Sowing seeds for higher education

Nick Seebruch
Sowing seeds for higher education
From left

CORNWALL, Ontario – Cornwall City Council heard an update from the Cornwall Innovation Centre (CIC) at their Dec. 11 meeting.

Kelly Bergeron, the Executive Director of the CIC and John Rattray of the CIC’s governing board presented the successes that the organization has had since their launch in April 2017 and to show the steps they have been taking to bringing a university to Cornwall.

Companies working in the CIC’s incubator have so far created 10 new jobs in Cornwall. One start-up, Orange Neurosciences, recently won a Dragon’s Den start-up challenge.

Orange Neurosciences are the creators of ReadON, an app to help those with learning differences.

“We are asking for support to help grow the CIC,” said Bergeron. “We are looking to grow partnerships outside of the CIC to grow. With more support we can bridge many many more opportunities across different sectors.”

The CIC is partnered with Carleton University’s Lead to Win program. The province requires that any expansion to post-secondary education in the province must come from existing institutions and the partnership between the CIC and Carleton is the kernel around a post-secondary institution in Cornwall would be built. To grow that institution, the CIC is asking for financial support from the municipalities in SD&G and in Cornwall.

“We are always talking about location, location, location. We have it,” argued Rattray.

The university idea saw support from around the Council table.

“The topic of the university comes up in any circle I’m in,” said Councillor Bernadette Clement. “What I like about the Innovation Centre is that it is keeping that dream alive in the meantime.”

Councillor Claude McIntosh mentioned that in the documents submitted by the CIC was a goal of $2 million for the endowment.

“$2M is the ask. We are looking to get funds matched by the federal government,” said Bergeron. “Bringing a university to any city is a good chunk of change.”

Councillor McIntosh applauded the CIC for the progress they have made so far.

“We’ve been talking about getting a university for ages in this town and I think this is the closest we’ve gotten to sowing the seeds,” he said.

Councillors like Mark MacDonald did not rule out the possibility of providing funding for the university endowment to the tune of at least $50, 000.

“We should be supporting this, and I think we should be finding the money in the budget this year,” said Councillor MacDonald.

So far, the CIC has held three Venture Demo Days, which give local start-ups the opportunity to pitch themselves with the chance to get a spot in the incubator. There have been nine companies brought in through the Venture Demo Days with a possible three more coming at the next Venture Demo Day this week.

The CIC also took advantage of the recent visit by the Korean Embassy.

“We had a very interesting day two Fridays ago. Korean delegation,” said Rattray. “One of the things that has come from that is that we’ve been invited to visit the Korean Embassy in Ottawa and one of the things we’ll be talking about is what sort of exchanges we can do with university in Seoul.”

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