The appointment of Sally Ng to head the new startup working space in Fredericton means that Atlantic Canada suddenly has a network of startup pods across the region, led by passionate and energetic people.

Fredericton-based Knowledge Park Inc. last week announced that Ng would become Executive Director of the Commercialization Environment for Advanced Learning Technologies, or CEALT, and its ACcelR8 program.

Like Volta in Halifax and Common Ground in St. John’s, CEALT will provide working space for startups and organize events and peer-to-peer support activities to help the young companies along the path to profitability. ACcelr8 will develop the programs offered through the centre – programs that Ng hopes will radiate throughout New Brunswick and the region.

“I don’t want to offer programs that other people around the region are already offering,” said Ng in an interview Tuesday. She said her priorities in the position – which officially begins June 17 – will be to develop a financially sustainable working space, to strike partnerships with other groups and to plan events for the whole community.  She added the floors of the space in Knowledge Park are still concrete, so it will take a few months to fit out the space then name eight to 10 startups as tenants.

The three working spaces are not really accelerators, and all reject such a title. They are places where startups can rent space on the cheap and work with one another and facilitators to grow their businesses. And like Ng, all of them are striking partnerships with other parties to enhance their efforts.

Still in her mid-twenties, Ng has assembled an impressive resume. The native of Malaysia holds a commercial pilot’s licence and has facilitated startup weekends in Fredericton and Shanhai. She is a lieutenant in the Canadian Forces Reserves and has participated in an intercultural exchange in Tanzania.

Ng has already toured Volta and met with its Executive Director Milan Vrekic. She has also reached out to Chris Gardner at Common Ground about discussing collaboration.  Vrekic said that a group “will be attending Montreal Startup Festival and GROW conference in Vancouver in an organized fashion as a region.”

On Monday, Volta and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency joined forces to improve the assistance they bring to startup founders in the region.

ACOA staff will help Volta companies enter new markets, commercialize research and assist them in business development activities. ACOA will contribute $170,000 to Volta over the lifetime of the project.

Meanwhile, Memorial University’s Genesis Centre, the granddaddy of incubating spaces in the region, is preparing a ceremony to mark the graduation of one of its leading companies, Solace Power. Genesis will hold a ceremony June 19 to say farewell to the wireless energy transfer company, which is moving to new office space in the Mount Pearl district.