Canadian biz, academic leaders address ‘commercialization deficit’

CommerceLab.ca, a new initiative supported by the Canadian Digital Media Network through the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) program, is bringing together a number of business and academic advisors to tackle Canada’s innovation deficit. Serving as advisory board members to CommerceLab, the team will focus on accelerating the adoption of Canadian digital media research and innovation in three fast-growing fields: gamification, user experience (UX) design, and interactive display technology.

Launched in 2013, CommerceLab was created as a response to the lagging productivity and innovation in Canada resulting from low levels of investment in private-sector research and development. The CommerceLab Advisory Board’s mandate is to help sharpen the focus on this so-called “innovation deficit” by increasing the rate at which transformational research and innovation already present within Canadian universities is adopted—a challenge it describes as Canada’s “commercialization deficit.”

CommerceLab is calling on academic and business leaders across a wide range of sectors to help power the adoption of new digital innovations in Canada