The Nova Scotia government announced Wednesday that it would fund four “sandboxes” – places where students and others can get together, swap business ideas and collaborate on forming startups – at groups of post-secondary institutions.

All four winners are groups of institutions so they can pool their resources and enhance the opportunities for collaboration. The goal is to establish physical spaces supported by entrepreneurial programs where members of the university and college communities can work together to generate new businesses.

The teams are:

•Island Sandbox, comprising Cape Breton University and the Nova Scotia Community College Marconi campus;

•Community Sandbox, made up of Saint Mary’s University, NSCAD University and Mount Saint Vincent University;

•Nova Scotia Agriculture Sandbox, which includes Dalhousie University’s agriculture campus, Acadia University and the Perennia Innovation Centre;

•And the Information and Communications Technology Sandbox, comprising Dalhousie, Saint Mary’s, NSCAD and Volta Labs.

“The announcement today is a recognition that things have to change,” said Premier Stephen McNeil in announcing the new program at Pier 21 in Halifax. “But it’s also a recognition that there are assets in the province that we can collaborate around to build a better future. “

The government will give each group $150,000 per year for as many as three years, after which, they are expected to pay their own way.

The idea for Sandboxes came about last year at the government’s Innovation Summit, at which Eric Grimson, who was then the Chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, described the sandboxes at his institution. The province asked for proposals from post-secondary institutions late last year, and the four winners ended up being collaborative efforts between institutions.  (Disclosure: I did a bit of consulting work with the government on the criteria for the proposals.)

The Island and Community teams consolidate resources in the province’s two urban areas, and will hopefully draw in more students and profs to work together on projects.

The agricultural sandbox will build on work already under way at the three institutions involved to encourage farm-based entrepreneurship and innovation. Acadia, for example, has recently hosted a Startup Weekend-style of event to bring in agricultural entrepreneurs.

The ICT group has the potential to draw on key skills from the parties involved – the entrepreneurial mentorship of Volta, Dal’s computer science faculty, St. Mary’s international business proficiency and the design capabilities of NSCAD.  Jevon MacDonald, one of the founders of Volta, noted that the startup incubator is already benefitting from the university community.

“Most of the startups coming into Volta are started by or employ graduates from post-secondary institutes,” he said. “What we want to be part of is going into the schools and …  bringing them the resources they need.”

Dalhousie already has a sandbox up and running in that the Starting Lean program has an open office where students can gather to work on businesses.