BACKGROUND
The Surrey Innovation Boulevard is a partnership of health, business, higher education and government that brings a collaborative approach to creating healthcare technologies. The initiative focuses on three areas:
- Medical devices
- Independent living
- Digital health
The aim is to achieve four goals:
- Improve health outcomes
- Implement intelligent solutions for the healthcare system
- Attract talented clinicians and researchers
- Grow companies in healthcare technology and service sectors
Main features include:
- Within one square mile of City Centre
- Network of health institutions (healthcare technology a $308 billion industry annually)
- Four universities and 108 businesses
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Results:
- Mayor’s Health Tech Working Group (30 regional experts & thought leaders)
- Neurotech lab – Neuroscience & medical imaging labs
- Digital Health Hub – Digital health focused incubator at SFU
- Health Tech Connex – Health Technology accelerator
- Hosted industry event with 300 executives from health tech sector
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Partners
- Simon Fraser University
- LifeSciences BC
- National Research Council
- BC Technology Industry Association
- Fraser Health Authority
- Kwantlen Polytechnic University
- Lark Group
- PCI
- Healthtech Connex
- Surrey Memorial Hospital Foundation
- University of British Columbia
- BC Cancer Agency
- British Columbia Institute of Technology
- Mitacs
- Conquer Mobile
- Digital Health Hub
PLATFORM
Surrey First will take the approach that has worked so well with the healthcare industry and diversify it into other areas of high growth to provide a strong base of well-paying, high value knowledge-based jobs here in Surrey.
These will include:
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Agriculture Technology
- With the Agriculture Innovation Living Lab, processes to grow healthy, sustainable foods will be developed.
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Cleantech
- Surrey is home to 10% of BC’s clean energy industry, and Surrey will work with industry to create a Centre of Excellence for Clean Technology at Simon Fraser University.
- An accelerator for promising start-ups within the cleantech centre will be supported by the City of Surrey.
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Social Innovation
- Surrey will host a Social Innovation Summit, provide a $300,000 Social Innovation Fund and provide a property-tax holiday for Community Contribution Corporations that locate within Surrey.
These initiatives will create a cluster of businesses within these fields to create a critical mass of companies that collaborate on shared interests, cross-seed innovation and knowledge, and break down silos to take a multi-disciplinary approach to industry challenges. Based on the experience with the healthcare sector, we can expect businesses to relocate their Research and Development centres to Surrey in order to be close to the benefits provided by the Innovation Boulevard, which will include students from Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Simon Fraser University, who can then in turn gain experience and build networks within their desired fields.