1. Background

2. ManCET, its Vision and Objectives

3. ManCET’s Organization and Management

4. ManCET Will Offer a Wide Range of Benefits

5. ManCET’s Membership and Sponsorship Levels

6. Budgeting and Financing Plan

7. Implementation, Milestones and Deliverables

8. Benefits Adhering to the ManCET Structure

3. IT&T Submits the Proposal to Create ManCET to the Treasury Board (Appendix #2)

• that a detailed business and financial plan, approved by ManCET stakeholders be prepared;
• that it include specific and measurable business goals and objectives, a detailed implementation strategy, an organization structure and job description;
• that it further contain a plan for the operation of ManCET after the two years of Provincial support.

2. ManCET, its Vision and Objectives

• Facilitate the growth of existing and new information-based industries and organizations.
• Encourage the accelerated adoption of information technologies and practices by Manitobans to enhance global competitiveness.

• Promote the creation of necessary infrastructure and skill-set development.
• Influence decision makers on strategic initiatives and to reduce barriers which impede competitiveness.
• Liaise with similar organizations in other jurisdictions.
• Attract new partners which support the ManCET vision.
• Encourage entreprenership and exports.
• Foster the development of innovation centres, research consortia and experimentation.
• Articulate and advocate positions to government and others related to information-based change.
• Celebrate our successes through awareness and promotional programs.
• Begin the development of a comprehensive data base of high-tech organizations.

3. ManCET’s Organization and Management

4. ManCET Will Offer a Wide Range of Benefits
 

ManCET will promote knowledge-based economic development and the use and development of IT. It is one of a very few organizations that will reach the community at large, province-wide, and with a broad base of membership, including all major stakeholder groups. It is essential for the development of a strong knowledge economy that all stakeholders are involved and are working towards common goals and in partnership. ManCET acts as a co-ordinator and umbrella to facilitate this process. Services to be phased in include:

1. Partnerships With Other Organizations
The role of industry associations is to promote the specific development of their industries and serve the needs of their member companies. The role of ManCET is to partner with them in activities which will promote the growth of their industry (e.g. helping them with an annual conference).

Organizations will be invited to co-locate at ManCET’s premises so as to share common costs and overheads while benefiting from the networking and ManCET executive leadership that this will offer.

2. Representation on ManCET’s Sponsor Advisory Panel

Open to organizations wishing to participate in ManCET’s strategic evolution. Sponsors lead initiatives and have direct involvement in the solution of common problems with governments, R&D , Universities and the building of unique consortia.

3. Alliance Building Using R&D Expertise and Access to Broadband Test Networks.

ManCET will help organizations strike relevant alliances through expanded participation in already established Manitoba R&D infrastructures such as TRLabs, MRnet, University and college laboratories and the Provincial backbone network.

4. Use of Logo

Sponsors of ManCET may make appropriate use of the logo in their own corporate materials, putting the strength of the Corporation to work for them.

5. Networking Opportunities

Regular meetings, forums, seminars, discussions, and other opportunities for networking.

6. Program Information

Comprehensive and timely information on government and educational programs and funding sources available in Manitoba.

7. Political Representation and Lobbying

The collective interests of sponsor organizations are presented to key government representatives and political leaders through briefs and participation in government-sponsored economic initiatives.

8. Seminars/Workshops/Conferences

We keep you informed of upcoming trade shows, seminars, and conventions which provide global business, marketing, and educational opportunities. We also directly organize and sponsor conferences and seminars in conjunction with other technology-related associations.

9.Newsletter

A monthly newsletter is mailed out to inform members of the Centre’s activities and upcoming events.

10. Manitoba Advanced Technology Directory

ManCET will have an on-line database of advanced technology companies to assist in the promotion, development and expansion of the information, globally competitive sector in Manitoba. The directory will profile key personnel, contact information, and an outline of primary specialties, products and services of each company.

11. Access to Capital

Sponsors are provided with assistance in accessing capital markets.

12. Business Planning

First-level business advice and referral services are available. These services are provided in co-operation with other agencies designed to provide business advise to technology-based companies.

