By Ian Holroyd

Oct 21, 2010 - 9:58 AM

NORTH OAKVILLE TODAY – Sheridan College has been given the opportunity to assist in Southern Ontario’s economic recuperation.

Oakville MP Terence Young announced last Thursday that the post-secondary institution will receive $750,000 from the federal government to work with small-and medium-sized businesses to bring new products, practices and processes to the marketplace faster.

“What is nice about this is we now have the dollars to go to various companies in the community and say, ‘how can we help you?’” said Sheridan College president Jeff Zabudsky.

The plan will allow the college to reach out to local companies and help them update and improve their businesses through student-assisted projects involving applied research, engineering design, technology development, product testing and certification.

Zabudsky said this initiative is beneficial to both the business community as well as Sheridan students.

“All students work on projects,” he said, “but these will be real world projects that will give students an opportunity to, when they graduate, say, ‘I helped a company to take their business from here to here by helping them improve their processes.’”

He said this will allow students to form relationships and network with potential future employees.

In front of faculty and students in the college’s Sheridan Centre of Animation and Emerging Technology building, Young said that the intention of the strategy is to bounce back from the recession in Southern Ontario and eventually create quality jobs.

“During that recession Canada lost 400,000 [jobs]. As of last month, we are back up with 430,000 jobs, so that number of jobs has recovered,” said Young. “Unfortunately, they are not the same quality jobs as there were.”

He said that bringing Sheridan College into the game will take advantage of talented students and teachers to create value-added jobs for the future.

The federal grant is part of a $15-million Applied Research and Commercialization Initiative. This falls under the umbrella of FedDev Ontario, an Agency designed to assist in Ontario’s recession recovery.

http://www.insidehalton.com/community/oakvilletoday/article/890773