Innovation and Insight: Mapping Ontario's Mobile Industry

The Release below is from May 2009, and the document is available for download at the end of the post:

Consider this. Somewhere, a mobile device is being used to monitor remotely the health of a patient. Cellphone tower activity is determining traffic patterns and the logo you see to your right is being decoded by a Blackberry. Just as the Internet has dramatically altered the way we behave, interact and conduct business, mobile and wireless technologies are poised to transform — well, nearly everything. According to researchers, we’re entering an era wherein everyone is a mobile entity, one that moves through a robust, interconnected landscape. What remains is to decide what we would like that landscape to be.

Seizing that opportunity right now is the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre (MEIC), a public-private consortium made up of the best and brightest in mobile research, design and innovation. Funded by the Ontario Media Development Corporation through the Entertainment and Creative Clusters Partnerships Fund, the MEIC is comprised of six academic institutions — OCAD is the lead partner — as well as more than 30 organizations from across the mobile industry.

It is new territory, and because of that, the obstacles are profound. But so too are the possibilities. “Mobile and wireless devices are revolutionizing the way we think, work, play and live in the same way the Internet did almost two decades ago,” says OCAD President Sara Diamond, who also chairs the MEIC. “Unfortunately, our research shows that we’re falling behind other jurisdictions in terms of our ability to play a leading role in driving this mobile revolution.”

Diamond is referring to the findings of a significant, albeit cautionary, new white paper released this spring by the MEIC. Innovation and Insight: Mapping Ontario’s Mobile Industry analyzes the shift occurring within the mobile industry on a global scale, relating it back to consumers and businesses within this province. Primary findings suggest that Ontario and Canada could and should be leaders in the global mobile and wireless sector, but that considerable challenges must be overcome for us to realize our potential.

“One of the key findings of our research is that we don’t have enough people with the right set of skills to keep up with the demand to develop applications for new and emerging mobile platforms and devices,” explains Ray Newal, one of the report’s principal authors. “We need to invest in education to build a workforce that’s ready to lead the world in mobile research, design and innovation.”

According to Innovation and Insight, emerging industry dynamics have created a kind of gold rush, as each new mobile platform competes for compelling content and for talented content creators. This, in turn, has created opportunity. Because of the newness of the playing field — with its lush potential and its correspondingly thin available talent — an exciting prospect exists for the creation of geographic centres of innovation. “The country, city, state, or province that invests heavily in creating a workforce with the right combination of skills and creativity will become a proverbial battlefield for emerging mobile platforms,” reports Innovation and Insight.“These battlefields will attract large amounts of investment from multinationals and other players from within the funding ecosystem, and will thrive on the spending power of a highly skilled and sought-after workforce.”

So, where will this workforce come from? Surprisingly, industry survey results included in the report show that a majority of respondents are either unsure or don’t actually believe that post-secondary education in Ontario is adequately preparing students to work in the mobile and wireless sector, and that Ontario is not among the best places in the world to find people with the necessary skills and talents.

We must interpret this as a call to action.

Innovation and Insight makes 16 recommendations, all of which are endorsed by the MEIC’s 30 corporate partners, to address current and anticipated gaps in Ontario’s mobile sector. Among those recommendations are the following:

• Industry-academic research initiatives aimed at procuring local talent should be established, facilitated and supported by the mobile industry, universities and colleges, and governments.
• A mobile partnership consortium — which would broker targeted business development, alliances, research and training among industry, academia and funders — should be formed.
• Provincial and federal governments should further develop procurement strategies for the mobile and wireless sector to fund initiatives for applied research, business development, tax incentives and prototyping for content, services and applications development.

“We have a window of opportunity to act on the report’s recommendations,” says Diamond, “but we need to move quickly to maintain and enhance our capacity to generate new jobs and new technology, and to help drive continued growth and innovation.”

What she and others will argue is that the MEIC has the potential to be exactly this kind of driving force. MEIC’s partners and advisors manifest as well as carry forward the collaborative energy and cultural entrepreneurialism that has defined this industry — they have done the legwork, so to speak, and opened its doors.

Innovation and Insight makes clear a very real net benefit: “By establishing a local ecosystem that is capable of global innovation, Canadian consumers will benefit by gaining access to world-class applications and services. These will stimulate usage, and result in the creation of more effective business models which could spur flow-through economic benefit to other local industries. The Canadian consumer is indeed an important player within the ecosystem. The time to act is now.”

Michele Perras, MEIC’s project manager, has guided the progress of the consortium through the course of Phase 1 research, which culminated in the report. Phase 2 will include, among its objectives, the fostering of innovation, research and knowledge-sharing through collaboratively funded, three-month research and prototyping cycles, as well as a deepening of the relationship between industry and academia. OCAD is in the unique position of being able to do this within the MEIC as well as within the greater sphere of the province.

OCAD, as Perras points out, “has been key to promoting the value of design and fostering innovation throughout this project.”

OCAD, as the lead partner in the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre (MEIC), works very closely with both academic and business leaders in the mobile industry to drive innovation in this sector. These partners and advisors, who have supported the MEIC through Phases 1 and 2, include EchoMobile Ltd, Aesthetec, Achilles Media Ltd., Bitcasters, Canoe.ca/Quebecor, Decode Entertainment Inc, The Delvinia Group of Companies, Design Exchange, Ecentricarts Inc., GestureTek, IBM, Interactive Ontario, marblemedia, MEF Canada, Microsoft Canada, Mobile Monday, Motorola Canada, mypetbrainstorm, RBC Canada, Silverback Media, Sweet Caesar, Telus Mobility, Triptych Media Inc., TVO, Wirelessnorth.ca and Yahoo! Canada.