While the demand for local tech, innovation and research companies – especially those with a focus on the ocean – continues to grow, a Victoria-based organization says its new, downtown co-working space has been a success.
The Centre for Ocean Applied Sustainable Technologies (COAST) opened its Ocean Innovation Hub in October to accommodate local organizations involved in the blue economy with working and office space, event spaces and other amenities at affordable rates.
The 'blue economy,' which was coined by the UN about a decade ago, is defined by Jason Goldsworthy, executive director of COAST, as using and working with the ocean's resources, while also considering sustainability and understanding what environmental impacts there are.
"The world has this great history with the oceans, and the oceans have provided a lot... but we've been a little bit exploitative of them," he said. "We have a tendency to pollute it, we've had a tendency to overuse it, over-fishing, stuff like that. So the blue economy is really that transition to be a little bit more respectful and understanding of the oceans."
When it comes to those who economically benefit from the ocean, the blue economy ranges through many sectors from food, tourism and agriculture to tech, defence and energy.
The new Herald Street hub provides a co-working, networking and event space for those in the ocean economy while providing COAST with an opportunity to further promote and celebrate the ever-growing sector.
"This space is about celebrating [the blue economy] through demonstrating new technologies," said Goldsworthy. "Some of these companies that we've already got here are selling and exporting their equipment worldwide, and they are worldwide innovators. We're setting the benchmark for the future. We want to celebrate that too, so this provides us that place to do that."
Along with providing both temporary and permanent office and meeting spaces – at about 40 per cent below market rate – future plans include providing warehousing and maker-spaces to COAST members.
"Companies need locations to test and demonstrate their technologies, and we're working right now at how to set those up in places all around the province," he said. "This Ocean Innovation Hub idea is to bring everyone together, get those cross-sections happening, those collaborations happening from anything from entrepreneur to entrepreneur, to entrepreneur to industry, entrepreneur to researcher, and get people talking about and connecting about what they're up to."
Since 2022, Goldsworthy says B.C. has seen about a 70 per cent increase in ocean-related startups, and in the past year, the province has seen about $30 million in private investments going toward blue companies.
"So we're starting to see B.C. really grow in the blue economy, and we're also seeing that through things like international recognition. We hosted representatives from five Nordic countries here late last year to look at the Ocean Innovation Hub, and we're starting to see them take note of what's happening in B.C. So that's a big thing for us to see that growth," Goldsworthy explained.
As B.C.'s blue economy continues to gain traction at the international level, Goldsworthy has seen more international investment in Victoria, and he hopes to see even more.
"We're already talking to a number of companies that have interest in relocating here or at least setting up a subsidiary office or setting up a presence in B.C," he said. "Our priority at the moment is to support the B.C.-based companies and the B.C.-grown, but we're also part of the whole idea of a hub or this idea of cluster organizations [where we] want to see people from different locations and places all growing together. So that's kind of part of the vision."
COAST, which is a subsidiary of the South Island Prosperity Partnership, has seen about 315 entities join their membership ranks since the soft opening of the hub in the summer, including 91 organizations, government entities and companies. Of those, 63 are for-profit blue economy companies, with hopes of seeing even more in the future.
"We're starting to see that international recognition, we're starting to see the startups say, 'Hey, this is a place where we can actually grow.' So rather than running off to the U.S. or Europe, they say, 'Hey, we want to stay in B.C. and we want to develop our technology here,' which is our goal, to keep them here," he said.