13. Project Sponsorship

The information economy will require new institutional arrangements and new behavioral patterns. ManCET can play a fundamental role in building collaborative relationships and facilitating private sector projects in three specific areas:

• building new institutional arrangements that could not be coordinated by existing companies/institutions;
• using its intimate knowledge of a wide circle of disparate information players, ManCET will be able to facilitate partnering in the light of new information-based opportunities, within existing institutional arrangements, that would not otherwise be possible.
• acting as a conduit for governments in the orchestration of new and different partnering arrangements;
14. Hotlinked to ManCET’s Home Page

All sponsors will be hotlinked by areas of interest to ManCET’s home page.

15. Advertising on the Home Page

Discreet advertisements for sponsors on the home page.

16. Liaison Between Provincial Universities and Colleges and the IT Companies Hiring Their Graduates

ManCET will have high-level academic administrators on its board, as well as providing timely surveys as to the needs of the IT industry, to ensure that skill sets acquired in institutions of higher learning are in keeping with need.

5. ManCET’s Membership and Sponsorship Levels

• They do not include the salary costs for the President and one officer in the first two years in keeping with an agreement with the Province that these costs would be underwritten by the Manitoba Government for this period of time.
• In the third year it has been projected that the Province would continue to pick up the costs of one officer (in this case the President). This is done for several reasons:

• Revenue will come from memberships, sponsorships, conferences/seminars conducted in partnership with our members, and from managing fees associated with alliance building.
• As a community-based activity considerable amounts of resources will come to us as "services-in-kind". For example the following has already been offered and is not reflected in our costing:

Revenue Sources

Rationale: The bulk of ManCET’s administrative and networking services are available at the Silver level which will attract the majority of the smaller players. While there are additional services in the Gold category, the ability to be represented on the Sponsorship Advisory Council and to influence policy and direction should have substantial appeal to the Province’s larger information players.   Conferences/Seminars

Revenues from this source depend upon the sharing of revenues derived from collaborative work with members in promoting, organizing, coordinating, and shaping conferences and seminars as well as in assisting with training and making presentations. Since most of the revenue will go to member associations the estimate here is relatively low at $10k, $15K, and $20K for years 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

Alliances and Strategic Relationships.

ManCET, with its wide range of relationships, ability to coordinate many elements of our information economy and its profile as Manitoba’s primary community player in relationship to the rest of Canada, and internationally, will be well positioned to access and activate programs at all levels of government on behalf of its membership and to play a private-sector coordinating role for governments. As well, because of its central role in the Province, its knowledge of the many players and its ready entree into many forums it will be aptly positioned to encourage and build alliances not otherwise possible. ManCET will levy a modest administrative fee in these instances.

Revenue estimates are $12K, $25K, and $50K for years 1, 2 and 3.

Provincial Contribution in Year 1

This is taken at $20K as per agreement with the Department of IT&T.

Costs and Costing Assumptions

Startup Costs

In keeping with ManCET’s determination to keep costs as low as possible, relying on members for as much as possible through services-in-kind many of the usual startup costs, such as for equipment and furniture, have been provided by members and consequently not shown as costs in our calculations. (See above for contributions by members.)

An amount of $5,000 has been shown to allow for such things as telephones, wiring, flip boards and miscellaneous pieces of furniture.

Core Operating Costs

Salaries and Benefits Salaries of $50K and $35K for the Directors have been estimated for all 3 years and a 20% loading applied for Benefits and progression. This total has been reduced by 30% in the first year to recognize that the phase in of the two directors will take 3-4 months. At any rate, the exact timing of the phase-in of these two officers will be made to coincide with revenue support.

In year 3 the salary for the vice-president has been entered as $70K plus a 20% loading for benefits.

Office Space Costs (See Attachment #2) An agreement has been reached with the Federal government for the rent of 4 offices in the NRC building for 50% of the going market rate. As per the attached letter from Dr. Ian Smith of the National Research Council the market costs for rooms 475, 474, 473 and 472 adding to 64 square meters @ $204 per p.a.. Allowing for GST@ 7% the total comes to $14, 000 per year. Reduced by 50% the costs of floor space will be $7, 000 per year.

This number has been reduced by 30% in year 1 to $4,900 to recognize lower costs due to the phase in of staff.

Telephone Costs Costs for 4 telephones, modem lines, internet costs and long distance charges are budgeted at $4,000.

Other Office Costs While many of the costs for paper, business cards, letterhead and other consumables will be provided by members as services-in-kind they have been budgeted at $300 per month., with a lower amount shown in year 1 as the offers of "in-kind" are expected to be higher in the initial year.

