Ahead of the curve

OBJECTIVES

• Continue to grow an industry-led collaborative digital Technology Leadership program prioritizing human and environmental health areas of investment. (completed)
• Confirm strategy and targeting for deploying Phase II investment for Technology Leadership projects across full five-year term. (completed)

HIGHLIGHTS

We continued to grow our industry-led, collaborative Technology Leadership program focused on digital solutions that support improved access to health services, improving health outcomes and increasing the sustainability of healthcare systems; and digital solutions that increase the global competitiveness and sustainability of our natural resource sectors, primarily mining, forestry and agriculture.

We launched our most ambitious Technology Leadership call for proposals to attract bigger, bolder projects that will deliver high-impact outcomes and material opportunities for participating organizations. We also expanded our support for project teams to include a focus on the early commercialization and adoption to help companies strengthen IP and data management strategies; refine commercial plans and product development roadmaps; and adoption and procurement requirements in target markets.

As a result of this ambition within our health portfolio, we received project concepts and proposals destined to:

• Provide integrated and coordinated care across home, community, primary, acute and long-term care settings – an outcome that can materially change both the structure and operations of Canada’s healthcare delivery systems.
• Improve outcomes through personalized diagnostics and treatments, and by accelerating drug discovery.
• Address stress and burnout of physicians and nurses through AI-enabled clinical decision support tools and by easing administrative burden.
• Optimize health resource utilization and value chains that can also alleviate alternate levels of care bottlenecks.

As of Spring 2024, all Phase II funds have been committed in our Technology Leadership program. As part of its most recent call for proposals, we aggregated over $197M of total investments, $65M of which is from DIGITAL. Through these projects, we expect commercialization and adoption results through these projects to deliver $2.5B of potential revenue by 2030 and support the scaling of 30 high-potential companies.

OBJECTIVES

• Advance our pan-Canadian digital workforce and talent development. (completed)
• Expand service capacity in Canadian training delivery organizations and help promising Canadian digital edtech and workforce development platforms scale. (completed)
• Build leadership capacity to drive innovation initiatives for Canadian industry. (ongoing)
• Confirm strategy and targeting for deploying Phase II investment for new Digital Learning Lab projects across full five-year term. (completed)

ACHIEVEMENTS

5,000 workers across Canada benefited from our Digital Learning Lab this past year alone, enabling them to gain skills and experiences and build career paths in sustainable digital jobs. This brings our total impact to 11,000+ Canadians who have benefited from our Digital Learning Lab since 2018. This past year, our programming included 1,000+ First Nations, Inuit and Métis participants from coast-to-coast-to-coast, including those living in rural and remote communities such as Pond Inlet and Haida Gwaii.

Our programming focused on creating accessible pathways that are helping reduce barriers to opportunities in the digital and green economy. More than 70% of participants in our Digital Learning Lab programs identified as underrepresented or underserved, including adults with disabilities, women, 2SLGBTQI+ and BIPOC participants.

In addition to helping dozens of employers acquire the digitally-skilled talent they need to meet their business goals, we built our own range of digital tools and resources to optimize workforce development, including the Digital Pathways Platform to support jobseekers, a foundational Digital Skills Hub for digital competency development, a free digital skills assessment and more. The Digital Pathways Platform garnered over 5,260 users, of which over 2,180 were considered ongoing ‘active’ users.

*Note that our Digital Learning Lab was previously referred to as our ‘Capacity Building Portfolio’.

OBJECTIVES

• Develop a high potential commercialization pipeline, grow the AI talent pool and help position Canadian companies to lead in emerging market opportunities. (completed)
• Confirm strategy and targeting for deploying Phase II investment for PCAIS Commercialization stream funding across full five-year term. (completed)
• Develop global partnership pipelines to attract follow-on program investments. (completed)

ACHIEVEMENTS

Within our Digital Innovation Lab, Pan-Canadian AI Strategy (PCAIS) funds were committed throughout calendar 2023 to support our Horizon AI program across Technology Commercialization and Global Advantage streams.

The Technology Commercialization stream saw aggregate investments of $61M, $23.7M of which was from DIGITAL — representing a nearly 3x leverage ratio of DIGITAL funds. Investments in our PCAIS programming are using AI to target narrow vein mineral deposits, manage hospitalization risk and deliver better home care, support better and more equitable access to wound care, revolutionize clinical trials and bridge in-home health care gaps.

Our Global Advantage stream saw aggregate investments of $11.8M, $2.75M of which is from DIGITAL – again demonstrating industry’s confidence in the programing and results delivered through DIGITAL.

