The Newfoundland and Labrador tech sector hopes to develop a startup organization in Corner Brook this year, and to have its first organization in Labrador early next year.

The plans for Startup Corner Brook, Startup Labrador and other communities are part of a concerted effort to harness the brainpower in the province’s smaller communities to help build new companies. It’s also in keeping with the goal of doubling the size of the provinces information technology sector by 2025.

The province now has a $1.6 billion a year technology sector, employing about 4,000 people. It grew from about $425 million in 2004.  Ron Taylor, the CEO of the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Technical Industries, said his association wants to double the size of the industry by 2025, which means adding about 400 jobs a year. To do that, he said, he needs entrepreneurs to establish and grow more startups.

“Growing startups is huge,” he said last week at NATI’s Knowledge Summit in St. John’s. “We need these young entrepreneurs developing companies and creating more jobs in technology.”

The Knowledge Summit was one of several events in St. John’s first Innovation Week, which included a series of events organized by StartupNL at the Common Ground co-working space, and an open house yesterday at the Genesis Centre at Memorial University.

NATI worked three years ago with Startup Canada in going out to communities throughout the province to meet with entrepreneurs and discuss the creation of startup communities. There is now a strong and active community in St. John’s and the next step is to engage entrepreneurs in the other cities.

“There’s a lot of innovative people out there, and the idea is to create a place where they can come to meet, to collaborate and to work on companies together,” said Taylor.

NATI plans to engage entrepreneurs in Corner Brook in the next few months and help them to structure an organization that meets the local needs. Taylor said it must be a grassroots body that is built up by people in the community. NATI’s role will simply be to ensure the group has the resources needed to develop the association.

He foresees the Corner Brook group getting off the ground this year and Labrador in the first half of 2015. Though Labrador does not have a large population, Taylor said he’s optimistic about the prospects because it has such a high proportion of young people.