TORONTO, September 26, 2002 -- York University is part of the Canadian e-Business Initiative (CeBI) launched today, a private and public sector partnership designed to further Canada’s e-business success through small and medium-sized businesses.
CeBI announced the initiative’s Team Leaders today. They are a group of six prominent Canadians, including York University President and Vice-Chancellor Lorna R. Marsden, who have volunteered to work together to accelerate the adoption of e-business in Canada. "The CeBI teams will be working hard to ensure their recommendations assist all Canadian companies to understand the productivity gains that e-business can bring to our country," said Nancy Hughes Anthony, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and co-chair of CeBI with Pierre Paul Allard, president and CEO of Cisco Systems Canada.
Marsden will lead CeBI’s Benchmarking and Metrics Team, which will issue a Canadian e-report card on the state of e-business in Canada. The team is compiling data to produce a Canadian Net Impact Study, led by Prof. Ron McClean at York’s Schulich School of Business. An Interim Report will be released November 1st, at the first CeBI business meeting. The study will evaluate the penetration of Internet-based technologies as a force for productivity change in small and medium-sized businesses, which are the backbone of the Canadian economy.
"Canadians have an edge in the incorporation of technology to enhance business and learning and we aim to keep that edge," said Marsden. "York itself has been a model for the sensible use of technology to enhance the learning environment," she said, referring to online student registration, digitalization of library services, experiments with Web-based interactive learning, and research across the disciplines on the effects of the new economy.
McClean has been instrumental in developing an e-business curriculum for graduate programs at York’s Schulich School of Business. He acknowledges that some new business models have brought successful initiatives to the market, while many others have failed. "But the Canadian economy is strong despite the technology market collapse, and organizations still must adapt to the dynamic forces that new technologies and the Internet bring," he said.
Also contributing to the Net Impact Study are IDC Canada, Cisco Canada, Industry Canada and York professors Michael Wade and David Johnston. Johnston’s research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Initiative on the New Economy, focuses on the penetration and effect of Internet-based solutions (IBS) and electronic networks, both in Canada and internationally, on small and medium size businesses.
York is also responding to the federal government’s Broadband strategy to ensure that high-speed Internet access is available to businesses and residents in every Canadian community by 2004. York is taking the lead in connecting teachers across Canada through the Advanced Broadband Enabled Learning (ABEL) project, funded through the CANARIE Learning Program. Through research on CANARIE’s broadband network CA*Net, post-secondary faculty, K-12 teachers and students will participate in professional learning and curriculum activities in this broadband enabled environment to find innovative ways to enhance the classroom experience. In addition, York’s new Institute for Research on Learning Technologies (IRLT) engages in interdisciplinary research related to the use of technology in teaching and learning at the K-12 and post-secondary levels.
The Honourable Allan Rock, Minister of Industry, announced his support for the Canadian e-Business Initiative on March 25, 2002 to build upon the previous work of the Canadian E-Business Opportunities Roundtable. The Roundtable completed its work and submitted its final report "Fast Forward 3.0: Maintaining the Momentum" on March 25, 2002.
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For further information, please contact:
| Susan Bigelow | Sheila Smail |
| Media Relations | CeBI Secretariat |
| York University | (613) 954-3285 |
| 416-736-2100, ext. 22091 | sheila@cebi.ca |
| sbigelow@yorku.ca |
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