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Markham's high-tech, IT explosion due to 'skilled talent,' 'diversity'

City home to more than 1,500 high-tech, life sciences companies that generate 37,000 jobs

Markham is doing everything it can to build upon its success as a haven for IT and high-tech firms.

York Region’s largest municipality has just wrapped up Markham Innovation Week, where the city boasted that it’s "Canada’s high-tech capital," home to more than 1,500 high-tech and life sciences companies that generate a staggering 37,000 jobs.

Consider that several decades ago, there was virtually no high-tech industry in Markham.

So why was Markham so successful in becoming the second-largest IT hub in all of Canada, trailing only Canada’s largest city, Toronto.

Longtime Mayor Frank Scarpitti, who has been there to see the rise of the high-tech industry in Markham, believes he knows the answer.

“When you hear what companies are looking for, it’s the talent that we’ve attracted to the city of Markham. In order for these companies to succeed, they need the best and the brightest,” said Scarpitti, who has been mayor since 2006 and a member of Markham council since 1985, except for a term in the mid-’90s.

“Whether it’s through our educational system here … with the schools and the connection to the post-secondary institutions or the internationally skilled talent that’s come here from all over the world. These are all ingredients that companies are looking for.”

Scarpitti said companies that locate to Markham -- and there are many, like IBM Canada, AMD, GM Canada, G&D, Qualcomm, Huawei, Pond Technologies, Terago, Bluewrist, Book4Time, Hyperion Sensors, Honda Canada, and plenty more ­-- are also keenly interested in “diversity, but they’re looking for a skilled and highly educated workforce that’s made available to them here. They also want to be a part of an ecosystem. I’ve heard this described by others who are not in the IT industry, they’re in other industries, but they love being in Markham, because if they have an idea they can go down the street and talk to someone in the IT industry, they’re not having to go halfway around the world to try to figure out that solution.”

Markham is also home to a world-class high-tech/IT incubator, ventureLAB, located at the IBM campus on Steeles Avenue.

Melissa Chee, president and CEO of ventureLAB, describes the 50,000-square-foot facility as an “incubation space where more than 45 high-tech companies are co-located.”

She said the purpose of ventureLAB is to “take companies and founders who may already have a product in mind, they may already have early customers, and we work to pair them with the right advisers, the right customers, the right partners, whether that’s raising dollars or getting market traction to take that product to market.”

Chee said, since 2011, ventureLAB has supported more than 2,000 of Canada’s most inspired entrepreneurs, helping them build and scale their companies to go global.

In 2018 alone, more than 500 companies across Ontario were supported by ventureLAB in areas like digital health, advanced manufacturing, financial services and other high-tech sectors, Chee said.

Two examples of local companies that have benefited by working with ventureLAB are Pond Technologies, which does clean technology innovation, and Hyperion Sensors, which developed a smart energy and transformer technology.

Chee said that ventureLAB operates as a place for tech entrepreneurs that “for the most part, are ready. It’s not just an idea. We support companies that are a little further up the path with their concept and validation. We work with a number of different innovation partners, with academic partners, with not-for-profit partners, to allow earlier stage companies or founders to flush out their ideas for a go-to-market strategy.”