Canadian Advanced Air Mobility Consortium to build country ecosystem for aviation, mobility and space

The Cana­di­an Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty con­sor­tium (CAAM) and the Cen­tre for Advanced Research and Train­ing in Avi­a­tion, Mobil­i­ty and Space (CARTAMS) have announced a part­ner­ship to build an avi­a­tion, mobil­i­ty and space (AMS) ecosys­tem. 

The CAAM-CARTAMS part­ner­ship aims to lever­age the exist­ing syn­er­gy between the two organ­i­sa­tions to uni­fy their respec­tive net­works of indus­try, gov­ern­ment, and acad­e­mia part­ners to build a dynam­ic ecosys­tem that fos­ters AMS inno­va­tion, inven­tion, edu­ca­tion and out­reach. 

“CAAM has been work­ing hard to organ­ise dozens of groups from indus­try, acad­e­mia, and gov­ern­ment around region­al rev­enue gen­er­at­ing use cas­es which are sup­port­ed by a nation­al strat­e­gy to rapid­ly unlock the safe devel­op­ment of this indus­try,” said JR Ham­mond, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of CAAM. 

“We have always known that our struc­ture and goals would make it dif­fi­cult to play a large role in coor­di­nat­ing the research and tal­ent devel­op­ment need­ed for the indus­try to grow safe­ly along­side oth­er glob­al lead­ers.” 

Rapid­ly emerg­ing and con­verg­ing tech­nolo­gies, an ever-present need for work­ers with trans­portable skills, and a flu­id inter­na­tion­al mar­ket­place is trans­lat­ing into a crit­i­cal need to fast-track Canada’s evolv­ing AMS sec­tor, if it is to retain its top sev­en glob­al rank­ing in avi­a­tion and aero­space design and pro­duc­tion. 

This sec­tor pro­vides more than 200,000 well-pay­ing jobs and con­tributes more than C$25 bil­lion to its GDP. Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty will add a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of jobs and busi­ness­es to the Cana­di­an econ­o­my in the years to come. 

In Decem­ber 2020, CAAM named Toron­to and the Ontario region as its sec­ond launch mar­ket after Van­cou­ver. 

An impor­tant first ini­tia­tive of the new­ly formed part­ner­ship is a cross-sec­toral study to cat­a­logue and bet­ter under­stand the cur­rent state of the AMS ecosys­tem in Cana­da and pro­vide a foun­da­tion for devel­op­ing a 5‑year AMS road map. 

A key com­po­nent of the study will be to assess how each AMS ver­ti­cal works with each oth­er today, then iden­ti­fy gaps, areas for improve­ment and oppor­tu­ni­ties to inform the CAAMS-CARTAMS AMS road map. 

CARTAMS is a Cana­di­an not-for-prof­it focused on build­ing a nation­al sec­toral net­work and super­com­put­ing dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture anchored by a state-of-the-art, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary cen­ter of excel­lence locat­ed on the grounds of the Cana­da Avi­a­tion and Space Muse­um in Ottawa.

It will be a major play­er in evolv­ing Canada’s AMS ecosys­tem by dri­ving inno­va­tion, edu­ca­tion, and train­ing across the coun­try through data cre­ation, visu­al­i­sa­tion, appli­ca­tion, and knowl­edge trans­la­tion. CARTAMS will con­sist of three dis­tinct, but cross-inte­grat­ed direc­torates – Dig­i­tal Lab and Infra­struc­ture, Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing, and Out­reach and Aware­ness – that use a shared tech­nol­o­gy and admin­is­tra­tive infra­struc­ture for cost-effec­tive­ness and econ­o­my of scale. You can read their lat­est white paper by click­ing here.

Chris Kitzan, Direc­tor Gen­er­al of the Cana­da Avi­a­tion and Space Muse­um – a found­ing part­ner of CARTAMS – said: “By work­ing togeth­er, we will help Cana­da build a new AMS ecosys­tem for Cana­di­ans that is pow­ered by Cana­di­ans, that over­comes fre­quent bar­ri­ers to inno­va­tion between indus­try, gov­ern­ment, and acad­e­mia. 

“That will inspire and engage the next gen­er­a­tion of AMS thinkers and doers to ensure Cana­da keeps its lead­er­ship posi­tion in the avi­a­tion, mobil­i­ty and space sec­tors for years to come.”