What High Tech Industry in Kelowna?

Kelowna’s tech industry growth stunted by shallow talent pool

There is a lot of hubris and fantasy here in the Okanagan that no amount of reality can kill. Contrasted with that is a political faction that wishes for nothing more than the status quo. In yet another example of Kelowna’s long-standing poor employment market, and bizarre claims of being a technology industry hub, high tech employment in the Okanagan is being curtailed by the mass exodus of qualified graduates to employers outside the Okanagan. This is not new news as it has been happening for years. The employment and economic development crises are now so severe that it may take a decade or more to reverse.  A recent claim that the Okanagan high-tech industry produces $1 Billion in revenue, now seems particularly preposterous.  This situation underscores the challenges facing Raghwa Gopal, as the new Director of Accelerate Okanagan.  I see that Gopal has so far won a host of community awards and contributed to a local food drive, which leaves me asking which job he is running for, and which job he holds now?

Raghwa Gopal, Director of Accelerate Okanagan

FROM KELOWNA NOW:

A lack of skilled programmers is hampering Kelowna’s ability to establish itself as a technology hub.

According to Barry Ward, the president of Bardel Entertainment, tech companies across the city are desperate for skilled employees, but there just aren’t enough of them to meet demand.

“Everybody’s feeling the pinch for talent,” Ward says. “You’re looking around town for someone with 5-10 years experience and they’re just not there.”

Bardel, the animation company Ward co-founded, has offices in both Kelowna and Vancouver. The company opened its Kelowna office three years ago, looking to expand out of a crowded Vancouver market.

Photo credit: Bardel Entertainment

Vancouver is the undisputed centre of technology in British Columbia but, according to Ward, the overcrowded market there has left an opening for another B.C. city to establish itself as a tech-industry hub.

He believes Kelowna is the perfect city to do that, but says that won’t happen “without an available talent pool” in Kelowna.

Dr. Raymon Lawrence knows that all too well.

Lawrence is an associate professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia in the Okanagan, where computer science programs are essentially at maximum capacity.

Lawrence says the university’s computer science department is on track to graduate 30-40 students next year, but that many of the graduates will be scooped up by tech giants like Google and Microsoft.

Photo credit: KelownNow

“Pretty much if any grad wants a job they can get a job within three months,” Lawrence says.With so much lucrative work outside the province, and relatively few skilled workers graduating every year, Lawrence says “there’s a real problem in Kelowna.”

Both Ward and Lawrence say the solution is simple: more people trained right here in Kelowna.

Ward was one of 18 tech industry “leaders” who wrote an open letter to Premier Christy Clark earlier this month asking for more funding and support for technology-related post-secondary programs.

They asked the premier to invest $100 million to grow post-secondary programs in the province, specifically in places like Kelowna.

Early this year, Clark did announce plans to introduce computer coding to B.C. school curriculum, and in 2015 the provincial government created a $100 million venture fund to finance tech startups.

Lawrence says provincial funding aimed directly at post-secondary programs would likely be the only thing capable of spurring growth in UBCO’s computer science programs.

“Unless there’s some money provided to us, we won’t grow,” he said.

Why I stopped teaching

We all have our own reasons why we stopped teaching. Some are voluntary, others involuntary. John Beck discusses many of the uncomfortable issues of evaluation and faculty politics that get in the way of the joy of teaching

What Is The Most Important Leadership Quality?… Humility

I personally have seen in my past career, and personally experienced how simple humility is a key characteristic of leadership.  This may seem counter-intuitive but it is not. People are drawn to the charisma of a leader who is also simply humble, and who appreciates the values of those he or she leads. A leader like that can get subordinates to follow them anywhere. I think there may even be an inverse relationship in human behavior between hubris, and leadership success. By that I mean that the more arrogant and overbearing a person, the more insecure he may actually be, and therefore less successful in the subjective art of leadership.