Promotional Costs While much of our promotional material will be developed and printed in-house using MS Office software, costs have been budgeted for such things as mass printing of brochures etc. at $10K for year 1 and $5K p.a. thereafter.

Travel and Conference Costs Costs for 6 conferences a year at $1,500 per conference including travel and lodging have been budgeted. Additional costs of $10, 000 have been inserted to allow for committee and other meetings for such things as: gatherings with the Federal Government in Ottawa; collaboration and visits with other non-profit groups performing roles similar to ManCET in other jurisdictions and attending seminar and training sessions.

These costs have been reduced by half in the first year due to phasing-in of staff and allowing for the fact that most of our early attention will be devoted to internal organization activities.

Other Costs Arrangement have been made with the NRC and with member groups to use their conference rooms for meeting and seminar purposes.

 
 

7. Implementation, Milestones and Deliverables

• Recruit staff, obtain facilities, and form the Board of Directors and Sponsorship Advisory Panel.
• Obtain office furniture and relevant computer hardware/software.
• Establish, document and obtain approval on all key policies, procedures, roles and responsibilities to ensure that there is a clear understanding of such.
• Recruit members and solicit sponsors in keeping with the financial plan.
• Begin the development of at least 2 significant policy initiatives and the positioning for an innovation centre.
• Work to create strategic relations among member and sponsors.
• Develop a homepage hotlinked to members and relevant sources of information.
• Begin to issue an electronic newsletter on a bi-monthly basis.
• Establish and maintain the ManCET repository of people, speeches, documents and electronic sources associated with the Info. economy.
• Establish contacts in all sectors and with other organizations with common interests (e.g. MERLIN, Workforce 2000).
• Establish ManCET as a common point of private and public sector reference for information economy activities.
• Assist in organizing breakfasts, workshops, special presentations or briefings to sensitize participants about the impacts and possibilities resident in the Info. economy.
• Ensure rural members are given appropriate opportunities to attend meetings and that they have ready access to the services provided by ManCET.
• Prepare and deliver presentations.
• Providing a networking centre for members and share common resources, to provide synergy, economy and reduced duplication.
• Assist or lead in at least 2 conferences/trade shows.

• Continue and enlarge on the work begun in year 1.
• Solicit sponsors and members in keeping with the financial plan.
• Assist in the implementation of at least 1 innovation centre and the design of another.
• Move the policy initiatives of year 1 into implementation and begin at least 3 more.
• Be able to point to the creation of at least 50 new jobs as a result of ManCET’s efforts.
• Work, either alone or with others to deliver 3 conferences/trade shows, one of which would be in the rural area.
• Promote the wide use of the ManCET logo to signify the community work underway.
• In conjunction with others, make first-level business advice and referral services available, including ideas on how to raise capital.

• Continue and magnify work begun in previous years.
• Have evidence that the academic community are working closer with businesses, especially in regards to R&D.
• Have at least 5 committees working on significant policy issues.
• Work in partnership with established innovation centres to showcase them to the world.
• Actively promote Manitoba at national and international conferences.
• Convincingly show that ManCET’s efforts have directly contributed to the creation of 100 new jobs.

8. Benefits Adhering to the ManCET Structure

• heretofore information was intricately bonded with physical product. Where work was being done in natural resources, manufacturing or for the betterment of the people working in the Province, the information created and consumed provided jobs within the region. This is progressively no longer the case as to-day information tasks can be performed anywhere in the world.
• the Info. economy is market-based. This means that we cannot legislate or centrally control this work or insist that it be done here in Manitoba. Our only recourse is to become globally competitive in those areas of the Info. economy in which we care to compete. The great number of large employers in the Province are public-sector based. Since the government, and most of its agencies, are poorly positioned to compete we must increase the size of the private sector, which also means that we will need to move relevant databases out of government so that they can be used to stimulate the skills we need to create jobs.
• finally, competing successfully in the information economy requires that we become world class in the three areas that are extremely important if we are to offset the economic impact of jobs that are in imminent danger of being lost. The three constituents of success are: skill sets; databases and a quality of life deemed enjoyable by knowledge workers. Only the community working in harmony can create these. Competition has shifted from the industrial world where companies competed within industries to the Info. age where communities have become the basis of competition to create the conditions conducive to economic expansion and job formation.

