Ontario is investing $80 million over five years in the autonomous vehicle innovation network (AVIN) in Stratford.

The province is partnering with the Ontario Centres of Excellence to launch AVIN, which includes a Demonstration Zone allowing researchers to develop the technology and test an autonomous vehicle in real-life traffic scenarios.

In the Demonstration Zone, technologies can be tested, validated and showcased in live scenarios using vehicle platforms such as city buses, fleet vehicles, and OEM vehicles.

The Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Network (AVIN) and Demonstration Zone have officially opened in Stratford, Ontario, the new go-to destination for developing autonomous vehicles.

This first-of-its-kind Demonstration Zone will enable self-driving car technology researchers to innovate and test autonomous vehicles in real-life scenarios.With over 10,000 employees across 50 companies and organizations in Ontario, the self-driving/connected vehicle sector is growing and the province is investing to help remain a leader in the field.

Stratford is one of the best cities in Canada to call home, according to MoneySense magazine.

The city is moving up when it comes to magazine's annual ranking of the best places to live from coast to coast.

Last year pegged in the 15th spot, Stratford was declared the 12th best place to live in Canada in this year's rankings - though apparently it hasn't regained the glory of 2015 when the city claimed the 7th place position in Canada. The list is based on categories like a robust economy, median household income, access to health care, low taxes and crime, and nice weather.

Self-driving cars in Canada have a new designated test site in the province of Ontario: Stratford, which is also home to the annual Stratford Festival, an event celebrating Shakespearean and other stage plays. Autonomous-vehicle testing in Stratford will provide a focal point for development done across six technology centers located at different points around the province before heading to the dramatic proving ground.

There wasn't much in the way of detail to flesh out a vague proposal of a Cooper Block community hub - but it's coming.

And soon local residents will get to have their say.

Community consultation will begin in May, CAO Rob Horne told city councillors at Monday night's meeting.

A research team at the University of Waterloo played a key role in the development of a highly autonomous vehicle that Renesas Electronics America unveiled today at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Using sensors and powerful computers, the car is capable of detecting and responding to other vehicles, stop signs and traffic lights to provide a safer driving experience. For example, vehicle-to-infrastructure communications allow the vehicle to detect in advance when a traffic light will change.

Today in Tokyo, Premier Kathleen Wynne met with leaders from across Ontario and Japan to announce new business agreements valued at $120 million that are expected to deliver 170 jobs in Ontario.

Ontario and Japanese businesses and institutions announced 15 new business agreements and partnerships, including:

A job fair held in Stratford at the Rotary Complex on Tuesday, Nov. 1 laid bare the truth of the job market in Stratford these days.

The reality is, there are lots of jobs. So many, in fact, that employers are scrambling to see them filled.

Coupled with that is a high rate of unemployment amongst young people; but shouldn’t both of these cancel each other out?

A $500,000 loan from the city could be a key ingredient in the Stratford Chefs School’s upcoming move to its new home downtown.

After some debate Tuesday, Stratford’s finance subcommittee approved a recommendation to provide that bridge financing for what will eventually become a chefs school “campus” on Ontario Street.

At the turn of the new century, Stratford had a reputation for being quaint, cultured and out of the way, home to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and a 90-minute drive from Toronto, the business capital of eastern Canada.  The Festival is a home-grown success story in cultural tourism.  Founded in 1953, it became the largest employer in the city and generated hundreds of millions of dollars in local economic activity in ticket sales, restaurants, lodging and culture.    

This economic center complemented Stratford's industrial base, which supplied the North American automotive and aerospace sectors.  But in the last Nineties, the city's forward-looking leadership saw that the growth opportunities of the future would depend on information and communications technology.  

A Network for the Shakespeare Festival

Since then, a team led by Mayor Dan Mathieson has executed on an Intelligent Community strategy with great intensity. The city-owned utility has built out a 70-km open access fiber network with a WiFi overlay, and signed sales agreements with commercial carriers to deliver triple-play and mobile services. The network enabled the Festival to significantly expand its online marketing, and plays a key role in the city’s tourism strategy, which builds on the Festival’s reputation to attract “foodies,” cyclists and other target groups throughout the year.  At the same time, the city has used the network to slash its own telecom costs and power a smart meter program.

Digital Media Campus

After nearly a decade of planning and development, Stratford succeeded in establishing a satellite campus of the University of Waterloo that leverages the presence of an outstanding source of content: the Shakespeare Festival.    

The school launched with a Masters program in digital media, which is structured to end with internships that lead to employment.  It attracts students from arts, engineering and business, deliberately mixing them on interdisciplinary teams that forces them to understand other points of view and to collaborate on projects.  They have access to production facilities, digital editing suites and a large number of project rooms for highly experiential programs. 

The school followed with an undergraduate program, which admitted 93 students from 400 applications in its first year. The program mixes art, business and technology instruction, with the goal of taking students passionate about and art and teaching them business and technology, while exposing business students to the art and technology of digital media. Bundled into the program is project management instruction, so that students emerge with a professional certification in project management.

Creating a Home for Innovation

Having established an institution to produce digital media professionals, Stratford went on to create a home for innovators. Housed in an historic building downtown, the Stratford Accelerator opened its doors in 2012 with seven clients.  It offers housing and advisory services to early-stage tech companies from concept through commercialization.  It is an outgrowth of the Waterloo Accelerator Center, which has served 100 companies, of which 50 have graduated and half have stayed in the region, generating an estimated C$80m in revenue.  Supporting the companies are five in-house mentors and an entrepreneur-in-residence, who advise on finance, marketing, product development, manufacturing and other fields, as well as helping companies set milestones and execute against them. In addition to long-term relationships with start-ups, the accelerator offers a 3-month program called Pathfinder, that is designed for people with an idea they want to explore but who are not yet ready to devote full time to it.    

With each addition to Stratford’s ecosystem, the city’s attractiveness to innovators has increased.  The economic development team has successfully sold Stratford as a test bed for tech­nology projects – a city large enough to give new technolo­gies a meaningful test but easy to operate in due to its small size.  Toshiba, Cisco, BlackBerry, Inter-Op and Clemson University all have pilots running in Stratford. These interna­tional brand names lend validation to a strategy that has proven its value to the city.  

The near-death of the North American auto industry pushed unemployment in Stratford to 7.9% as the city lost 1,600 mostly low-skilled jobs in manufacturing. But the city also gained hundreds of new jobs requiring ICT skills, and has recently seen the revival of automotive create a labor shortage for the higher-skilled manufacturing jobs it retains. For an economy in transition, these trends are a serious validation that it is on the right track.

In the News
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Stratford was featured in the Intelligent Community Forum books Brain Gain and Seizing Our Destiny.

Population: 30,886

Website: www.city.stratford.on.ca

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