In a bizarre sequence of events this week, I have yet again witnessed someone literally self-destruct as a leader due to their failure to exhibit simple humility and to be aware of other stakeholders, whose support or not, could make or break the leader.. Successful leadership is a fragile thing, a subjective human experience. I have written about this phenomenon previously on this blog.

Read more: Connect, then lead: Harvard Professor John Kotter

Tragically, I witnessed this person’s Waterloo in real time, as did many others. It was there for all to see. It is a very serious matter for everyone to consider carefully and to also realize that it will be a terribly hard learned lesson, and life changing experience for the person experiencing it.  Fortunately, in my own career, I somehow dodged this bullet and learned the lesson of leadership humility early.  Thank you to my early management mentors, colleagues, and Harvard Professor John Kotter.

I make this point because I came across a LinkedIn discussion in the Harvard Business Review group, “What is the most important leadership quality?”  Many traits have been proposed in the discussion, the leading ones being integrity, management communication skills, ethics, trust, and humility….

Water Potability And Turbidity Issues In The Okanagan: Time To Get Serious

The Partnership for Water Sustainability in BC

We have a major water problem in the Okanagan that will take decades to address.  It is also a clear opportunity for local economic development effort.  There are local people focused on this, and I commend them. But it will take much greater effort than currently.

Why aren’t we more aggressively focusing our local resources and capabilities to address this problem?  The Israeli’s currently lead the World in this area.

When I first arrived in the Okanagan in the late summer of 2005, we were surprised to find that the tap water had a very distinct yellow and brownish coloration. The drinking water was “turbid.”   This turbid discoloration is also noticeable in the water supply to the UBC Okanagan campus. The university regularly flushes its system because of the turbidity. But the problem is at the source, not with the university.

In April 2007, shortly after forming the Okanagan Environmental Industry Alliance, I arranged with my other Directors to meet with Richard Neufeld, at the time BC Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum in his offices in Victoria.  During the course of our meeting, I politely asked Minister Neufeld his views on the rising concerns in the Province about diminishing water resources and climate change.  Minister Neufeld replied that there was no water problem in BC, and that BC (quote) “need not worry about water for at least another 100 years” (unquote).   Clearly, Minister Neufeld did not share the concern of a growing number of experts in the Province.

The Okanagan Valley is the northernmost extension of the Great Basin that extends from northern Nevada, through eastern Oregon and eastern Washington, all in the shadows of the coastal mountain ranges, and with precipitation levels that require that we apply water conservation technology matched only by the Israeli’s. Stated bluntly, it is very dry here and will likely only get worse.

Turbidity is a scientific measurement of the clarity of a water source.   In the United States there is a federal standard for turbidity in drinking water, but it would seem that whatever turbidity standard may exist here is not as stringent. The importance of turbidity is that there are strong established scientific links between turbidity and human disease.  Our local turbidity is caused largely by decaying timber in the local reservoir system. The coloration occurs from micron size impurities so small that they are nearly impossible to remove. It was explained to us that it is also possible for dangerous pathogens to attach to the micron size particles causing the discoloration.  Hence, we received a boil water notice soon after we arrived and have had numerous other boil water advisories.  As I traveled about the region, I learned that Summerland also had a similar turbidity problem.  Drinking water quality throughout the Okanagan has given rise to a huge market for bottled pure water in every supermarket, and a number of private companies selling “pure” water services and systems.  The cost of this kind of delivery of potable water is astronomical.

What is going on here in a community of extremely expensive homes on Okanagan Lake?

We came from a coastal community in northern California, Moss Beach, part of the Coastside Community Water District.  We paid the highest monthly water service charges in the state of California. The water was in short supply and very high in mineral content. Some homes had no connection to the municipal system whatsoever because the California Public Utilities Commission declared a moratorium on any new connections. The system was max’ed out.  Domestic water wells produced very poor quality turbid water in quantities that failed to meet minimum government requirements for public health, much less human consumption. The local authorities turned a blind eye, and property development was a much higher priority ($$$) than public health.  My next door neighbor, with two young daughters, had no municipal connection, so I agreed that my neighbor could connect his home to my garden hose when his well failed.

