City, province invest $800,000 in Griffintown's Quartier de l'Innovation

Condos in Griffintown in 2015.

As part of its continuing effort to make Griffintown a technology hub, the city of Montreal announced Sunday it will give $600,000 over the next three years to the group Quartier de l'Innovation, while the province is throwing in another $200,000.

The money is intended to help develop creative businesses as well as urban planning and arts programs in the neighbourhood.

Non-profit group Quartier de l'Innovation, or QI, has made it their mission to promote up-and-coming tech businesses and arts programs in hopes that Southwest borough neighbourhood can compete with other modern North American cities

“We have to be able to do and to keep the talent of Montreal,” said QI Executive Director Damien Siles.

In an area that includes close to 200,000 students and 300 business startups, QI will help emerging entrepreneurs write business plans and solicit investors.

It will also help others, including artists and those who want to protect green space.

“Our goal is to work with the social sector, the cultural and entrepreneurship sectors to represent all the strengths of this area and to do something concrete,” said Siles.

While the $800,000 subsidy is not a huge sum of money in the business world, there are other subsidies available for the group.

This type of support goes a long way, said Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, on hand for the announcement.

“It's like coaches or mentorship, how can we take out that flame in their eyes and go further,” he said.

The hope is it will create jobs in the Southwest and Ville-Marie boroughs – and not just in tech fields.

“There are jobs for social science students,” said Rose Goldstein, vice-principal of McGill University. “We already have about 12 internships in the summer for students in the social science sector that create jobs for students. So we often think about the industrial sector as a sector for jobs, but in the social entrepreneurship sector, it also can create businesses and jobs.”