Eight months ago, I moved back to Ottawa after spending 15 years in Waterloo Region. The city is much the same as I remember from my days as a Carleton graduate student. The Byward Market still teems with tourists, and is a magnet for university students. It still pays to invest in a full-length winter coat and boots (this year’s mild winter notwithstanding). And the legacy of Canada’s world-leading telecom industry looms large.
I elected to set up Communitech’s Ottawa office with very little fanfare – after all, it’s tough to take meetings in the spare bedroom of your condo. But I’ve since been offered a hoteling space with our partners at the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC), which I gratefully accepted, and am thoroughly engaged in advancing Communitech’s two key Ottawa objectives:
- Raise the profile of the Waterloo Region technology cluster with key decision makers and partners in Ottawa, and elsewhere in Canada
- Provide a window into the great things happening at Waterloo Region technology companies
Over the coming year, I’ll be asking Waterloo Region tech companies to provide their insights about the key opportunities and challenges facing our industry, so that we can relay those to government. I’ll be sharing company success stories and the Waterloo Region model of collaborative capitalism with our partners. And I’ll be blogging about my reflections here.
So if you’re building or growing a Waterloo Region tech company, and need some help on the Hill, know that the Communitech Ottawa office is here to help. You can reach me at avvey_at_communitech_dot_ca