Mayor Brain attending Vancouver sessions at Art of Cities Conference

Prince Rupert Mayor Lee Brain is in
Vancouver this week for a conference
on civic development
(photo from Mayor Brain's facebook page)

The work towards development of an innovation centre/hub for economic development in Prince Rupert has taken Mayor Lee Brain and Ecotrust Canada's Nathan Randall to Vancouver this week, as they take in a number of sessions hosted by CityStudio Vancouver.

With the two taking notes on how the Vancouver model works and exchanging ideas with other participants on shared ares of interest when it comes to civic development.

In addition to the two Prince Rupert representatives, the two days of workshops to explain the City Studio model has attracted participation from Victoria, Abbotsford, Ontario and New Zealand, the mini conference, is a preview of what will be a much larger event scheduled for Vancouver in 2019.

That event will offer up first hand knowledge and lessons on how to launch the CityStudio model and networking opportunities for leaders. The sessions will provide for further examination of existing project initiatives and emerging project areas.

Updates from this weeks conference can be found through the twitter feed of the event

The full overview of what the CityStudio project is all about and whether it is a good fit for communities can be found here.

You can explore more about what the current CityStudio program in Vancouver is all about here.

In a Facebook post from Wednesday, the Mayor observed as to the goal of the pair of Prince Rupert representatives, which is establish the innovation centre in this community to focus on economic development initiatives, and to help bring the City, local organizations, students and educational institutions closer together to build capacity and solve the complex problems facing the community.

The notes from the Vancouver sessions would appear to be along the same path that the North Coast Innovation Lab is looking to develop in Prince Rupert, Mr. Randall recently appeared at Prince Rupert City Council to outline what the local project hopes to achieve as it begins to expand on its vision plan.

A copy of their most recent study can be found here.

More on the North Coast Innovation Lab can be found from the ecotrust website, the local office is located in the Capital Mall on Third Avenue West.

Mr. Brain will have an opportunity to expand on his latest travels with next week's City Council session, where perhaps some more background on the conference and the city's plans to work with the North Coast Innovation Lab can be delivered for the public to examine.

For more items of note related to Prince Rupert City Council see our Discussion archive page here.


Cross posted from the North Coast Review