Mayor hopes Queen's Park trip accelerates Kanata tech scene

Ottawa mayor Jim Watson is hoping a trip to Queen's Parkin the coming weeks with serial entrepreneur andhigh-tech magnate Sir Terry Matthews and others will keep Ottawa's tech scene in the provincial spotlight.

"It's a chance for Terry Matthews and Invest Ottawa and other organizations and companies to come and do a bitof dog-and-pony show to show opinion leaders and decision makers that we have a very vibrant tech sector," said Watson.

Watson said he wants to make sure Ottawafigures as prominently in the minds ofMPPsas other jurisdictions closer to Toronto, such as Waterloo.

"One of the things I learned from my time at Queen's Park is the old expression 'out of sight, out of mind.'"

No date is yet set for the trip, but the mayor's office is looking at the first week of March.

Watson eyes provincial designation for driverless cars

A priority for Watson on this upcoming "mission" to Queen's Parkis to position Kanataas a leader inautonomous vehicles.

• The push to make Kanata a testbed for self-driving cars
• QNX looking to drive up interest in Kanata autonomous vehicle hub

The province has yet to name a community that will become its centre of excellence for driverless car technologyand Watson wants to push for the capital region to be in that running.

"We're seeing private sector investment come into this city in record amounts so I'm hoping we'll be at the forefront of autonomous vehicles in the future," said Watson.

The mayor also spent part of his state of the city speech on Tuesday describing the promise of 5G technology, the next generation of telecommunications networks, and how it is helping "turn the innovation industry spotlight towardOttawa once again."