Greg Baiden takes FedNor Minister Tony Clement on a tour of Penguin Automated Systems Inc. on Wednesday. (Carol Mulligan
The Sudbury Star)

FedNor Minister Tony Clement left Sudbury on Wednesday with a promise to a city entrepreneur his government would do everything it can to remove road blocks to developing innovative robotics.

Clement first delivered almost $1.8 million in FedNor funding to two organizations in the city to create jobs and stimulate economic growth.

The Northern Water Sports Centre received $1 million toward the cost of constructing the facility and Nickel Basin Federal Development Corporation received $795,000 to offer access to capital for new and existing small- and medium-sized businesses.

Clement then travelled 20 minutes to a former elementary school in Naughton that now houses a business called Penguin Automated Systems Inc., where 26 people work in the field of robotics and automation.

Penguin chair and chief technology officer Greg Baiden toured Clement around the plant, showing him where the $400,000 that FedNor gave to Penguin will be put to use.

Baiden and company have developed a prototype he calls a “sewer rat bot” that is used to inspect and map wastewater pipes.
The FedNod money will go to develop two more prototypes that will put the robot closer to production.

During the tour, Baiden told Clement how his company is spending so much money on patents for its inventions, it doesn't have the cash it needs to build the equipment it is designing.

It can cost $200,000 to $400,000 to patent a device internationally, said Baiden, partly because of the cost of translation in several different languages.

Clement promised to continue the conversation with Baiden about the patent issue and others that may be holding his business back.

Baiden and Penguin are in good company because RIM chief Jim Balsillie has told Clement the same thing about the cost of protecting what it creates, said the politician.

“We don't want to be naive,” Clement told Baiden and reporters. “The rest of the world would love to eat our lunch, and we have to be savvy enough to protect our intellectual property and make sure it just doesn't get transferred.”

Clement said after the tour he was impressed with the product FedNor is funding at Penguin, a product that can have a worldwide application. “That's the kind of thing we like to support at FedNor and our government likes to support.

“Local innovation, new products, new jobs, new economic growth, finding a market, it's all here at Penguin. That's the kind of thing we do see time and time again in Sudbury, but it's good to see it's still happening,” said Clement.

Canadian innovators are in a “dog-eat-dog world,” said the minister, “and there are lots of people in lots of different countries who'd love to steal our technology and not pay us a red nickel for it.

“So, we've got to be conscious of that and make sure we continue to protect the intellectual property so things can be developed in Canada.”

Baiden has already fielded calls from other countries about the sewer rat, a robot built to be placed in sewer tunnels to collect data such as the shape of tunnels and the volume of sewer that runs through them.

The sewer rat has the potential to save cities such as Sudbury money, said Baiden, by saving money with the data collected.

That's not the end of it. Baiden said the sewer rat could turn sewer tunnels into storage silos where sewage could be held and only pumped into a plant at a time when electricity costs are reduced.

Baiden said his company's robot has the advantage over some others in that it is highly accurate in its positioning system and that “we're able to tele-operate the robots using computer networks.”

Clement vowed to help companies such as Baiden's move forward.

“We want him to be a success, and I have no doubt he will be.”

Clement visited to Sudbury to roll out some of the $150 million his government is spending on infrastructure projects and allocate FedNor money for business development.

The $1 million he gave the Northern Water Sports Centre will move the project “that much closer to reality,” said Clement, something he called exciting for sport tourism and international events.

“I'm very jealous of that one,” said the Parry Sound-Muskoka MP.

carol.mulligan@sunmedia.ca

Twitter @Carol_Mulligan