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Ideas To Market

U of G Gets Funding to Help Businesses Bring Ideas to Market

Guelph - New partnerships with the University of Guelph under a provincial government program are expected to help 14 Ontario businesses bring innovative products and new ideas to market.

Agreements between U of G and the companies were announced today by Wellington-Halton MP Michael Chong on behalf of Gary Goodyear, minister of state for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).

Last year, FedDev approved U of G for up to $750,000 under the agency’s Applied Research and Commercialization Initiative to work with small and medium-sized business on activities such as applied research, engineering design, technology development, product testing and certification.

“Moving research knowledge out of our classrooms and laboratories and putting it to use to benefit people’s daily lives is our overarching goal,” said Kevin Hall, U of G’s vice-president (research).

“Programs such as the applied research and commercialization initiative are central to our mission of creating value for society. The 14 collaborations that we are celebrating today will help us translate our innovations and discoveries into new technologies, products and services.”

The funding will create economic opportunities, help expand businesses in southern Ontario, and enable those companies to become more innovative and competitive, Chong said.

FedDev Ontario was created in 2009 as part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan to help businesses and communities in southern Ontario to compete globally. U of G will work with the following companies:

4iBIO (Pickering), custom joint prosthesis to treat arthritis;

Biorem (Guelph), biological air pollution controls;

Clearford Industries Inc. (Ottawa), wastewater collection, treatment, and energy generation;

Enpar (Guelph), environmental water treatments;

Heron Instruments Groundwater Inc. (Burlington), groundwater monitoring instrumentation;

Luxadvance Corp. (Toronto), rapid detection of food- and waterborne pathogens;

Lystek International Inc. (Cambridge), municipal biosolids treatment technologies;

Meridian (Niagara Falls), reservation and ticketing technology;

MicroSintesis Inc. (Oakville), high-potential microbial technologies;

Novus Environmental Inc. (Guelph), assessments for air quality, climate and meteorological issues;

O2I Ltd. (Uxbridge), proprietary food packaging and processing technologies;

Root Rescue (Toronto), biologically based plant-performance enhancers for the nursery industry;

SiREM (Guelph), remediation processes for groundwater contamination; and

Turfbot (Niagara), intelligent all-electric turf-care robots.