From ideas to innovation, Queen’s Innovation Centre charts a course for community growth

By Margaux Dugras ©2018 Postmedia Network Inc. ​This article was published in The Kingston Whig Standard on Nov 8, 2024

Queen’s University has helped support the launch of over 700 startups through its entrepreneurial programs

Every year, students flock from all corners of the country to Kingston to begin their post-secondary journeys at Queen’s University—and with every new cohort comes another opportunity for the university to give back to the community through entrepreneurship and valuable research.  

As the Canadian university with the highest proportion of non-local students, Queen’s welcomes a diverse swath of Canadians into the community, generating research, employment and a cultural mosaic along-side the local population.  

The Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre (DDQIC) is one place where students and community members come together to grow their entrepreneurial skills and engage in real-world problem-solving.  

“Our mandate is to increase everybody’s entrepreneurial mindset and skillsets, and to really focus on the training and development of founder entrepreneurs,” says Greg Bavington, executive director of the DDQIC.  

Founded in 2012 through the Smith School of Business and Smith Engineering, the centre offers rigorous and flexible programming to students and locals alike. The Queen’s Innovation Centre Summer Initiative, its flagship summer incubator, is focused on providing startup workshops, programs, courses and pitch competitions to young entrepreneurs. The intensive program is responsible for incubating a range of startups that are putting Kingston on the map as an innovation hub, including Mosaic Manufacturing, a 3D printing company that recently raised $28 million.  

The DDQIC’s hands-on approach helps bridge the gap between high-impact research and concrete applications. 

“A lot of research is driven by curiosity, which is wonderful — that’s how great discoveries get made,” Bavington says. “But I think something that’s been missing is this sort of next step. Now that you’ve satisfied your curiosity and come up with something distinctive and interesting, what’s next?” 

As Queen’s University supplies one in 10 jobs in the city of Kingston, the surrounding community has felt its positive economic impact. The institution has supported over 700 startups, and its economic activity makes up 11 per cent of the local GDP.

The DDIQC takes this even further by supporting ventures that give back to the community directly.  

Spectra Plasmonics, a startup founded through Queen’s research and the DDIQC, created a high-quality, handheld drug-testing device to combat the drug overdose crisis. It helped launch a pilot project for community use with its technology at Kingston Community Health Centres in 2020.  

Part of the DDQIC’s philosophy is that it caters to clients at all levels of business and life experience. Students don’t have to be affiliated with Queen’s to benefit from the DDIQC’s skills programming. A crucial part of DDQIC’s success, Bavington says, is “meeting people where they’re at” with flexible programs such as QYourVenture, which runs year-round and allows participants to build and learn at their own pace.  

For more information on what the DDQIC has to offer, visit https://www.queensu.ca/innovationcentre/. 

This content was produced by Content Works, Postmedia’s custom content studio.