Lack of funding and talent limiting growth in Ontario’s mobile content sector

Less than 5% of experts in Ontario's mobile content sector believe the province's wireless industry is a leader in entrepreneurship and innovation, and only 20% agree Ontario has a solid global hold on data-centric mobile devices, such as the Blackberry. Despite the poor showing, survey respondents say there are things the province can do to improve the situation.The preliminary survey results, released to Tech Media Reports by the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre, solicited industry views on how Ontario can become a centre of excellence for mobile content and services. The feedback will assist MEIC - which is led by several Ontario academic institutions and mobile and content companies - in developing an industry-led research lab with a focus on mobile content, service and applications. The full survey results will be released later next month.The survey suggests that Ontario has much work ahead to achieve its goal of becoming a centre of excellence for mobile content. Businesses identified the need for greater smartphone penetration, greater access to 3G and LTE networks, and lower data costs as integral to their growth over the next five years. However, nearly 40% reported that access to a larger talent pool of skilled industry designers and other professionals was also critical."There needs to be a stronger collaboration between educators to build not just developers, but a workforce in the mobile industry that is well-rounded in understanding all the aspects of the mobile industry, whether it be in licensing or technology or design. There needs to be an almost virtual team of educators who come together," says the report's author Ray Newal, president of Jigsee Inc."OCAD (Ontario College of Art and Design) is an obvious choice for design, but is there a cluster that could target all of the issues, such as the University of Waterloo and Ryerson on the engineering side, the University of Toronto and York on the business front? We have to go a little bit deeper in this area," he adds.MEIC coordinator Michele Perras agrees, saying businesses are seeking skilled individuals with a range of skills. "Not only are they requiring engineering skills, but also creative talent to go along with that to develop new conceptual models. This is a great opportunity for us because it represents a whole new opportunity for us to fill that need. Because of the partnership with industry and academia we have essentially created a brokerage, where the industry tells us what they want and we're able to fill that gap."Funding options too bureaucraticAccess to funding was identified as another major hurdle to Ontario's growth in mobile content. Newal says government funding is accessible only to companies "who have the wherewithal to navigate the bureaucracy." What's needed, he says, is a system that makes funding almost as accessible as student loans."That's part of the challenge. The cost of entry into the mobile world is a lot lower than it used to be. Because things are no longer so on-deck/off-deck centric, any mobile developer can go buy an iPhone and start playing around at home and build something of value. They are no longer forced to pay the fees to carriers to get on-deck," he explains."We're not talking about being able to help big companies, we're talking about young people who have fresh ideas who understand social media. Funds need to be more accessible- because these people aren't' going to waste their time looking for government funding, they're going to spend their time developing code," Newal adds.Newal was commissioned to identify barriers to growth in the market - rather than develop solutions - although the report will offer some insights into transforming Ontario into a centre for mobile innovation. One suggestion is to create partnerships between industry, schools, financial institutions and venture capitalists."Governments are not good at making things simple for businesses," says Newal. "Educational institutions foster innovations. Financial institutions are a reach mechanism- they're able to cover a lot of ground. They're more logical front-line. I suggest we develop a partnership within those players that is governed similarly to the way we handle student loans. Gear it to younger folks and make them qualify."MEIC is comprised of five educational institutions, including the OCAD and Ryerson University, as well as 31 mobile-related companies such as Telus Mobility and IBM. It received funding from the Ontario Media Development Corp. under the Entertainment and Creative Clusters Partnership Fund. MEIC was recently granted a second round of funding, which will begin in March 2009.

Lack of funding and talent limiting growth in Ontario’s mobile content sector

Broadcast | December 10, 2008

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