Since its founding, the DigiHub has become a model that is being emulated and recognized as the 3rd digital hub in Quebec behind Montrèal and Québec City. As a key player in Shawinigan’s economic shift towards a digital economy and a smart city status, the Digihub has always been at the heart of the shift. A mid-sized city of 51,000 inhabitants with a strong industrial past, Shawinigan experienced a significant exodus of its workforce and population when its main industries closed, which imposed a major and necessary economic conversion. The DigiHub has greatly contributed to this shift by shaping and energizing the innovative entrepreneurial ecosystem and by enabling the emergence and sustainability of digital business projects through an adapted basket of services. This has been a major challenge for an organization located in a rural region but, thanks to its determination and the combined efforts of its local partners, the Digihub has been able to make the city more attractive, while at the same time raising the cities profile and notoriety nationally and internationally.
Complete and varied, the DigiHub’s ecosystem promotes the emergence and realization of digital projects. Within its walls are; a startup incubator, business accellerator, Fab Lab, living labs, coworking spaces used to encourage ideas and the sharing of expertise, recreational spaces, video recording and podcasting studios, training rooms, multimedia conferences spaces, large areas perfect for events and networking of all sizes to accelerate the adoption of disruptive technologies in businesses and among the local population. The DigiHub Lab, powered by Desjardins, plays a key role in fostering creative momentum and providing all the necessary tools to support the low-tech movement and sustainable development. Through the growth and diversity of the Digihub’s partnership initiatives with local and international communities, its exchanges with numerous incubators, its economic missions, its network of strong and active partners and its specialized poles, the DigiHub attracts new opportunities for its startups and positions itself as a key player in the digital ecosystem of Quebec.
What distinguishes the Digihub is its poles of expertise. Strategically chosen, their objective is to raise awareness and support companies and organizations in a specific economic sector in their digital transition by providing the skills of startups incubated at the DigiHub. They also aim at networking companies that are part of this ecosystem to create wealth and increase their expertise in several innovative technologies, while promoting Canadian knowledge. The DigiHub is currently piloting the pole of expertise in culture, tourism, heritage and digital museology, it is also pioneering a pole in blockchain and metaverse, and is exploring the concepts of deep learning and prompt engineering using artificial intelligence. The organization also provides several cutting edge training courses for young people in its territory, bringing knowledge to schools, from elementary to CEGEP.
