[URBAN NOTE] "Tech firms aim to reverse Hamilton’s brain drain"

[rfmcdonald]

The Globe and Mail's Diane Jermyn reports on how Hamilton is trying to join in urban Canada's high-tech boom.

When software developer Andrew Holden first moved to Hamilton a decade ago, software jobs and tech companies were scarce.

But that’s changed. “There are 50 software companies and lots of startups offering a chance to do things that are pretty cool,” says Mr. Holden, chief technology officer for Weever Apps Inc., a Hamilton-based mobile solutions company.

With startup incubators such as the Innovation Factory and The Forge, McMaster University’s startup accelerator, firing up the city’s rapidly growing technology industry, tech companies find they are facing a common problem – a shortage of talent.

For years, Hamilton has been losing skilled people to jobs in Toronto, nearby Waterloo and Calgary, often seeing the top computer science graduates from McMaster head straight to Silicon Valley in the United States.

For new tech companies and entrepreneurs, the challenge is reversing the brain drain, Mr. Holden says, who also recruits for his own firm, which has grown to 16 people today from four in 2013. The shortage is fuelling private and public pressure to bring skilled employees back to work in Hamilton.