Ontario has been making a concerted effort to develop its clean energy sector for a number of years. Now a new venture will help that sector take its innovations around the world. This month the provincial government, in partnership with MaRS Discovery District, announced the creation of the Clean Energy Institute.
"The overall goal," says Jonathan Dogterom, the practice lead for cleantech at MaRS, "is to be able to put a bit more of an economic development focus on energy technology."
Which is to say: the institute's key objective will be to help the community of clean energy innovators that has started to cluster here by creating new export opportunities that will allow them to expand their businesses in foreign markets.
"Energy represents a huge market around the world," Dogterom says, "and we have some of the best innovations in energy technology."
We don't, as of yet, have the international presence to match.
The project is still in the very early stages of development. MaRS and the Ontario government will be reaching out to industry stakeholders in coming months to get input into the project; they also expect to add some private partners as the Clean Energy Institute takes more concrete shape. Their immediate goal: develop a detailed plan for setting up the institute over the course of a year.
Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Jonathan Dogterom, Practice Lead (Cleantech), MaRS