Toronto Area Tech Group Closes Doors

Smart Toronto Technology Alliance, the industry group that represents the interests of technology companies in greater Toronto abruptly closed its doors two weeks ago, claimed insolvency, and re-emerged as a division of the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA), a national interest group for high-tech industry.

In doing so, Smart Toronto left a handful of its business sub-tenants, many of them organization members, stranded without phones or e-mail. Having paid rent for August, these tenants were shocked to find themselves on their own and forced to find new office space.

They want to know why an umbrella organization like Smart Toronto, looked upon as a role model for the city's emerging high-tech community, resorted to a Friday "midnight move" and left its tenants in a Monday-morning lurch.

Meanwhile, the Ontario government, which awarded Smart Toronto a $275,000 grant in January for the creation of a 4,000 square foot "Innovation Lab," wants to know what happened to most of that money and whether anything will result from it.

The situation has left a foul taste with those affected by the shutdown, particularly after watching the nine-year-old organization re-emerge days later as a one-person division within CATA. About 170 Smart Toronto members gain automatic membership in CATA as part of the amalgamation.

The merger itself is not in question, but rather the way in which Smart Toronto conducted itself leading up to the announcement.

I'm sure there is more to this story than meets the eye in the news article, but this strikes me as the wrong way to go about engendering trust and support for fledging businesses that must already face great risk and uncertainty as startup businesses. I'm finding that the "herd is thinning" in many areas right now as tech assistance groups struggle for the two big R's: resources and results.

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