Developing a technology economy is making the rounds again in Powell River through a proposed partnership between governments and educational institutions.
At Powell River Regional District’s regular board meeting on January 25, Powell River Educational Services Society, Vancouver Island University and City of Powell River asked the board to join in a grant application that, if successful, will develop a plan to create economic growth in the region through the creative economy.
“Creative economy is a very nebulous term; it has a broad range of activities,” said City of Powell River manager of economic development Scott Randolph. “It’s one of those challenging terms because it deals with a lot of intangibles.”
The BC government recognizes arts and culture, film and television, music, publishing and interactive and digital media industries as sectors in the creative economy.
The partners would contribute $5,000 each to match a possible Island Coastal Economic Trust (ICET) grant. Tla’amin Nation has not committed to participating.
The funds would be used to plan a strategy that links Powell River’s cultural sector to the creative and technology economies.
“We should focus on what assets the community has that you can use technology to develop further, or create technological growth or innovation out of it,” said Randolph. “The area we've spent the most time developing over the last 20 or more years is the culture assets.”
Stakeholders, including the regional district and city, have invested heavily and countless volunteer hours have been spent developing cultural assets into what Randolph said is a fully rounded economy sector.
After hearing the request for funding, regional district chair and ICET board member Patrick Brabazon said “the plan to plan” was short on details.
“I want to hear what I'll call hard planning,” said Brabazon. “With the money in hand, we'll do this or we'll do that. ICET will be properly skeptical and they'll want to see some real evidence that there will be deliverables.”
Creating a technology economy has been an elusive concept since fibre optics came to town in 2015 with notions to use it for resident attraction and economic revitalization.
In April 2017, the idea of a “tech hub” in the Townsite Market under construction at Marine and Ash avenues was being discussed. It was soon put on the back burner after an application for funding from Powell River Community Forest was rejected in the 2017 spring funding announcements and not sought in the fall funding round.
“We did want to look at a tech hub or a hub of innovation and we thought that would be attractive to tech entrepreneurs,” said School District 47 superintendent and Powell River Educational Services Society executive director Jay Yule. “The response we had from community forest was there wasn't enough of a plan and research around how this could help the community.”
The plan parties now want to develop will look at what is the best framework to move in a direction of harnessing assets and innovation that exists here, according to Yule.
“That is where we didn't have enough research and information to make funders feel comfortable,” he said.
Randolph said over the last year and a half there have been discussions among stakeholders, including tech entrepreneurs, about how to foster growth in the technology sector and possibly develop a centre for innovation.
“We’ve seen some communities just set up tech-innovation centres and hope something happens,” said Randolph. “We want to be focused.”
