New CECR to stimulate digital media commercialization in Waterloo region

Digital media companies will soon be able to kick the tires of new technologies and collaborate with researchers when the two hubs of a Corridor for Advancing Canadian Digital Media (CACDM) open later this year. The centres in Kitchener and Stratford ON will offer a full suite of services and collaborative opportunities aimed at giving companies the opportunity to incorporate leading-edge hardware and software into their latest offerings.

A handful of regional heavyweights including Open Text, Christie Digital Systems Canada Inc, Research In Motion, COM DEV and Agfa Healthcare have combined to provide more than $50 million in cash and in-kind towards the venture. On January 22, the federal government announced that it will invest an additional $10. 7 million in over four years through the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) program (see chart).

"The concept is to knit together a cluster of digital media excellence across the country," says Avvey Peters, executive director of communications and government relations for Communitech, the high-tech industry association for the Kitchener-Waterloo region. "In this region, we do digital media quite differently than Montreal or Toronto. They focus on content creation, gaming, film and television. We do the tools, applications and technologies that create all that great stuff."

"We'll use the facilities for research, for a visualization centre and as an incubator where companies are surrounded by mentors," says Gerry Remers, president and COO of Christie Digital, a Kitchener-based developer and manufacturer of visual projection systems and one of the Corridor's founding industry partners.

"Christie will be providing a 12 to 16 channel, high definition-type cave with ultra high resolution and multiple windows. We'll make it available to researchers, the business community and the artistic community."

Christie Canada is a division of Christie, Cypress CA, a privately held company and wholly-owned subsidiary of Ushio Inc, Japan. The Canadian operations are built upon the former Electrohome Projection Systems division that was purchased by Christie in 1999. It holds the company's global R&D and manufacturing mandate and plans to place some of its own researchers on the CACDM site to work collaboratively with others on research questions pertinent to solid state devices and new forms of displays.

Described as the largest concentration of digital research in Canada, Kitchener will be home to the largest of the two hubs – a digital media convergence centre in the downtown core. It will be equipped with the latest in visualization hardware and software, business start-up services and office space for companies in the start-up or pre start-up phase. The Stratford Institute – which is home to a new campus of the Univ of Waterloo – is described as a research, education and convergence centre specializing in digital media research and focus more on content creation. It will provide space for collaborators to work together and be a site for conferences and workshops. Areas of research will include mobile, wireless, sound, video, gaming, web design and animation.

CECA funding will flow through Communitech and the Stratford Institute. Kevin Tuer, Commuitech's chief technical officer in residence, has been named CACDM's executive director. The CECA award is only the latest digital media investment made in Ontario. Last year the Ontario government invested $9 million in digital media research and training programs through the Ontario College of Art and Design.

The province also invested $10 million to help establish a new University of Waterloo campus in Stratford, which will house the Stratford Institute.

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