ReMAP: Accelerating Commercialization in Toronto

Originally posted on Celestica’s Insights blog

Collaboration drives innovation. Pooling knowledge, financial resources and manufacturing expertise enables businesses to get great ideas out to a global market at scale, much faster than they could on their own.

Recently, ReMAP, a Canadian network of industry, research and academic partners dedicated to accelerating the commercialization of electronics innovations, held its fourth annual general meeting in Toronto. It’s been an exciting four years of successful collaboration for the start-ups, small and medium enterprises, large organizations and research institutions that form ReMAP.

When ReMAP was founded in 2014, manufacturing wasn’t considered an exciting field and ‘advanced manufacturing’ wasn’t a phrase uttered by the masses, noted Irene Sterian, President and CEO of ReMAP and Director of Technology and Innovation at Celestica. Today that’s no longer the case. Smart city, smart home and artificial intelligence technologies are becoming pervasive and both governments and industry realize smart manufacturing will play an increasingly important role as connected technologies continue to roll out in the future. The Canadian technology industry is a great example – over the past five years Toronto has added 82,100 tech-related jobs – 4,270 more than the San Francisco Bay Area.

ReMAP has contributed to that boom by taking technology concepts created in 46 Canadian labs and factories across Canada in universities or through corporate R&D and turning them into commercial products for the global market. Over its four years the network has spawned a multitude of success stories including:

• In aerospace, the collaboration between the University of Toronto, Celestica, Curtiss-Wright, Honeywell, Rockwell Collins and BAE Systems has created lead-free solders for high-reliability electronics.  This new technology, which has a patent pending, is being tested by aerospace companies for commercial applications.  Other potential applications for these lead-free solders include medical equipment and the automotive industry.
• In energy, Concordia University is collaborating with supply chain partners INTERNAT Energy Solutions and Canadian Solar to develop smart windows. The smart window that this team is developing will disrupt the current status quo that windows are passive components of a building, and make them active, energy efficient solar installations.
• In optics, a team from Fibos and Ryerson University have created a new optical platform that enables accurate data acquisition in harsh environments, improving safety in industries such as oil and gas. Celestica helped the team from Fibos develop and manufacture their technology into a commercially-viable product. New markets for their reliable sensors include measuring construction integrity for industrial applications.

ReMAP’s success is testament to the power of innovation through collaboration. Celestica is proud to be the founder and lead industry partner of ReMAP and we look forward to what is next.

Irene Sterian, Director, Technology and Innovation, Celestica and President and CEO, ReMAP, discusses how ReMAP is bringing products to market faster. Watch this video to learn more.