The Town of Markham, just outside Toronto, bills itself as "Canada's High-Tech Capital." Already, the town is home to more than 800 technology and life sciences companies, including
AMD Microprocessors (whose new processor took the recent CES convention by storm). It's a reputation the municipality is looking to build on with their "Markham 2020" plan, which urbanist Richard Florida called "the tightest, the smartest and the best" such plan he'd ever seen when it was released in 2009.
Late last year, the physical focal point of that plan opened its doors. The
Markham Convergence Centre is a 30,000-square-foot home for technology business incubation in the heart of the town. As of its opening, it becomes the new home of York Region's existing technology and life sciences organizations including
NCMDD/YORKbiotech,
ISCM,
Innovation York,
Markham Small Business Centre,
Markham Board of Trade and
York Technology Alliance. The Mayor of Markham, Frank Scarpitti, declined to comment for this story -- his office cited a major announcement regarding the MCC coming at a press conference this week. Last May, Scarpitti said of the MCC, "
This facility will allow Canada to compete
globally in the medical devices industry while attracting highly
skilled jobs to our community."
Since it opened it's doors in October 2010, it has already begun accomplishing that, according to Jeremy Laurin ISCM. "Still early days here, we get a lot of industry traffic already," Laurin
writes in a post this month on the MaRS blog. "The
MCC offices see some of York Region's top industry and academic people
here on a regular basis. That's a good sign." Laurin notes that he expects the incubator concept to come alive at MCC this year.
Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Office of the Mayor of the Town of Markham; yorkregion.com; Jeremy Laurin, ISCM; Markham Convergence Centre