Is this the future of the Okanagan?  Is it a glass half empty or a glass half full of opportunity to use our local resources and capabilities to change our course?

Waterbucket from Water Bucket on Vimeo.

Read more: Okanagan Water | Okanagan Water « WaterBucket.ca.

IEEE Seminar, February 6th, 5PM, EME 1151

 

 

IEEE Okanagan Subsection
Presents
Mr. David Mayes
Faculty of Management, Global Internet Group, LLP
Big Data, the Cloud, and Smart Mobile: Big
Deal or Not?
Time & Date: 5pm-6pm, February 6, 2013
Location: EME 1151, UBC Okanagan campus
Talk Abstract: We are hearing regularly in the media about so-called “Big Data.” Is Big Data so
transformational that it will change our everyday lives, or is it just another evolutionary advance
that may improve productivity but not much else? The same arguments may apply to the concept
of “The Cloud,” and “Smart Mobile,” the other two major trends. I say that the three, taken together,
are coalescing into the most important new force in information technology in decades. They will
drive further innovation and productivity enhancements into the foreseeable future. The talk will
explore all three trends and pose questions for the future.
Speaker Biography: Mr. David Mayes is a full-time Lecturer in entrepreneurship, communication,
negotiation, IT and strategic management at The University of British Columbia, Faculty of
Management, and Master’s degree program. Mr. Mayes was founder and spokesperson for the Intel,
Microsoft and Compaq initiative for high speed consumer “universal” DSL Internet access. Mr.
Mayes also led a number of other major industry initiatives: Vendors’ ISDN Association, V.92
modem consortium. Mr. Mayes joined with Microsoft as an author of the IETF security protocol
PPTP (point to point tunneling protocol), creating secure “virtual private networks” across the
Internet. Mr. Mayes formed solar energy company, Sola Renewable Energy Ltd., and was
Executive Director and Chairperson of the Okanagan Environmental Industry Alliance (OEIA),
which works directly with local, regional, provincial and federal Canadian government groups.
Mr. Mayes began his career at Intel Corporation in California, Oregon and Europe. He left Intel
while based at Intel’s European HQ, to form his first entrepreneurial venture, 01 Computers Group
Ltd., based in London. Its corporate clients included the BBC, British Telecom and Imperial
Chemical Industries. Recently, Mr. Mayes was Vice President of Business Development at P-Cube,
iBEAM Broadcasting, and Director of Business Development at Ascend Communications. Mr.
Mayes was directly involved in a variety of multinational venture investments, public, private
mergers, acquisitions, corporate partnerships, and sales, including Ascend’s acquisitions of NetStar
and Cascade Communications.
Pizza and drinks will be provided after the talk. For further information please contact:
Julian Cheng (email: julian.cheng@ubc.ca)

 

Enactus Launches Chapter with UBC Okanagan Faculty of Management

Human progress depends on our ability to tap into the entrepreneurial spirit that lives within each of us and channel the unique talents, passions and ideas we each possess toward creating good in the world.

en•act•us

A community of student, academic and business leaders committed to using the power of entrepreneurial action to transform lives and shape a better more sustainable world.

entrepreneurial—having the perspective to see an opportunity and the talent to create value from that opportunity;

action—the willingness to do something and the commitment to see it through even when the outcome is not guaranteed;

us—a group of people who see themselves connected in some important way; individuals that are part of a greater whole.

Deputy Speaker of the House Videoconference – Parliamentary Procedures and Practice

Assistant Deputy Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, MP Bruce Stanton, and Deputy Chair of the Committee of the Whole, will participate in a video conference with University of British Columbia Management students, Wednesday, November 28th, at 2PM in the EME 050 Lecture Hall.  Local MP Ron Cannan, representing Kelowna and Lake Country has been instrumental in making this event a reality.  All Faculty of Management students are welcome to attend, listen and learn.

This live video conference event will be held Wednesday, November 28th, at 2PM in the EME 050 Lecture Hall on the UBC Okanagan campus