Technology and Innovation

The Technology and Innovation practice is part of The Conference Board of Canada's Public Policy Division. The mission of the practice is to help Canadian organizations to prosper... through innovation, knowledge and technology.

The Conference Board actively addresses innovation, and the functional management of knowledge, skills, and technology within organizations—as well as strategic policy issues that relate these factors to competitiveness. The practice integrates Conference Board expertise in the management of technology, knowledge management, connectedness, information technology, organizational effectiveness, leadership, partnerships, education, learning, economics, regulation and taxation. We nurture and deliver this expertise through an interactive mix of executive networks, public conferences, workshops, study tours, courses, publications and customized research.

What's New

How Canada Performs: A Report Card on Canada

A failure to innovate results in poor grades on Canada’s Report Card. How Canada Performs: A Report Card on Canada benchmarks Canada’s performance against the best countries in the world.

Water Management and Technology Forum

The Water Management and Technology Forum has been created as a multi-stakeholder forum to bring together business and government leaders in order to build a mutual understanding of the challenges and opportunities in water management, water policy, and water technology development and implementation, and in order to share ideas on how to address these issues. The Forum combines networking of key public and private sector stakeholders, a research program to provide insights on issues raised by Forum members, and periodic reports.

Water is becoming a contentious resource because of increasing demand, misuse and divergent levels of availability between regions. Demographic and economic growth is increasing the demand for freshwater while this resource is finite. At the same time, Canada is the second highest consumer of water per capita among OECD nations; we are not managing our water resources properly. The Water Management and Technology Forum will contribute to the dialogue on policy, management, and technology solutions to our water challenges.

Contact: Len Coad, Director, Energy, Environment and Technology Policy
403-221-3041
coad@conferenceboard.ca

Centre for Clean Energy

The Centre for Clean Energy will engage leaders from the private sector, federal and provincial governments, ENGOs and academics to work together to identify, design and implement clean energy pathways and to foster global clean energy industries in Canada. The Centre’s Executive Leadership Roundtable will tackle the tough energy questions of the day – finding leading-edge integrated solutions to environmental issues, accelerating the commercialization of promising new technologies, looking into the requirements and timing of new energy investments, and exploiting synergies between energy sectors. The CCE’s three initial priority areas have been identified through early consultation with stakeholders- clean electricity, clean transportation and upstream oil and gas (oil sands). In addition, the Centre will provide a forum for fostering innovation to advance new energy technologies, for making corporate “best practices” in clean energy transitions better known, for defining the ingredients to make a prudent transition happen successfully, and for informing governments’ policy agenda.

As influential stakeholders in implementing a clean energy future, participants in the CCE’s Executive Leadership Roundtable will benefit from guiding the CCE’s priorities and research towards new sustainable energy systems for the future. Another important benefit will be gained through high-level networking with companies in the energy supply and end-use sectors, with senior federal and provincial government officials, and with academia and ENGOs.

Contact: Graham Campbell, Associate Director, Energy, Environment and Technology
613-526-3090 Ext, 250,
campbellg@conferenceboard.ca