Cornwall Innovation Centre an important piece of daring greatly | Cornwall Standard Freeholder
To create lasting change, we need to dare greatly
Anyone who knows the classic Teddy Roosevelt quote knows what “daring greatly” means to them and to be the “man in the arena.”
I believe that in order to make lasting change in our region, we need to create a truly unique ecosystem.
Big cities are thriving, money is being poured into their local economies, and talent continues to flourish. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem the Cornwall Innovation Centre was made to tackle – to help build startups, to create jobs, to help secure better-paying jobs. Rinse and repeat.
Maybe some of those companies would give a young, potential entrepreneur the skills and confidence to start their own company.
This type of thing is happening all the time in places like Silicon Valley and Toronto.
A couple of months ago, one of our tech mentors at Canada Learning Code announced he could no longer volunteer with one of our programs because he was going to Ottawa to find work. He just couldn’t find a job in his IT field here.
Every time I hear a story like this, it breaks my heart.
Another talented young graduate has gone to the big city to seek better-paying opportunities (full disclosure: I left Cornwall at 19, to return 18 years later).
This is a hot topic in this community, one that has been addressed so many times that now we expect to hear the argument: “but Cornwall is perfectly geographically situated between Ottawa, Montreal, and the U.S.”
Watching places like Hamilton, Ont., and Brooklyn, N.Y. – on the outskirts of major cities, continue to become hubs of innovation, investment, and growth means there is so much hope and potential here.
The problem is change is hard. And it doesn’t happen overnight— cliché, I know, but for good reason.
This past weekend, a good friend of mine mentioned how impressed people are when they visit Cornwall. How they are charmed by it, and say things like “the food scene here is so on point!”
Another local restaurant owner mentioned that same day how there are so many great cooking jobs around the region as well. We have great breweries, farm-to-table events, farmers’ markets, wineries, and so much more. This region is vibrant with a burgeoning food scene.
I’m sure many restauranteurs and food service workers here can tell you it’s taken years to get there, that it took a vision, grit and resiliency to build a food ecosystem, and that you need people to champion everything happening here. Basically, you need someone who is fantastic at marketing who can push the messaging out.
I can tell you that it’s the same for building tech and innovation ecosystems.
Many of us have our ears to the ground and although it may take a couple of years to truly build it to its true potential, just know there are also people championing it. I was lucky enough to be interviewed last week about this exact thing for a feature in the Globe and Mail – stay tuned.
There are people building their own businesses out of the innovation centre— startups and non-profits who just secured major funding through working with the CIC, people who learned tech skills at the Ontario Emerging Jobs Institute and had an opportunity to take their education to the next level.
There will continue to be successes and challenges along the way, but all of this is worth it if it means creating great-paying jobs, building programs to train people for the jobs of the future, up-skilling those who may be at risk of losing their jobs, and continuing to help startups find funding for their innovative ideas.
Right now, so many organizations and people have an opportunity to collaborate – to avoid falling into silos – and truly build the city of the future here. Through the innovation centre, there are many great things that are coming and they want you to be a part of it.
Whether you’re a business leader, an investor, a mentor, someone with a startup idea, someone who wants to scale your company, or someone who is looking at giving a young student a job, you can help build this ecosystem.
You should check out the book “The Smartest Places on Earth,” that talks about rustbelt cities (like Akron and Albany) becoming local hotspots of global innovation. Here are just some of their findings from travelling to these redefined cities across the globe. These successes:
Building an ecosystem that supports entrepreneurs, investors, graduates, and organizations is the only way we are going to disrupt the local economy.
Daring greatly is the way we can build the future we want for this region.
Kelly Bergeron was executive director of the Cornwall Innovation Centre in 2018-19. She submitted these thoughts in response to “From a stumbling start, to a new path,” published on Aug. 23, 2019.