OBJECTIVES

• Support Government of Canada priority missions in greening the economy and supply chain resilience. (completed)
• Leverage our program architecture, collaborative network and experience to develop new programs or missions. (completed)
• Begin codifying a methodology and pipeline for mission-driven innovation. (completed)

ACHIEVEMENTS

Our ongoing support of Government of Canada priority missions is demonstrated throughout our co-investments across initiatives that are supporting greening Canada’s economy and increasing the resilience of our supply chains. As part of greening the economy, our respective natural resources projects are contributing to a low-carbon, digital future, including helping to decarbonize supply chains. This includes our support for initiatives and projects that make important contributions to the Canadian Critical Minerals’ Strategy, including using geospatial data sensors, and smart devices to find new ore deposits while minimizing the carbon and ecological footprint of exploration activities.

This past year, we also began to codify our methodology for mission-driven innovation. We converted a mission focused on addressing the need to increase Canada’s housing supply into a dedicated initiative supported by the Government of B.C., which selected DIGITAL to lead a three-year, $9M strategic housing initiative to accelerate the increase in housing supply by harnessing data-driven digital innovation to help grow housing production capacity.

OBJECTIVES

• Identify and build a list of flagship digital enterprises with potential in breakthrough product categories. (completed)
• Continue to support capacity-building of Canadian SMEs through inclusion in project teams, IP awareness and education, cybersecurity and product development championing. (completed)

ACHIEVEMENTS

We identified and worked with several ‘high potential’ enterprises to support their growth and competitiveness in global markets:

• Hyper-Growth Inaugural Cohort: We supported our Members, AlayaCare and Clarius Mobile Health, as two out of eight organizations selected for the original cohort of the Government of Canada’s Hyper Growth program.
• Support for SMEs: We continue to help SMEs optimize product-market fit with customers, identify international potential, and present opportunities for these companies to learn from others, such as when FluidAI Medical joined the Medtronic-led Continuous Connected Patient Care project.
• Showcasing Products and Services: We focused on broad-based opportunities to showcase our SME members, such as:
  • Leading or supporting the nomination of members for high-profile awards, such as Ideon Technologies selected to receive the Governor General Innovation Award and WELL Health being recognized as Life Sciences BC Company of the Year 2023.
  • Introducing organizations and their solutions to governments, international agencies, and decision-makers, such as through our work with Firstline and the WHO AWaRe Antibiotic Book, which now sees this solution being used by physicians in nearly every country around the world.
  • Establishing a formal partnership with CAN Health Network to accelerate commercial pathways for health solutions developed via DIGITAL’s support.
  • High-potential health tech organizations are exploring opportunities such as SeamlessMD having its solution adopted by hospitals and healthcare systems in B.C. and across Canada and the U.S.

We also helped build capacity for SMEs in critical areas including IP and cybersecurity awareness and education through educational webinars focused on IP and data that garnered ~1,900 registrations (55% of whom were SMEs). An additional +1,650 organizations accessed the recorded webinars from our YouTube channel for a total audience in excess of 3,500. We also brought in key organizations to our Members-only webinars, including Innovation Asset Collective (IAC), Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), IP Ontario (IPON), the International Intellectual Property Forum – Quebec (FORPIQ), Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute and Vector Institute.

We continued to build leadership development capacity through our partnership with Simon Fraser University (SFU) on the Digital Innovation and Leadership Initiative (DIAL). The program has graduated over 600 professionals and leaders across the forestry, health, biotech, government and not-for-profit sector, equipping senior industry leaders with the skills essential to lead in a digital world. Alumni stories include leaders from YVR Airport working on the airport’s digital twinning project, the head of outpatients for St. Paul’s Hospital and senior systems analysts for Canfor.

OBJECTIVES

• Produce a new Diversity and Inclusion plan that helps foster fully inclusive opportunities in Canadian innovation for equity-seeking groups. (completed)
• Support Indigenous reconciliation through deliberate efforts to include Indigenous participation in our projects. (completed)

ACHIEVEMENTS

During this past year, we supported the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action by continuing to support Indigenous participation in our projects. In the Digital Learning Lab alone, 10 Indigenous organizations are involved in projects with 5 projects led by Indigenous organizations, and our general programming benefiting over 1,000 Indigenous participants this past year.

We supported incorporating Indigenous Ways of Knowing into digital competency frameworks and designing and delivering tailored micro-credentials. For example, we worked with Pinnguaq to support the co-design and delivery of a six-week digital literacy micro-credential, which was co-designed with subject matter experts, educators, community leaders and representatives from the target population. The result is a comprehensive and culturally relevant program that incorporates Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit principles and foundational digital skills training.

