Innovation is Truly Unlimited in Mississauga

How is Mississauga accomplishing this?

Amongst Canada’s most innovative cities, Mississauga is leading the way by investing in people and making them the key driver to long-term economic success. With a population that is approaching 800,000 residents, Mississauga is a diverse, young and growing knowledge-based innovative ecosystem that is constantly engineering future geniuses through post-secondary institutions like The University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College.

It’s no surprise that Mississauga is in the conversation to be part of the next hub for innovation to rival cities in the United States. Located in the Toronto-Waterloo Innovation Corridor, connected by an extensive network of highways, railways and Canada’s largest airport – Mississauga is prideful of its strong advanced manufacturing, financial services, life sciences, and information technology and communication sectors. The city is home to over 90,000 businesses that employ more than 438,000 people.

According to a Report prepared by McKensey & Company, Mississauga (located in the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor) has the potential to become one of the world’s top innovation ecosystems.  This news couldn’t come at a better time as the city’s transit options are expanding across the Greater Toronto Area, booming culture and event scenes, sports arenas, dazzling waterfront and more than 327 kilometres of trails.

What does this all mean?

Mississauga along with cities in the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor have the right ingredients to strengthen the country’s GDP and narrow the prosperity gap, which could provide new jobs, offer more career options and opportunities, provide stability and security while improving outcomes for newcomers – continuing to add to Mississauga’s continued growth and thriving economy.

The City is focused on having the right infrastructure in place where companies, businesses, community partners and talent, both young and seasoned can meet, innovate and grow. For example, the Xerox Research Centre Canada is a 27,000 sq. foot innovative Centre at the Sheridan Science and Technology  Campus that houses the Research Innovation and Commercialization (RIC) Centre & Green Centre of Canada and the Ontario Centre of Excellence (OCE), who are dedicated to helping start-ups bring their concept to commercialization and for engineers to test and develop advanced technologies to address  climate change, medical devices, advanced manufacturing and connectivity.

In addition to this, Mississauga will soon be home to a state-of-the-art innovation hub with the development of the National Research Council (NRC) Mississauga Research Facility that is being built in the Sheridan Science and Technology Park, adjacent to the Xerox Research Centre of Canada.

The facility will become a hub for advanced materials and development in Canada and a catalyst for advanced materials innovation and commercialization. This is NRC’s first investment in the Greater Toronto Area and will create a very special opportunity for Mississauga to attract new investment and help our existing businesses grow and succeed. The facility is scheduled to open in the fall of 2019 and will be a great addition to Mississauga’s expanding innovation ecosystem.

The City is also taking part in other innovative initiatives such as:

• Sheridan College’s Innovation Hub – partnership with Sheridan College is training up and coming visionaries through its Innovation Hub that brings together a diverse range of entrepreneurs and innovators to provide start-ups with technical support and data to help them thrive.

• Smart Cities – currently the City is working with the public to make Mississauga a Smart City, which will completely transform the way we use data and communications technologies to increase operational efficiency, improve government services and quality of life such as public Wi-fi, open data, Advanced Traffic Management, mobile applications and an Internet of Things (IoT) fibre network that will help with everything from traffic management to air quality.

For more information on Mississauga’s innovative ecosystem, please visit www.thefutureisunlimited.ca/

Background

Mississauga has a robust and diverse business community that makes up some of the largest knowledge-based sectors in Canada. These sectors include Life Sciences, Advanced Manufacturing (Aerospace, Automotive, Clean Tech and Food and Beverage), Information and Communications Technology and Financial Services and Real Estate.