At the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, UBC President and university-industry partnership leaders explore how collaboration can fuel growth and opportunity
UBC President and Vice-Chancellor Dr. Benoit-Antoine Bacon joined business, government and industry leaders at the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade (GVBOT) on Oct. 15 for a conversation on how purposeful partnerships between universities, industry, and government can drive innovation and economic growth across British Columbia.
“Partnerships that are powered by people with the expertise to turn ideas into solutions. Partnerships that create new companies, new jobs, and new opportunities,” he said. “Partnerships that strengthen communities here in BC and across Canada.”
He noted that UBC, one of Canada’s most research-intensive universities, attracted a record $936 million in research funding last year. Discoveries from UBC researchers have also formed the basis of more than 270 spin-off companies whose products, services, and treatments have generated an estimated $13 billion in sales across multiple sectors.
“Here’s the truth: B.C. has everything it takes to lead—the resources, the talent, the ideas, the ambition,” he said to a packed room of nearly 300. “But our future depends on partnerships and collaboration, because no one sector can solve our biggest challenges alone.”
Spotlighting purposeful partnerships
The keynote set the stage for a panel discussion featuring three UBC collaborators whose work Dr. Bacon highlighted in his remarks: Dr. Véronique Lecault, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of AbCellera, Dr. Raymond Ng, Director of UBC’s Data Science Institute, and Dr. Greg Dipple, Co-founder and Head of Science at Arca Climate Technologies.
Moderated by GVBOT President and CEO Bridgitte Anderson, the discussion explored how collaboration between universities, industry, and government can accelerate discovery and innovation.
Reflecting on AbCellera’s beginnings at UBC, Dr. Lecault—who helped launch the company in 2012 while she was a PhD student in Dr. Carl Hansen’s lab—spoke about the early challenges of building a biotechnology company in Canada. She credited UBC for providing the environment and programs that allowed their research to evolve into a company that could stay and grow in B.C.
“We were told many times actually that we couldn’t build a company like that in Canada,” she said. “But we looked around and saw all these great technologies, awesome talent, curiosity, and thought, well, aren’t these the ingredients that we actually need to make that happen? And we went for it.”
Dr. Ng spoke about his work with clinicians and health authorities to develop machine-learning models that improve patient care. He noted that collaboration with universities can help smaller companies keep pace with rapid technological change.
“AI is changing so fast,” said Dr. Ng. “Every six months there’s a new model. Unless you’re a big company, it’s hard to keep up—that’s why partnerships with universities matter.”
Dr. Dipple, who is also professor emeritus in UBC’s department of earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences, described how the university’s entrepreneurial support helped get Arca off the ground. Working with Innovation UBC gave his team the time to refine their business model and build the company—time that a typical venture-capital model may not have afforded—before bringing their innovation to market.
“We looked at a number of different incubator programmes,” he said. “But Innovation UBC gave us not only the background we needed to start what is still a very long journey, but it was also a patient program.”
An invitation to partner with UBC
President Bacon closed the session by inviting business, government, and community partners to partner with UBC to translate research into real-world impact.
“Our motto at UBC is ‘tuum est,’ which means ‘it is yours,’” he said. “The University of British Columbia is the University for British Columbia.”
Learn more about how to partner with UBC here.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.