Great Northern Way’s ‘growing’ hub lures Samsung
Samsung will be the first tech giant to raise a banner over Great Northern Way, an expanding node in Vancouver’s booming technology sector.
The Korean maker of smartphones, TVs and a plethora of internet-connected devices will move its Burnaby development centre to the top floor of a new building near the Emily Carr University of Art and Design and the Centre for Digital Media (CDM), and for a reason.
“We just see it as a growing centre,” said Tom Duggan, lead of Samsung Canada’s Metro Vancouver facility. “Mount Pleasant, and that location. We see more people moving there, so it is an opportunity for collaboration.”
Samsung, a multibillion-dollar conglomerate, has 275,000 employees worldwide in just its electronics division alone, which produces the world’s top-selling Galaxy family of smartphones that run on Google’s Android operating system.
Samsung’s Metro research and development centre is small by comparison, but develops software primarily for its mobile-phone platform and mainly on applications for companies doing businesses among themselves, so called business-to-business, Duggan said.
Samsung Knox or Samsung Pay are a couple of key programs being developed in Vancouver.
But Samsung is outgrowing its existing location in Burnaby, having expanded to 100 employees from 15 when it first opened in 2013, and Duggan said the firm was drawn to Great Northern Way as much for its proximity to Emily Carr and the CDM as its accessibility via transit.
Duggan said Samsung landed in Metro because of the talented technology graduates. As its operations continue to expand, it wants to stay tapped into the talent pool, but closer to downtown.
“I’ve been (in Vancouver) for over 20 years and I’ve seen the growth,” Duggan said. “That’s the opportunity. Samsung wants always to have the best talent, and there is great talent here.”
Besides its work developing software for mobile-phone applications, Duggan said his group also works on software for Internet-ofthings applications and software for internet-connected smart devices such as TVs or refrigerators. He added that Samsung’s programmers and engineers regularly collaborate with local universities, something the company wants to expand on in its new home.
“We have been very fortunate to have established successful partnerships with the local universities through the co-op/intern placement programs with UBC and SFU,” Duggan said. “We are hopeful to see similar exciting collaborations come to fruition with Emily Carr University and CDM.”
And the CDM’s director of industry relations is eagerly awaiting Samsung’s arrival in the neighbourhood, which should be around June.
“I totally understand Tom’s interest,” said CDM’s Dennis Chenard. “It’s a central location, it has good transit options, but ultimately the talent needs and possible collaborations, it’s all right there. And they have an enthusiastic Android-user in me.”