John York

Transcription

[ Background music ] >> Narrator: Opened in November 2010, Innovation York is York University's public face and conduit between York researchers and their applied research partners in the private and public sectors. Based in York Region, Innovation York allows university researchers to work with regional and global partners to accelerate the creation and development of new products and services. >> Innovation York is to provide commercialization services. It's to get new products to market based on our great research. >> Even though most people have been to university, they're really reluctant to sort of, you know, wander into the university setting and sort of go, what do I do? Where do I park? How do I find people? >> Narrator: To overcome these barriers, Innovation York staff broker relationships and provide a single point of contact. >> Having the access to university professors and the academic connection gives a tremendous boost to your ability to draw from innovation and the cutting edge before it actually sometimes even hits the publications. >> There are certain things that large companies can bring, such as education around intellectual property and project management. There's ideas that come from small and medium enterprises that can help advance those projects. Academics can work on specific aspects. And by working together, you create a community, you create a harmony of ideas, and will be able to advance the projects -- and have spinoffs. >> So healthcare faces two huge dilemmas: the burden of illness and the rising cost of health care. By York University coming out into our industry, out into our field, we can work more collaboratively. >> But it goes further. There's a lot of issues that need the attention of social innovators -- new policies to deal with health care, the environment. So we're also going to look at the impact of social research, through our knowledge mobilization services. >> It's one thing to say we partner or that we get along with one another and that we have ability to work together. It's much more significant if you can actually physically do that and make a point of getting together and creating a space -- or being within a space -- where collaboration can actually happen. [ Background music ] >> Narrator: Innovation York also advances Ontario's innovation agenda through its relationships with other organizations based in the Markham Convergence Centre. >> What's great about this is that we have a structure in the Markham Convergence Centre. We have several organizations who come together under one roof, and certainly Innovation York is the foundation of this in many respects. >> The Convergence Centre says we've heard that you want to be part of the future. We've heard that you want to be innovative leaders. And so we will be here, as a group, to support you. >> It's now a very urgent time for us to get going, and take action, and to build out partnerships and to move them to the future. [ Background music ] >> Counterintuitively, we're finding that students from a variety of faculties -- Science & Engineering and Schulich students -- who never meet on this campus -- get excited and interact with each other and some of our partners from industry at the Convergence Centre. That's what Innovation York is designed to do.