PLENARY SESSION

ENERGY

Mark Romof

The Canadian perspective: How technological innovation can make energy companies more competitive

The Energy Cluster Session was fortunate enough to include the experiences of Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE), whose president, Mark Romof, explained that its objective is to increase regional economic growth by creating new market opportunities and by commercialising leading discoveries or technologies. Hence, one of its priorities is to stimulate technology transfer among the different players involved in innovation, with the hope of providing talented individuals with professional opportunities.

KEY IDEAS

• The first step is to establish a culture of innovation
“A culture of innovation must be developed among the public. This change of mentality had to start from the top, through strong political leadership that could develop and execute an effective strategy.

• The innovation process requires “a contact sport and a team sport” among the various players involved
“If you really want to develop and implement innovative strategies, then you have to collaborate with others. One of the most delicate tasks is to getting the business world and academia to work together to move from competition to collaboration.”

• We work to train and retain talented individuals
“The OCE is training a new generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers and business leaders, and providing these individuals with professional opportunities. We aim to preserve the products and new technologies that we develop, but also the new innovation professionals that we train; at the same time, we try to steal the best talent possible from the rest of the world.”