On Monday, Volta Labs announced that Jesse Rodgers will be the new CEO of the Halifax incubator for tech companies. Rodgers will be moving from Waterloo Region to fill the position next month.

Here are five thoughts on the appointment of the former director of the incubator/accelerators at the Universities of Waterloo and Toronto:

1. The pool of mentorship in Atlantic Canada instantly increases. Rodgers was a founding director at both Waterloo’s Velocity and Toronto’s Creative Destruction Lab. He’s had an exit. He’s been in both product and business development. And next month he will be head the key startup facility in the region’s largest city. It’s a huge boost for the community given that he has expertise in so many of the key components of a startup ecosystem.

2. Hopefully, the universities will call Rodgers and ask for advice. Though the Atlantic Canadian universities have come a long way in teaching innovation in the past few years, there’s nothing in the region like Velocity or the Creative Destruction Lab. Rogers should have great insights on how to develop programs that convert waves of university startups into high-growth companies. It won’t hurt that the Dalhousie engineering school is right across the street from his office.

Peer-to-Peer Mentorship in Propel

3. This hiring further strengthens links between Atlantic Canada and the Toronto-Kitchener-Waterloo corridor. This can’t be emphasized enough. East Coast startups must — they just have to — position themselves more closely to international customers. With the Canadian dollar so weak, it’s excessively expensive to travel to London, New York and San Francisco for prolonged sales calls. But international business does meet Canadian innovation in the tech corridor between Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo. There are really great programs in this area that Atlantic Canadian companies are entering and should do so in greater numbers. And there are vast networks of investors and customers to be tapped. Volta already has strong links to Kitchener-Waterloo, and Rodgers should bolster this connection.

4. Hopefully, Rodgers will bring some needed oomph back to the IT segment in Halifax. Some promising IT companies have formed in the city in the past year or so, but not enough of them. At Entrevestor, we’ve just finished tallying Atlantic Canadian startups, especially new startups, for 2015, and we found that 78 per cent of the new companies in the region are in the IT segment. In Halifax, only 54 per cent of the new companies are in tech. (There was surprising strength in biotech and cleantech in the city last year.) There’s a feeling in Halifax that the tech group needs a shot in the arm — more collaboration, better ideas, bringing back mentors who may have wandered away.

5. I hope the Kitchener-Waterloo influence leaves its mark on Halifax architecture. (Yes, you read that correctly.) In Kitchener, they have done a wonderful job of taking old industrial buildings and repurposing them for tech companies. To name just two examples, the new Google headquarters and the Tannery Hub (where Communitech operates) are marvelous edifices. Rodgers will be the point man on establishing Volta in the Memorial Library. It would be great for the city’s architectural heritage if the Volta team creates a building as dynamic as the Tannery.

It’s a big list, but Rodgers is an interesting hire.