Driving NB’s Innovation Economy with Data

The NB Social Policy Research Network wants to improve the quality and timeliness of information the government uses to make decisions, and programs use to make improvements.

The MaRS Data Catalyst tracks Ontario’s Innovation economy to inform policies and programs that support the ecosystem.  Data Catalyst and the Ontario Innovation Data Partnership seek to reveal what is driving growth & innovation, improve coordination & collaboration across organizations & programs, and map the touch points in the ecosystem.

Because our own government invests millions in innovation, NBSPRN has initiated a partnership with MaRS and the programs in the region (accelerators, incubators, investors, etc) to establish a Shared Data Partnership, linking disparate datasets.  Once developed it is our intention to apply the model and expand the platform to include the social sector. You can see that Data Catalyst has already begun work in the area of Health.

In early March the NB Research and Innovation Council held a meeting at Planet Hatch where we heard from Joe Greenwood of the MaRS Data Catalyst  program regarding the Ontario Innovation Data Partnership.

At that meeting a number of individuals expressed an interest in taking a leadership role in establishing an Innovation Data Partnership.  In April NBSPRN offered to play a coordinating role along with the Pond Deshpande Centre.  At the end of April the interested individuals participated in a meeting with Joe Greenwood and Alec Miller from Data Catalyst to get introduced to the concept. At the end of May another meeting was held.

At the end of June/early July we will workshop a proposal, and agree on shared measures and data gathering methodology.

The initial pilot is open to more participants and currently includes representation from:

Pond Deshpande Centre

Planet Hatch

Springboard Atlantic

Venn Innovation

UNB TME

BioNB

If you are interested in entering into a pilot Innovation Data Partnership, or for more information contact nick.scott@rrps-nb-sprn.ca