Reports to: Board of Directors

Responsibilities

• Accountable for the overall performance of the corporation, including staffing, facilities, planning and development of strategic initiatives and day-to-day operations.
• Develops initiatives and programs directed towards enhancing Manitoba’s competitive position in the emerging global economy for information-based products.
• Prepares and makes presentations at conferences and seminars, inside and outside Manitoba.
• Facilitates the implementation of the initiatives and programs into Manitoba’s business, educational and government support enterprises to ensure Manitoba is truly competitive on a global scale.
• Promotes the institutionalization of information and telecommunication research and development facilities in Manitoba
• Encourages the implementation of appropriate and timely education and training capabilities in Manitoba structured to meet the current and emerging needs of Manitoba businesses.
• Promotes the awareness of the enabling effects of information and telecommunication technologies as the economy transforms from the industrial to the information age.
• Collaborates with all elements of the information and telecommunications sectors to make Manitoba the benchmark within selected niches in Canada.
• Facilitates the integration of technology into all relevant aspects of society, with particular emphasis on business, education and government.
• Liaises with associations, agencies, individuals and companies within Manitoba that have common objectives and co-ordinates to ensure that common objectives are met in an efficient and effective manner without duplication of effort.
• Liaises with key officials in government and across all industry sectors to monitor their initiatives and identify areas where IT’s enabling effects could lead towards collaborative developments and new business opportunities.
• Prepares status reports on the progress of ManCET in meeting its financial and operational milestones.

Reports to: President

Responsibilities

• Works with members and sponsors, who come from diverse backgrounds, to develop programs, strategies and initiatives aimed at enhancing Manitoba’s information and telecommunications technology sector to compete in the global economy both effectively and efficiency.
• In direct contact with all Manitoba Chamber of Commerce, facilitates an environment which will ensure the broadest possible inclusion of businesses throughout the Province.
• Monitors technological developments, and evaluates from a business needs perspective, how technology can be applied to business. Makes relevant presentations to varied audiences.
• Participates in the development of position papers, etc. having to do with relevant issues in which ManCET needs to have a voice and/or opinion.
• Maintains awareness of relevant initiatives and issues such that they can be leveraged wherever possible with those of other agencies.
• Consults, as required, with business and others, as a point of experience and expertise on information technology matters.
• Maintains a repository of up-to-date information on Information Technology and developments that are occurring on a sector-by-sector basis.
• Establishes and maintains an electronic means of disseminating relevant information to members, and linking members to other key sources of information regarding information Technology.
• Coordinates, where viable, the provision of seminars, courses and meetings, with the objective of enhancing the overall knowledge base regarding IT.
• Provides an environment, somewhat like a "melting pot" whereby interested parties can come together to forge alliances and/or business partnerships, thereby increasing the collective ability to compete in the global economy.
• Participates on a project-specific basis, in initiatives which could enhance the overall strength of Manitoba’s high technology sector.
• Evaluates and provides information on policy and regulatory matters, from which the Chambers may or will take a position.
• Liaises, in a collaborative manner, with other organizations in Manitoba, in the interests of maximizing the positive effects on the provincial high technology infrastructure.

Reports to: President

Responsibilities

• Has prime responsibility for managing the Corporation’s office environment including:
• developing, installing and maintaining all office facilities including filing systems, reference facilities, mail handling and financial systems, together with the required reporting mechanisms on a timely and accurate basis.
• attending meetings and producing/distributing appropriate documentation as required.
• ensuring that memberships and fees are up-to-date.
• Performs the role of corporate secretary.
• With imagination and attention to detail, manages ManCET’s homepage and its hotlinks to members, sponsors and relevant external sources of information.
• Maintains company and organizational data bases.
• Prepares and makes relevant presentations.

Reports to: President

Responsibilities:

• Develops and delivers ManCET services.
• Develops and recommends courses of action to improve the relevance and delivery of programs.
• Facilitates the implementation of approved initiatives into Manitoba’s business, educational and government enterprises.
• Maintains ManCET’s information technology repository and ensures that information is disseminated in a timely and cost-effective manner.
• Organizes , produces and disseminates promotional material.
• Liaises with member associations to ensure open communication lines with ManCET and that resources, including executive direction, is being adequately shared.
• Works with members and sponsors to encourage the use of the ManCET logo on their communication material.
• Organizes and coordinates luncheons, seminars, conferences, and other "networking" activities.
• Prepares and makes presentations