HomeMy WebLinkAboutEconDevAdv 2012-04-26
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES
April 26, 2012 City of Kitchener
The Economic Development Advisory Committee met this date, chaired by
Councillor Paul Singh; the following members were in attendance: Councillors
Bil Ionnidias and Scott Davey, Brian Bennett, Glenn Kohler, Rebecca Short,
Peter Benninger, Darren Shaw, Adrian Conrad, Mark Bingeman, Steven Voll,
Shawn DeBruyn, Steve Sachs, Peter Benninger
The following people sent their regrets: Amr Kebhi, Ian Cook
The following people were absent: Dr. Takhar
Staff in attendance: Rod Regier, Valerie Machado, Jeff Young, Chris Farrell,
Silvia Di Donato, Tracey DeVille
Approval of minutes -
The minutes will be available for approval at the May meeting.
New Business:
Terms of Reference (TOR)
The committee was advised that a review of the Terms of Reference between
now and the summer recess is required, we would like to have a discussion
around whether or not the TOR of are still appropriate, in particular the
composition of the committee. We currently have a specific list of industries that
are represented around the committee and that can pose problems. One
suggestion that was made was that we should align the requirements to the core
areas of the KEDS to allow for people to speak to those areas. There may be
other ways as well, and ways of focusing the work that we are doing. Please
spend some time looking at it and think of your ideas at the next meeting.
The next meeting will have some time dedicated to it for review – we may have to
have an offline meeting as well.
Project Updates:
Rod Regier went over the project updates, in particular:
Cluster development and Hyperdrive a new program that Communtiech has just
launched. This is perfectly aligned with the KEDS core area of focus #1 – Start-
up City.
Breakout sessions:
For a couple sessions now we have had conversations about using new
approach to encourage more engagement from the members. Based on the
success of the approach taken by the Downtown Advisory Committee, we are
going to break up into small groups we have four groups identified. Start-up,
Talent, Clusters and the Innovation District. We are not doing the downtown
since that is the role of DAC. The last meeting people signed up for one or each
of the four groups.
Each group will be facilitated by a staff member:
Chris Farrell – Start Up City (start up grow up)
Jeff Young – Talent (special events)
Silvia Di Donato – Cluster (content creators in tech sector or overlapping clusters
– life sciences / digital media)
Rod Regier – Innovation District (what steps to take to build an effective brand for
the district)
Use the first 15 minutes to more clearly define an objective for the group then we
can move into the full session.
The committee then broke off into their individual working groups.
On motion, the business portion of the meeting was adjourned.