In 2006, Bob Pelley developed and piloted Innovacorp’s I-3 Technology Start-Up Competition, which began in Cape Breton and spread provincewide, fostering some of Nova Scotia’s most promising startups. Now, Pelley has got behind Spark Cape Breton with the aim of energizing Cape Breton’s burgeoning tech scene.

The inaugural Spark Cape Breton has just concluded, with six very early-stage tech companies sharing $200,000 in prize money. They are all companies that have a great idea but zero sales revenue. The prize money enables them to complete prototypes or prepare for taking their product or service to market.

Innovacorp helps early-stage Nova Scotia companies commercialize their technologies. Pelley, who is regional manager for Cape Breton and northern Nova Scotia, said the I-3 competition started as an ideas contest in Cape Breton, but soon spread across the province, attracting better prepared companies with sales traction. Spark Cape Breton is about getting back to that original emphasis on the best ideas in that part of the province.

 “These are people who want to take the step, but can’t leave the day job or get capital together to make the leap, so we three groups — Innovacorp, Enterprise Cape Breton Corp. and the Economic and Rural Development and Tourism Department — got together and formed the new contest,” he said.

 “Spark has taken me back to the early days of I-3. We saw raw, unpolished concepts, a bit rough, but great people and great ideas.”

It’s intended that the Spark contest will boost the momentum that’s already growing in Cape Breton. “There is a startup cluster forming here. We’re starting to feel things happening,” said Pelley, who has worked for Innovacorp since 2005.

Based near Sydney where the tech cluster is strongest and where he was born and raised, Pelley is known and respected for mentoring and connecting others. He feels deeply committed to helping young businesses bloom, both for their own good, the good of the region and that of his three young sons.

Cape Breton has experienced clusters before. Pelley said that in the early to mid-1990s, a tech bubble formed because of collaborative work by Enterprise Cape Breton Corp. and Cape Breton University.

 “Great companies such as MediaSpark, VMP Group and Dynagen  got started and the bubble started to percolate, but when the tech bubble burst in 2001, things died down,” he said. “I’d been witness to what went on. I had a couple of my own companies at the time, including Icon Communications and Research, which I co-founded.

 “The steel and coal finally closed down in about 2000. To a large extent, the economy is still recovering. The effort was on trying to replace coal and steel; people were wondering what big thing to bring in. When I started with Innovacorp, I talked to people and looked at what had worked in the past. I saw a lot of ideas, but people needed an incentive to get going. This led to the I-3 competition.”

He cited the Cape Breton Prosperity Study, presented to the Cape Breton Partnership, which identified a significant prosperity gap between Cape Breton and its peers, the province and the country as a whole. He said that contests such as Spark could help close the gap.

 “The Spark initiative, through the creation of five startups per year, and a survival rate of 20 per cent, would see significant closing of the prosperity gap. With the creation of 25 startups and a ‘grow out (maturation) period’ of 15 years, the gap would be virtually closed.”

He said contests like I-3 and Spark create optimism as well as economic progress.

 “It creates hope for the local economy when people see early winners of the I-3 competition, like Halifax Biomedical and Marcato Digital, both thriving and employing people. People make the link and see the potential of what can be. It motivates me. It’s a wonderful job. I work with people who want to change the world.”