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Partnership with Innovation Birmingham creates bridge to Europe

Entrepreneurs from DMZ and Innovation Birmingham will take part in the Next Big Idea Contest
September 16, 2015
From left: David Lock; Sheldon Levy; Michael Chan; and David Hardman

Photo: Signing an MOU at Innovation Birmingham are, from left, David Lock, Chair, Innovation Birmingham; Ryerson President Sheldon Levy; Ontario Minister of Trade Michael Chan; and David Hardman, CEO, Innovation Birmingham.

A new partnership with an incubator in Birmingham, U.K., will expand global opportunities for young entrepreneurs at the DMZ at Ryerson University, the top-ranked university-based incubator in Canada and fifth in the world. This week, President Sheldon Levy and Michael Chan, the Ontario Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade, visited the Innovation Birmingham Campus (external link)  to sign a memorandum of understanding.

The MoU will set the context for a program of joint initiatives that will enable DMZ entrepreneurs to access the U.K. and continental European markets through Birmingham, and will help tech entrepreneurs based in Birmingham and the city region to gain invaluable insight and connections into North America.

The Birmingham agreement follows successful partnerships between Ryerson, the Bombay Stock Exchange Institute and South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand to help entrepreneurs fast-track their startups and connect with mentors, customers and investors internationally.

“This initiative is an important evolution of our global partnerships that drive entrepreneurship,” said President Sheldon Levy. “As Canada’s university leader in entrepreneurship, w​e’re delighted to partner with Innovation Birmingham and create a new bridge between Canada and England that offers international opportunities to ​young innovators.”

Ontario’s Minister of Trade Michael Chan said: “The signing of an MoU between the DMZ; one of the leading tech incubators in Canada and indeed the whole of North America, and Innovation Birmingham’s leading U.K. tech incubator, will create significant global opportunities. The collaborations that could result from this new partnership should be both highly innovative and lucrative.”

The program of joint initiatives is designed to create opportunities for tech start-ups to access new global markets, scale their business within accelerated timescales and create new high-value jobs in both locations. It promotes borderless innovation, creating communities of interest, not confined by geography. Meetings, group discussions and global hackathon events will take place via high definition video conferencing technology, which is already in place at the Innovation Birmingham Campus and the DMZ.

“When visiting Toronto’s DMZ last month, it was evident just how similar the ethos, community and outputs were to the Innovation Birmingham Campus,” said David Hardman, CEO of Innovation Birmingham. “This partnership will create benchmarking and strategic opportunities for both incubation centres, as well as opening up a wealth of global possibilities for the tech entrepreneurs based in each location.”

One of the major initiatives to be delivered via this partnership is the Next Big Idea Contest — a sponsored competition to enable tech entrepreneurs from each location to spend a fortnight based in the sister incubation centre. During the two-week stay, the competition winners will be able to meet with business advisers and scope out ways to expand their businesses on a global scale.

Other initiatives will include an ongoing program of peer-to-peer discussions, expert mentoring sessions and keynote presentations from regional business leaders. Representatives from the UKTI, the High Commission of Canada and NatWest Bank will work alongside the entrepreneurs-in-residence and incubation centre managers at the two centres to facilitate connections.

There are currently 84 seed-stage tech businesses at the DMZ, while there are 132 startups and SMEs based at the Innovation Birmingham Campus, 90 per cent of which are tech.

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