Business Bulletin opulation growth! Once piece of advice we give our clients who are experiencing financial challenges is to explore all possible cost savings while continuing to invest in the things that are critical to growing the bottom line. Recent budget pressures with the City of Saint John have resulted in a number of difficult but necessary decisions being made. Even in light of these recent challenges our Community has a very strong value proposition. The latest population growth numbers for our City and region is great news and very encouraging. We need to continue investing in initiatives that are important to retaining and attracting people, idea and investment. Now, more than ever, we have to continue working together as we put on our sales hats to promote Saint John as a magnet for innovation, creativity and business investment. Attracting new investment Saint John one of the world’s Top7 Intelligent Communities On January 18, 2012, the Intelligent Communities Forum, a New York-based think tank, named Saint John one of the world’s Top7 Intelligent Communities of the Year. Our Community’s application provided detailed information on broadband penetration, educational attainment, school enrolments, emerging economic clusters, our vision for increasing digital inclusion and how we define innovation in Saint John. The submission represented 173 hours of researching, interviewing and writing and represented the work of about 60 people, all of whom generously volunteered their knowledge and assistance to help us tell this very important story. The Top7 and the first-phase Smart21 application totaled 42 pages and 25,000 words and featured the accomplishments of 33 Saint John organizations. The next step is hosting Louis Zacharilla, the ICF co-founder in Saint John on March 29 & 30 after which the Intelligent Community of the Year will be announced in New York at the “Building the Broadband Economy” Summit June 6 – 8 hosted by the Polytechnic Institute of NYU. During the months of January and February, Enterprise Saint John hosted 4 domestic and interna- tional investment clients. Some of our priorities for 2012 include: Focusing on developing an investment attraction strategy for the Tucker Park Knowledge Cluster; working with Saint John area companies to help them participate in the $25-billion Irving shipbuilding contract; building on the success of the Top7 Intelligent Communities designation to attract new investment, particularly in our Uptown ICT ecosystem; and helping finalize plans for downstream potash manufacturing opportunities which could result in the creation of hundreds of new jobs. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 ACTIVITY UPDATE Inspiring people, ideas & investment “WOW!!! I've started telling the world already... Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Caribbean (Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Trinidad), Channel Islands (Jersey), China, Columbia, Croatia, Dubai, France, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Mozambique, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Syria, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, UK, Venezuela. For those of us attracting foreign direct investment, this Top7 designation is a pretty powerful addition to our toolkit... you make my job easy :)” Bernadette Fernandes, Investment Officer with InvestNB Our inspired entrepreneur: Amanda Galbraith We first met aspiring entrepre- neur, Amanda Galbraith in August 2011 when she approached us with her business plan and dream of opening a premier maternity shop. In working with Amanda, Economic Development Officer, Hemant Kumar, provided prompt and honest feedback on her plan including additional information that would be needed in order to proceed. Through the support of Enterprise Saint John, Amanda was thrilled when her application for a $20,000 SEED loan was approved. She is now the proud business owner of Belly Beautiful Maternity Inc., located at 111 Prince William Street – playing her part in Saint John’s urban renaissance. “I can honestly say that if it had not been for Enterprise Saint John and the SEED program, I wouldn’t have been able to proceed with opening Belly Beautiful Maternity Inc. It’s not easy to get financing as a new start-up, so we are VERY fortunate to have a program like this to give entrepreneurs a boost. Just take a look down Prince William Street and you will see the huge impact that local entrepreneurs have had on the Uptown core, and it is very exciting. I’m absolutely thrilled to be a part of it!” Amanda Galbraith is an inspiring entrepreneur and owner of Belly Beautiful Maternity Inc. Job fair aims to help Atelka workers In February, Atelka announced it would be closing its Saint John operation in May and 142 positions would be eliminated. Enterprise Saint John, in partnership with Contact NB, quickly responded and on February 18, hosted a job fair for displaced workers. In total 17 employers registered, including Xerox, IBM, Centerbeam, Wyndham Worldwide, Sitel, Investors Group, Tim Horton’s, Sunlife Financial and RBC. The job fair helped the displaced employees see new opportunities within their own Community, and for many, it will mean a smooth transition to new employment without missing a single pay cheque. Atelka is a Montreal-based inbound customer service call centre that deals with the information technology sector. Hosting immigrant investors In the first two months of 2012, Enterprise Saint John hosted 73 potential business immigrants from China, Korea, Iran and Vietnam. In 2011, a total of 244 potential business immigrants were hosted by Enterprise Saint John from all corners of the globe. Grand Bay-Westfield Quispamsis Rothesay St. Martins Saint John