Listen to Full Interview (mp3)
Program ID: Innovation Anthology #282
Program Date: 01/12/2010
Program Category: Information Technology
Cybera Expands Service to Entrepreneurs
PROGRAM #282 INTERVIEW WITH ROBIN WINSOR
MP3: 5.8 MB
Time: 6:26 Minutes
Robin Winsor is the President and CEO of Cybera.
Robin Winsor
CC: ROBIN, WHAT IS CYBERA?
RW: Cybera is a not-for-profit organization that works in Alberta to extend the cyber infrastructure with a goal of enabling researchers and folks in private industry and ultimately getting cyber infrastructure to be more pervasive and ubiquitous throughout the province to the benefit of all Albertans.
CC: THIS ORGANIZATION HAS BEEN AROUND FOR AWHILE, HASN’T IT?
RW: It has. Cybera has evolved from a number of predecessors. Initially there was the Western Universities Research Collaborative Network, WURC Net it then became Netera. And then about two years ago morphed into Cybera.
CC: WHAT IS IT THAT YOU BRING TO THE ORGANIZATION?
RW: The board wanted to extend the services of Cybera, in addition to the excellent services we provide to the academic community, more towards the entrepreneurial and industrial sector.
I, myself, have a background in geophysics and artificial intelligence working for the research department of Gulf Oil, almost 20 years ago now, tried to show my wife who is a veterinarian how she could apply some imaging techniques that we were using with satellite imagery at Gulf to her x-rays and she quickly told me that there was no time to go scanning in x-rays and messing about with that. They already took too long to get.
I had the idea for a digital x-ray system, actually the very first one worldwide. I built it at home in my garage, tested things in the evenings at my wife’s clinic and developed the first ever digital x-ray system, filing patents, building it up until eventually the company was worth a few hundred million dollars and was doing business in forty countries.
That means I am the sort of entrepreneur that Cybera would like to help and enable. And along the way, I benefited from things like the National Research Council’s IRAP program, the Industrial Research Assistance program, the Heritage Fund for Medical Research, a bunch of those things. Not large amounts--$15,000 here or $25,000 there. I think probably the largest grant we ever got was about $75,000.
When you are very small, those things make a difference.
So having run that course and produced a successful product that is in use worldwide, I am really excited to be joining Cybera and having the opportunity to extend our services to some of those entrepreneurs who are in need of computer resources, networking, all the various things that cyber infrastructure forms to help them get those ideas forward, too.
CC: NOW HOW DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH THAT ON THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SIDE?
RW: Well one of the first things we have to do is increase Cybera’s visibility. And hopefully talking to you today is part of that.
Lots of people haven’t heard about Cybera. I suppose in an ideal world, once the job is done, Cybera could disappear into the woodwork with the infrastructure.
If infrastructure is pervasive, we don’t even think about it. We don’t think about the fact that there’s a telephone jack in the wall that just lets us plug in and make calls to friends across the street or around the world. We don’t really think about where the power comes from when we plug into the electrical socket.
Likewise, as people in the 21st century we should be able to just plug into a pervasive cyber infrastructure that lets us get access not only to the network, but the computing resources that we need, the storage we need. It’s part of our daily lives and it should be a pervasive part of the cyber infrastructure.
Today that’s not the case. It tends to be more point to point; areas where it’s enabled, areas where it’s lacking. And as we get it to be more pervasive, people with those good ideas, will have the tools they need to bring those good ideas to the fore. And that helps all of us.
CC: WELL THE ROOM THAT WE’RE SITTING IN RIGHT NOW, HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THIS? BECAUSE THERE ARE BIG SCREENS ON THE WALL AND JUST BEFORE WE STARTED THE INTERVIEW, A FELLOW CAME ON AND SAID ‘HELLO’ TO US.
RW: We’re sitting in the Edmonton cyber port that Cybera operates. There are similar facilities in Calgary and Lethbridge and by extension, through networking, all over the world.
We have lots of big screen TVs, we have cameras that track us, and we can sit here and have a virtual meeting, which is not quite as good as sitting and talking to you in person, but it’s pretty good. You can see so much more when you are actually in what we would sort of basically call a video conference. Others are giving it fancier names like tele presence, virtual networking, virtual rooms, and so on. But it does add that extra measure. And this is just part of the services that Cybera offers; just a small part of them.
CC: IS THERE A COST TO ENTREPRENEURS TO BECOME INVOLVED IN THIS?
RW: Not much really. We are an organization that is funded by the provincial government, also by the, we participate in a lot of the federal government programs and we have members. Some big members like the University of Calgary, here up at the U of A, and the various other institutions throughout the province.
We also have members, member companies, be they large or small, contribute a little, not a lot in terms of the actual finances, but hopefully will get a great deal of benefit from associating with the expertise and infrastructure that we can provide.
CC: WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE CYBERA TO BE IN SIX MONTHS OR A YEAR?
RW: In six months or a year I would like Cybera to be far more visible to industrial groups. In particular, one of the areas where we really haven’t engaged is the energy sector. And in Alberta, that is a large gap.
I, myself, come from the energy sector before I had my good idea of medical imaging twenty years ago I was in that area and lots of my colleagues who didn’t go off and do interesting things like medical imaging are today presidents and vice presidents of oil companies.
I’m going to be renewing a lot of those acquaintances and saying ‘what can we do’.
There are lots of opportunities coming up. There’s a major conference, taking the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Canadian Science Society of Petroleum Geologists, and so on and so forth. They are all having a joint conference in May in Calgary. And I’d like to make sure that Cybera is visible at that time. And continues to be visible to the oil patch, because the oil patch is a big driver in Alberta.
CC: HOW DO PEOPLE GET IN TOUCH?
RW: People can get in touch with Cybera by looking at our website, at www.cybera.ca, and that will give them all the contact information.
CC: THANK YOU VERY MUCH, ROBIN.
RW: Thank you.
