Hire Immigrants Ottawa

Working with United Way / Centraide Ottawa, Brian was involved in Ottawa’s Hire Immigrants Ottawa (HIO) initiative. HIO is a community-based initiative, funded by Ontario's Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, that brings together employers, immigrant agencies and stakeholders to create employment opportunities for skilled immigrants in the Ottawa area. In addition to providing project management services including administrative reports to the project funder, Brian also developed strategic plans, proposals, and funding applications for related projects.

DECIDeS

Working with the Children's Hopsital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Research Institute, Brian developed a set of potential funding opportunities for a project entitled Development and Evaluation of Clinical Information Decision Support (DECIDeS). The overall objective of this applied research project is to introduce decision support and new alerting rules into an operational medical unit, and evaluate the adoption challenges of introducing this technology into practice and the extent to which the new alerts are improving the quality of patient care. Brian co-authored a funding application for this project to the Ontario Research Fund (Research Excellence). Brian also assisted the CHEO project director in developing strategic plans, building partnerships, and pursuing other funding opportunities for this and related projects.

TalentWorks

Working with the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI), Brian directed Ottawa's TalentWorks initiative for two years. TalentWorks is a community-based initiative to build Ottawa's talent pool and address workforce issues by providing strategic integrated support to targeted sectors. Working with project stakeholders, Brian secured funding from all three levels of government on an annual basis to implement targeted projects. Results included the annual production of the provincially-mandated Trends Opportunities and Priorities (TOP) report for the Ottawa region, which Brian co-authored (see 2006/07 TOP Report).

SmartCapital

Brian was involved in Ottawa’s SmartCapital initiative from its beginning. Working with the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) he co-authored the SmartCapital Business Plan, a winning submission in Industry Canada’s Smart Communities Demonstration Project competition. This $11M joint public/private sector initiative launched a broad range of online public sector services in the national capital region. The City of Ottawa and dozens of private sector partners were involved in eleven separate sub-projects. Brian managed successful implementation of the project plan over a four year period, and was directly responsible for all administrative and reporting activities with Industry Canada.

Computer Literacy Curriculum

Brian initiated, authored, and implemented a successful proposal to Canada’s National Literacy Secretariat to design and develop a computer literacy curriculum aimed at novice computer and Internet users in public Internet access sites. With OCRI as the sponsoring organization, Brian was directly responsible for designing and managing all aspects of this $500K pilot project, including selection and supervision of sub-contractors. Online tutorials, short courses, and reference materials were developed and/or acquired to address the learning needs of visitors to public Internet access sites across Ottawa.