$50 million gift from Pierre Lassonde to university for creating a disruptive innovation hub
A Quebec-born businessman and philanthropist who is donating $50 million to a Montreal university to establish an institute dedicated to “disruptive innovation” says it has never been more important to invest in homegrown talent.
Lassonde, a Polytechnique graduate and an expert in mining and precious metals, heads the school’s board of directors, and the family name already adorns a number of pavilions at the institution thanks to previous donations.
The engineering school, which is affiliated with the Université de Montréal, described the $50 million as the most significant gift in its history.
Lassonde said the idea formed as he roamed the labs and spoke to professors and students. He detected untapped potential due in part to a lack of money.
“We do have incredible brains at Polytechnique in terms of deep tech. We are, in some respects, at the very cutting edge of the domain,” he said. That’s why the new funding will be used to invest in those minds before they are recruited into the private sector.
Disruptive innovation is when a new product or service, often with a more straightforward or less sophisticated design, initially targets a specific market and then gradually or eventually replaces the existing product.
“None of it is going into bricks and mortar, it’s all about intellectual capital and about creating intellectual properties that will really be meaningful, that will create jobs, that will create economic activity, growth in Canada hopefully, and impact the world,” Lassonde said.
He also hopes to spur on others with the financial means to contribute toward the creation of forward-looking projects.
Though Quebecers have in recent decades started “throwing their weight around” and giving more to higher education, he said more can be done.
“It’s a recurring issue in Canadian universities, simply because we don’t have the philanthropic model that the U.S. universities have,” Lassonde said.
Oussama Moutanabbir, a professor at Polytechnique, said the new institute’s primary focus will be developing technologies to address immediate problems.
“Since the beginning of humanity, people develop technology based on what they have in hand and what they need, and that paradigm continues today. Many universities and research labs are doing the same thing,” Moutanabbir said.
“But Polytechnique has a commitment to focus on this innovation by tapping into new fundamental knowledge, so bridging the gap between the discovery and the application.”
Moutanabbir gives the example of medical imaging and cancer — developing technology that can detect the first small clusters of tumour cells that appear in the body and to test as many patients as possible.
Existing technology requires exposure to an X-ray with a high dose of radiation for people who are vulnerable, so the idea is to create a new tool that is smaller and can be operated with a much lower exposure. That involves going back to the drawing board.
“To address that challenge, we have to go to the fundamental nature of matter and manipulate it,” Moutanabbir said. “The institute would be focusing on these kind of problems … the driving force will always be to maximize the impact of academic research on society.”
Forward-looking also means the need to invest in young minds, Moutanabbir said.
“The very precious resource we need to focus on is young scientists,” he said.
Lassonde said he worries about recent measures limiting the number of international students coming to Quebec.
Last month, the province announced it would issue 20 percent fewer acceptance certificates to foreign students this year than last.
“I am very concerned about our ability … to attract the very best minds and bring them here,” Lassonde said, noting that two-thirds of doctoral candidates at Polytechnique are international students and there are not enough Quebecers to meet the demand.
“If that ability to attract them is cut off, it’s really like cutting off your nose to spite your face,” Lassonde said.
“It’s going to be a terrible blow to our university programs.”