Our talent programming is contributing to economic reconciliation by supporting Indigenous-led training providers and programs now spanning coast-to-coast-to-coast. This past year alone, our support of Indigenous-led organizations such as PLATO Testing, the First Nations Technology Council, Pinnguaq, Hadia Gwaii Media Collective and SmartICE are helping build the capacity of Indigenous communities and resulting in meaningful diversity to Canada’s digital economy.

We also welcomed our first Métis Director to our Board, and remain committed to promoting diversity, inclusion and Indigenous reconciliation across every element of our governance, operations, membership, management systems and projects.

OBJECTIVES

• Develop a formal International Partnership Strategy that builds relationships with complementary innovation enterprises and initiatives. (completed)
• Leverage relationships with the Cascadia Innovation Corridor, continue our work in India and our MOU with Innovate U.K. (completed)

ACHIEVEMENTS

Focused and intentional action is critical to successful and meaningful international engagements.

Our Global Strategy is informed by our accumulated experiences in global arenas, including with innovation organizations and leaders in the United Kingdom, France, Mexico, the EU and Asia. With this in mind, our Global Strategy focuses on two geographical target areas that build on our engagement and successes to date:

• The Cascadia Innovation Corridor, extending this from B.C. through to Mexico; and
• The Indo-Pacific Region, with a special focus on ASEAN nations.

One early result of our proactive global focus is the Memorandum of Agreement between Canada with the Philippines to track illegal fishing vessels using satellite technology, as enabled by technology from an early DIGITAL project.

Our international engagements remain ongoing, with over 15+ touchpoints including hosted delegations from various foreign innovation agencies and trade missions from Japan, Mexico, ASEAN nations, the United Kingdom and the United States. Notable engagements included hosting the Canadian Ambassador to the European Union, Ailish Campbell; hosting ambassadors and trade commissioners from the U.K., Mexico, the Czech Republic, France, Japan and Israel; and opening the Vancouver roadshow event for Hannover Messe 2025. We additionally participated in international-based conferences including the Asia Business Advisory Council for APEC, the Cascadia Innovation Corridor, the Canada-in-Asia Conference in Singapore, the Asia Business Leaders Advisory Council (ABLAC) and the Canada-Mexico Dialogue in Vancouver.

OBJECTIVES

• Continue to develop digital tools and services that deliver better value programming and Member services. (in progress)

ACHIEVEMENTS

Throughout the year, our efforts were dedicated to the development of digital tools and services that facilitated the delivery of effective, efficient programming, and Member services. Services developed include:

• Expanding our Community Portal to include proposal submission and tracking functionality, as well as service-delivery-related assets such as policies, forms, and templates.
• Socializing our educational webinars for SMEs focused on IP and data reaching over ~1,900 registrants and and +1,650 organizations via our YouTube archives (55% of whom are SMEs).
• Our pilot Digital Pathways Platform, which reached over 5,260 jobseekers and numerous employment services organizations to help navigate digital careers.
• Our foundational Digital Skills Hub provided Member companies with the ability to assess their teams’ digital skills and readiness for digital adoption while offering access to free digital skills training resources.
• Knowledge mobilization materials produced from our training projects, encompassing playbooks and lessons learned across our training initiatives. These collective tools are instrumental in helping our ecosystem discover, train and retain skilled talent.

An invaluable part of our value programming for Members, Associates and our ecosystem at-large has been our ongoing educational webinar series focused on IP and data. This past year, our webinars garnered ~1,900 registrations (55% of whom were SMEs). An additional +1,650 organizations accessed the recorded webinars from our YouTube channel for a total audience in excess of 3,500. We also brought in key organizations to our Members-only webinars, including Innovation Asset Collective (IAC), Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), IP Ontario (IPON), the International Intellectual Property Forum – Quebec (FORPIQ), Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute and Vector Institute.

OBJECTIVES

• Formalize development of our Specialty Program services and begin business development efforts. (completed)

ACHIEVEMENTS

Our COVID-19 program demonstrated the value of the Global Innovation Clusters (GIC) program as a delivery vehicle for policy and program goals beyond those in the GIC program. This year we expanded our investors to include Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC); and the B.C. Ministry of Housing, which announced a three-year, $9M investment with DIGITAL as part of the Ministry’s Digital Housing Construction Initiative. 

OBJECTIVES

• Update succession plans for all executive positions and work with staff to enhance career development. (in progress)

ACHIEVEMENTS

Our diverse team of experienced executive leaders, developing leaders and staff continue to exhibit tremendous growth potential for our organization. Throughout the past year, we have actively recruited and promoted key individuals to strengthen our ability to deliver excellence. Succession plans for all members of the Leadership Team will be completed by the end of March 2024 with development plans for identified successors completed by the end of June 2024.