Universities, colleges to benefit from partnership

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This article was published 17/01/2020 (2252 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Harvest, the pan-Prairie co-builder of companies that received about $5 million from the federal government last summer, is partnering with Western Canadian Innovation Offices, the technology transfer operations of post-secondary institutions.

The idea is to increase the ability of academic research to grow into competitive companies, and for researchers and institutions to deepen their connections with top corporate entities.

Darren Fast, the director of Partnerships and Innovation (formerly called the Technology Transfer Office) at the University of Manitoba, said the partnership will be great for all the post-secondary institutions on the Prairies.

“We can feed ideas into the system, they will bring capital, expertise and other stuff and continue to help concentrate some of the commercialization activity that is happening out of the post secondaries,” he said.

Chris Simair, the founder and CEO of Harvest and one of the co-founders of Skip the Dishes, said he expects Harvest to partner with accelerators and incubators across the Prairies.

“With these partnerships, Harvest is capitalizing on research and development opportunities, while building a platform to commercialize ideas into companies,” Simair said. “These companies will have the potential to shape a more diversified Canadian economy.”

He said more than 1,000 companies have applied to Harvest’s program. The list has been whittled down to 150, which are being considered.

After that, it intends to raise venture capital funds for these companies.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca