Totally agree. I grew up at NBTel. The living lab was all about doing new, different things to improve services and make life better using technology. If it could work here, then it had the potential to be exported to the world.
We have so much opportunity in New Brunswick for innovation and being a living lab in resources, aqua and agri culture, government, thriving rural communities, rural and remote healthcare, education, tourism, and the environment .
Part of living lab is also to adopt and adapt great ideas from around the world and make them work here. (Like some of the educational practices in Finland).
Quality work begins and ends with setting standards and enforcing them. If a child (or a worker) can't reach that level, the remedy isn't to lower the standard, which seems to be the practice in both education and the workplace. It has also been my experience that competence doesn't rise when more money is applied. We have a "good enough" attitude problem. Set standards at 'excellent,' and we have a chance of achieving it—set them at 'good enough,' and that's what we get.
Selling NB as a sandbox to pilot technologies is something I have always thought would be of interest to new bio-based technologies needing access to assets we have in abundance, such as land, ports, and biomass, to pilot and validate their technology. Sarnia made it work by attracting technologies and building $100m+ pilot plants to produce samples for the market. These technology companies remain, and their pilots have become their test labs to trial new inputs, etc., before deciding where to scale.
Totally agree. I grew up at NBTel. The living lab was all about doing new, different things to improve services and make life better using technology. If it could work here, then it had the potential to be exported to the world.
We have so much opportunity in New Brunswick for innovation and being a living lab in resources, aqua and agri culture, government, thriving rural communities, rural and remote healthcare, education, tourism, and the environment .
Part of living lab is also to adopt and adapt great ideas from around the world and make them work here. (Like some of the educational practices in Finland).
Quality work begins and ends with setting standards and enforcing them. If a child (or a worker) can't reach that level, the remedy isn't to lower the standard, which seems to be the practice in both education and the workplace. It has also been my experience that competence doesn't rise when more money is applied. We have a "good enough" attitude problem. Set standards at 'excellent,' and we have a chance of achieving it—set them at 'good enough,' and that's what we get.
Selling NB as a sandbox to pilot technologies is something I have always thought would be of interest to new bio-based technologies needing access to assets we have in abundance, such as land, ports, and biomass, to pilot and validate their technology. Sarnia made it work by attracting technologies and building $100m+ pilot plants to produce samples for the market. These technology companies remain, and their pilots have become their test labs to trial new inputs, etc., before deciding where to scale.