The national Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator (MICA) will officially launch this fall.
First proposed in 2015, MICA is a national collective of regional mining clusters that will work together to speed up the commercialization of innovative autonomous and clean technologies in the mining sector.
Key partners include InnoTech Alberta, MaRS (Toronto), Group MISA (Quebec), College of the North Atlantic (Newfoundland and Labrador), Bradshaw Research Initiative for Minerals and Mining (British Columbia), and Saskatchewan Polytechnic.
But MICA is expected to comprise more than 350 mining companies, industrial suppliers, academic organizations and researchers, and industrial innovators to share expertise and new technology from within, and outside of, the mining industry.
The initiative will be led by the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI), which is based in Sudbury.
Ultimately, MICA’s goal is to make the mining industry more productive and sustainable.
Though the initiative has been in the works for years, it received a huge boost forward this past July after receiving $40 million in federal funding from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund.
Federal government projections suggest MICA will leverage at least $100 million in private sector investment, create 900 jobs, start up 12 new businesses, and commercialize at least 30 new products, services and processes related to Canada’ $109-billion mining sector.
