Canada Dominates List of Best University Business Incubators in 2015
Two university business incubators in Alberta have been named the third and fourth best university business incubators in North America by the 2015 North American UBI Global Awards.
Innovate Calgary and TEC Edmonton earned third and fourth respectively.
UBI Global is a global benchmarking company for business incubators and accelerators.
The third-ranked Innovate Calgary was praised for exceptional performance in competence development and post incubation performance indicators. TEC Edmonton performed well in providing value for client indicators, in addition to positively developing the local economy by catalyzing job creation.
“This award demonstrates the value of organizations such as Innovate Calgary and TEC Edmonton in supporting the University of Calgary and University of Alberta to extract economic and social value from the outstanding research at each institution in addition to driving the entrepreneurial spirit within our community,” says Peter Garrett, president, Innovate Calgary.
“The UBI Index awards to TEC Edmonton and Innovate Calgary are a key indication that Alberta’s university business incubators are effectively contributing to the diversification of Alberta’s economy, increasing our provincial economic growth and helping to build Alberta’s reputation as a great place to grow a business,” states Chris Lumb, CEO, TEC Edmonton.
DMZ at Ryerson in Toronto earned first, giving Canada a strong showing on the global playing field. The benchmark looked at more than 50 performance indicators, and the DMZ scored highly in areas that included talent retention, economy enhancement and post-incubation relationships. Five years after launching, more than 200 startups have incubated at the DMZ. They have collectively raised over $120 million in seed funding and have fostered the creation of 2,000 jobs. Some DMZ success stories include Figure 1, a medical professional photo-sharing app; SoapBox, an innovation and employee engagement platform for large enterprises; and DreamQii, a robotics company.
