Doing business naturally: Naturallia offering matchmaking opportunities for Northern businesses.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: SMALL BUSINESS

It's been called speed dating for business, and when Naturallia gets underway at the end of this month its creators hope the result will be the blossoming of some long-lasting relationships that will bolster business in the North.

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Taking place Oct. 28-30 in Sault Ste. Marie, Naturallia will bring together business people from across the globe in a matchmaking forum designed to create new collaborations between businesses in four of the North's strongest sectors: advanced manufacturing, value-added forest products, mining supply and services, and smart energy development, supply and services.

The initiative is a joint effort by the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre, the city's Economic Development Corporation (EDC), and RDEE, the economic development organization for Franco-Ontario.

Naturallia will be an ideal opportunity for the North to showcase itself, its businesses and its natural resources, said Jason Naccarato, the innovation centre's vice-president of development.

"It's really an opportunity for Northern Ontario," he said. "We want Northern Ontario to put their best foot forward and show their best and brightest companies at this event and, hopefully, with the intent of bringing a lot of those investment dollars to the North."

Planning started more than a year ago, when Naccarato and Dodds travelled to Winnipeg to make their case to MAE during a similar event, Centrallia.

"Given our central location in the North and our presence in the four sectors, it really was a good fit to have it in Sault Ste. Marie," Naccarato said. "There was a bit of a competitive process to it, but I think a lot of it is the diversity of where the Sault's headed right now in all four of these sectors."

Highlights of Naturallia will include access to international trade experts, a keynote address by Sean Wise, a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation with the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University, as well as industry tours of local companies like Essar Steel Algoma, Heliene, Boniferro Mill Works and the Ontario Forestry Research Centre.

But central to the event are one-on-one 30-minute meetings between businesses whose interests intersect, said Tom Dodds, CEO at the city's EDC.

"In terms of the individuals and organizations going, you've got a very rich mixture of small business, larger corporations and organizations such as ourselves that really are there in the game...