Joined at the hip?
Cape Breton University (CBU) and Cape Breton Island ¬ the two are joined at the hip.
But CBU has to step up and focus its strategies on the many exciting opportunities in CBU and industry-led initiatives that engage both the local community and CBU itself.
Here at Louisbourg Seafoods, we have worked with past presidents of CBU on such promising projects as the Cape Breton Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, our own SEA++ competition and Brand Cape Breton for Oceans, Fisheries, Tourism & IT.
The promise of those projects has not been fully realized. There is so much more to explore, discover and develop with CBU and industry collaboration. Consider new technologies such as data warehousing utilizing multiple feeds of data for different products:
* 360° Cameras, Underwater Drones, and IT aimed at the monitoring of harvesting activities
* e-commerce rooted in direct-to-customer sales complemented by immediate market and sales-customer feedback
* Virtual Reality (VR) for applied research, training education, safety and oceans-related experiential tourism
* creation of value from the waste water of production facilities
* the availability of Brand Canada/Nova Scotia as a unifying tool for small cluster sales via Free Trade Agreements, including CETA, through educational/ training programs from NSCC and CBU.
I remain very positive about the future of CBU. Below you will see an example of what is available and, hopefully, with the leadership of CBU, NSCC and Industry, we can take full advantage of the federal government’s initiatives for Cape Breton’s growth over the next 10 years:
(1)the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) which “invests approximately $200 million per year to support Canada’s postsecondary institutions in their efforts to become global research leaders”
(2)the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Fund where, in 2017, “the Government of Canada announced $125 million in funding for a Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy to be led by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR)”
(3)the Atlantic Fisheries Fund, a “$325 million investment … [that] will transform and drive innovation in the fish and seafood sector in Canada with a focus on developing the sector to better meet growing market demands for sustainably sourced, high quality fish and seafood products”
(4)the Innovation SuperCluster Initiative (ISI), a funding program for industry-led consortia, that can include universities, through a two-phase application process accessing up to $950 million over five years
(5)the Accelerated Growth Service initiative that “coordinates government support for high growth companies in areas such as financing, advisory support, export and innovation services.”
The future is ours, we just have to get in the queue, work together and ensure that Cape Breton is at the ready.
Dannie Hanson, Mira