Newfoundland and Labrador’s third annual Innovation Week will take place in St. John’s starting on Monday. The 17 different events will focus on bringing innovative ideas to market and growing key sectors in the province.
Throughout the week, 16 partner organizations will offer varied events with the aim of firing up creative thinking and collaboration in sectors such as information technology, ocean technology, clean technology and manufacturing.
New to this year’s Innovation Week, and now sold out, TEDxYouth@StJohns is the first youth-focused TEDx event in the province.
Designed for youngsters aged 12 to 18, the event aims to ignite new ideas and empower young leaders.
The global economy will be the focus of the talk given by Export Development Canada’s Vice-President and Chief Economist, Peter Hall. The “Let’s Talk Exports” conference will be hosted by the Newfoundland and Labrador Environmental Industry Association. CBC science guy Bob McDonald, host of Quirks & Quarks, along with Dr. Ian Potter, Vice-President of Engineering with the National Research Council, will speak at the “Demystifying Technology and Innovation” conference.
Leaders in the technology sector, including futurist Jim Bottomley, and former Dragons’ Den adviser Sean Wise will speak at the Knowledge Summit hosted by the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Technology Industries, or NATI. Innovation Week is being supported by $38,279 from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
“These events are meant to connect and empower a collaborative community partnership in the innovation ecosystem,” said NATI CEO Ron Taylor.
Newfoundland and Labrador currently gains $1.6 billion in annual revenue from its technology sector. The sector consists of 170 companies employing over 3,990 people. Each employee represents an economic gain of $400,000 for the province.
A new innovation Week app is available free on iOS and Android in the App Store as IWNL. The app was built by the College of the North Atlantic.
