ve never before observed anyone sending out a news release explaining it to all and sundry.

I am a little more interested in the nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) and its manufacture (from the news release),

Nanocrystalline cellulose will be produced in a large-scale commercial demonstration plant using cutting-edge technology. The plant is currently under construction on the site of Domtar’s pulp and paper mill in Windsor, Quebec. The construction of the demonstration plant is progressing quickly, and it should be operational in the first quarter of 2012. The plant’s operations will be managed by a team of committed employees who have enthusiastically agreed to tackle the colossal challenge of getting a new plant up and running. For several weeks now, the management team has been preparing to welcome all the workers who are set to undergo training in June.

As far as I can tell, they don’t actually have any NCC enabled-products at this point (from the news release),

With regard to this major milestone, John D. Williams, President and CEO of Domtar, stated, “Emerging from a strategic alliance between two leaders in their respective industries, CelluForce creates new partnerships to develop innovative technology in growing markets. Domtar will bring its vast manufacturing experience to the table to produce a green nanomaterial that, like paper, comes from trees. We will therefore develop new applications for our market pulp.”

For his part, Pierre Lapointe, President and CEO of FPInnovations, stated, “Thanks to a revolutionary technological breakthrough developed by FPInnovations and an exceptional government-industry partnership, the CelluForce team will benefit from a nanomaterial of high quality, which is stable, abundant and unique in the world, namely nanocrystalline cellulose, or NCC. With the combined strengths of FPInnovations researchers and Domtar staff, CelluForce will continue to develop new commercial applications and new market areas for NCC.

Jean Moreau, the new company (CelluForce) president and CEO (chief executive officer), discussed the importance of the brand identity,

“Our new brand reflects who we are, how we want to position ourselves in our target markets and the innovation that differentiates us within our industry. The name “CelluForce” reminds us that one of the main characteristics of the nanocrystalline cellulose is the great strength it provides to the materials to which it is added, but the name also represents the strength of our relationships with our shareholders, our partners
and our customers, which is one of the company’s core values. It was essential that this feature be one of the key elements of our corporate identity.”

Good luck to them all and I’d be very interested from anyone who’d care to comment about the practice of sending out a news release explaining the corporate brand in such detail.

ETA June 6, 2011: (1) Here’s the CelluForce website (under construction). (2) Interestingly the announcement for the new company was made on Friday, June 3, 2011 just before the industry’s 2011 TAPPI International Conference on Renewable Nanomaterials is being held from Monday, June 6, 2011 to Wednesday, June 8, 2011 in Washington, DC.

Maintaining a worldwide *research lead in nanocrystalline cellulose

“We are all working very hard to maintain our world-wide lead in NCC [nanocrystalline cellulose] research and development. With its three kilograms per day, this small pilot plant will still be producing the largest quantity of NCC in the world”, declared Pierre Lapointe, President and Chief Executive Officer of FPInnovations. “We are building the future of the forest industry by focusing on the research and development of new applications, innovative products and new markets, and we will get there one success at a time”, concluded Lapointe.

FPInnovations (located in Pointe-Claire, Québec) is (from their Strength in Unity webpage) “the world’s largest private, not-for-profit forest products research institute” and they’ve just opened new NCC research facilities. From the May 30, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

FPInnovations has announced today’s inauguration of its new NanoCrystalline Cellulose (NCC) research facilities, which consist of a state-of-the-art pilot plant, new high-performance equipment for the Québec City laboratory and two new research laboratories located at Pointe-Claire. The Pointe-Claire laboratories are dedicated primarily to NCC chemistry, as well as to NCC and nanocomposites characterization. The new laboratory equipment in Québec City is being used in the development of advanced wood materials in the appearance, structural and composite wood products sector. The cost of the construction of the facilities and the acquisition of the research equipment amounts to $4.1 million. This investment has been made possible thanks to the financial participation of the Ministère du Développement économique, de l’Innovation et de l’Exportation du Québec for 80% of the expenses and, Natural Resources Canada, for 20%, under its Transformative Technologies Program (TT). The project will make it possible to retain 11 full-time scientists and technicians dedicated to NCC research.

I believe I mentioned the state-of-the-art pilot plant in my July 16, 2010 posting***), when FPInnovations announced a joint venture company with Domtar to build a ‘demonstration’ plant producing one metric ton per day of commercial-scale NCC in Windsor, Québec. 

It sounds very grand to me “… building the future of the forest industry …” and frankly I’d be just as happy if the technology is safe and people get jobs.

***ETA August 23, 2011: The FPInnovations Domtar plant featured in my July 16, 2010 posting is expected to produce one metric ton of  NCC per day when it is completed and operational.

* Nov. 27, 2013: Corrected headline, changed ‘reseach’ to ‘research’.