Estimated reading time 2 minutes, 33 seconds.
MDA, a Maxar Technologies company, has announced the company’s LaunchPad program, which will serve as an entry point for innovative small and medium-sized Canadian companies and academic research groups seeking to collaborate with MDA on technology or innovation projects.
MDA LaunchPad will create partnerships that build and grow Canadian businesses in the fast-paced space and defence industries.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and academic research groups can contact the MDA LaunchPad team to:
- Explore potential collaboration regarding the development of world-class technology;
- Bring new products or business opportunities together;
- Jointly enter a new market;
- Collaborate on research and development ideas that are of mutual interest; and
- Collaboration on other types of projects.
“A crucial aspect of creating growth is widening the arc of the very market you serve–creating a larger, more collaborative economic sector with an array of industrial participants that enable one another,” said Mike Greenley, group president of MDA.
“As a market leader, MDA has the unique opportunity to provide a powerful engine to fuel economic growth. Partnering with other companies, particularly highly innovative SMEs, as well as academia, MDA provides essentially a ‘business incubator’ to support the global environment of rapid technological advances that require flexible and innovative responses to emerging market opportunities. Allowing greater financial self-sufficiency, structure and services for SMEs within the new space economy and the associated technology spin-offs helps build a better world.”
“I am also delighted to announce MDA’s LaunchPad during Small Business Week. The Government of Canada and Small Business and Export Promotion Minister Mary Ng are committed to making it as easy as possible for Canadian small businesses to succeed, and we at MDA are proud to add our expertise and voice to that goal,” added Greenley.
The Government of Canada expects MDA, as the country’s anchor space company and one of the leading defence companies, to lead–which means reaching out across the Canadian industrial base to enable all of Canada’s industrial sector to both shape and enable each other.
MDA plans to leverage the powerful combination of the four industry-leading companies that comprise Maxar Technologies to provide a platform of convergence and access to expanded networks to support MDA LaunchPad. Learn more here.
I had a project that got dropped as because of the huge Transport Canada obstacles for anything new. I wanted to sign up as the DR Test pilot and was told I didn’t have military or civil servant background so I couldn’t fly. I challenged the Transport Canada person to find one test pilot that was qualified on the helicopter, and they had no one. It turns out there are not many people left that have the background I have, yet TC says I can’t do it! When 10,000 hrs of PIC is not enough for TC, you know that innovation and development is not welcome in Canada.