Necessity

Necessity, the mother of invention – George Farquhar

At Small Business BC, we often get queries regardiing support for developing business innovation. In BC there are a number of offices that can help with this. Small Business BC has organized a series of free webinars on funding innovation available at the Kootenay Association for Science and Technology (KAST)website. If your business is innovative and you are looking for information on financing, tax considerations, networking, and commentary on innovative BC businesses, read on!

The most frequent question on innovation is financing. Any program offering financing to start a business requires a viability or business plan. The National Research Council offers the Industry Research Assistance Program (IRAP) that can help finance innovative business ideas. Your idea does not have to be scientific nor technological to qualify for this program but it does have to be innovative and viable. Contact an Industrial Technology Advisor for more information. I have spoken to two clients recently that have received funds from IRAP that were not scientific nor high-tech. One company manufactured an innovative folding stage calledSMARTSTAGE while another was a groupon website called ethicalDeal. Whether your business qualifies for innovation funding will be determined by the IRAP industry officials. For more information on how other offices can help you with financing your innovative busiiness, watch the October 7th “Funding Innovation” webinar.

There are a number of offices that support development of innovative sustainable technologies. Sustainable Development Technology Canada has an SD Tech Fund and aNextGen Biofuels fund to support the funding gap between testing and the market place. The SD Tech Fund supports clean technology solutions: products and processes that contribute to clean air, clean water and clean land, and address solutions on climate change. The Province of BC offers funding under the Innovative Clean Energy (ICE) program to encourage development of clean energy sources and technologies. Since 2008, forty-one projects have been approved in thirty-seven communities across BC.