Tag Archives: Canadian NanoBusiness Alliance

Finland, nanotechnology and innovation

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I wasn’t planning it but this has turned into a series about Finland, innovation, and the Canadian approach to innovation. Today should be the final installment (ooops, it changed again) with this one focusing on nanotechnology.

In February 2009, a study, prepared for Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, showed that nanotechnology companies had tripled in number between 2004 and 2008. From their media release on Nanowerk News,

In 2008, private investments in nanotechnology were for the first time greater than public investments. The industry received public funding worth 38 million euros, industry investments were 56.6 million euros and venture capital funding 9.5 million euros. …

“The internationalisation of nanotechnology companies requires ongoing improvement of the funding opportunities. According to the study, exporting products to international markets requires dozens of million euros within the next two years. Both public and private funding are required,” says Markku Lämsä, the FinNano Programme Manager at Tekes. The nanotechnology industry’s shift from research to commercialization is giving a boost to Finnish industry during the current economic downturn.

This whole approach contrasts somewhat strongly with what we appear to be doing here in Canada. We talk about innovation instead we fund infrastructure projects (see the Don’t leave Canada behind blog for confirmation..particularly items like the funding for Arctic research stations which I linked to  in yesterday’s posting). On the nanotechnology front, the Canadian NanoBusiness Alliance shut its doors either late last year or early this year, Nanotech BC has not been able to secure the funding it needs, and the National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT) has lost its individual brand and been swept back under the National Research Council (NRC) brand. As for a nanotechnology policy or initiative, Canada seems to be one of the few countries in the world that simply doesn’t have one.  As for the business end of things, I will write about that tomorrow.

What happened to Canada’s National Insitute of Nanotechnology?

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It’s been a while since I’ve visited Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology’s (NINT) website and since it’ s pretty slow on the news front these days I figured I’d check out their news releases. It wasn’t there! It’s  been absorbed into the National Research Council’s (NRC) site.

These things usually portend some sort of political shenanigans, which can range from internal NRC politics to federal policy mandates to funding issues, or some combination of them all. In NINT’s case, you can also include the provincial government (Alberta) as they were (and possibly still are) funding a significant portion of the institute’s budget.

The NINT information now available has been ‘branded’ by the NRC. It looks slick and seems a bit better organized than it was in some respects. One exception is in the area of media information. NINT media releases are now grouped with all of the NRC releases making NINT information harder to find. As well, it’s harder to find contact details for the NINT media relations/communications folks.

Taking into account the loss of the NanoBusiness Alliance in Toronto, Nanotech BC’s imperiled future, and NINT’s loss of its ‘brand’, the nanotechnology future is not looking so bright in Canada.

And on something completely unrelated, Vancouver’s (Canada) Jazz Festival is taking place right now and tonight (July 2, 2009) local jazz songstress, Laura Werth will be at:

Capone’s restaurant
1141 Hamilton St.
Vancouver, Canada
604.684.7900

7:30 pm – 11:30 pm
Weaver & Werth Music Group
Laura Werth — Vocals
Ingrid Stitt — Sax
Rick Kilburn — Bass
Rob Weaver — Piano
Nino Di Pasquale — Drums

If you want to preview the music, Laura has a few tracks for listening here.

How are Canadian businesses responding to this fuzzy reporting plan?

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It’s really one response and I thank Howard Lovy (nanobot.blogspot.com) for pointing me to his interview with Neil Gordon (entrepreneur and ex-president of the defunct Canadian NanoBusiness Alliance) in Small Times here.  Not unexpectedly, Gordon feels that this new requirement (although it’s a one-time request at this point) will chase nano-based business out of Canada. I have mixed feelings about the comment; I’m mildly sympathetic and at the same time exasperated.

On the sympathy side, this sounds like a very poorly thoughtout plan for some sort of registry. Maybe there’s more to it than we know but now Environment Canada scientists are no longer allowed to talk with journalists directly (since Feb. 2008, all queries have to be sent to a central communications office and then you get an email answer or possibly granted an interview with someone), it’s less easy than it used to be to get information. in any event, implementation is the key to these things and I’m not sure how you could implement it. Here are a few sample questions: Do you send out a form? (Anyone who’s ever designed a form or a questionnaire from scratch can tell you that it’s not easy.)  Who fills it out? Are you going to fine businesses that don’t fill it out? What happens if you do get information? Did you ask questions that would give you useful information?

If it’s not done well, businesses will lose time, money, and energy for absolutely no purpose. I’m not against information-gathering exercises per se but you’d better do it the right way otherwise it is a colossal waste.

As for the exasperation, I’ve heard this type of ‘business will leave’ comment before (many times). These kinds of government information-gathering exercises exist because they need the information. Ultimately, it could prove helpful to Canadian business.

As for Gordon’s disgruntlement over nanotechnology funding and how all the money goes to university and government laboratories … hmm. I think the problem goes a little deeper. As far as I’ve been able to find out, there is no nanotechnology funding strategy for Canada. The whole thing seems rather higgledy piggledy. Also, research in Canada has mostly been done traditionally in university and government laboratories and not in business laboratories. There are exceptions but those laboratories have disappeared or are disappearing (as they seem to be even in the US [Bell Labs] where they have a tradition of business laboratories).

I might be somewhat biased in my view of Canadian business since I come from British Columbia and the business model for high technology (I’m shoving nano into the high tech category) is pretty simple. You graduate from university or work there, get a good idea, create a startup company, become successful, and sell it to a large US company for a fortune. Creating a substantive and ongoing research laboratory (e.g. IBM, HP Labs, and Xerox PARC), is not part of the equation.

For some of Howard Levy’s other February and January 2009 postings about the proposed information-gathering about nanotechnology use in business exercise, go here. Or for more specific posting addresses, see the comments to my Feb. 2, 2009 posting.