Students at Portage College Cold Lake are about to get a much-needed boost in bandwidth.
In a joint effort with the federal government's Strategic Investment Fund (SIF), the Alberta government announced on Thursday, May 25, that a $21.78 million contribution will be made to design and improve post- secondary infrastructure.
“This historic investment by the Government of Canada is a down payment on the government's vision to position Canada as a global centre for innovation. That means making Canada a world leader in turning ideas into solutions, science into technologies, skills into middle class jobs, and start up companies into global successes,” parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, David Lametti wrote in an official statement.
The funding will be split between four Albertan schools, including a $1.6 million contribution to Portage College.
“Portage College has received funding for three projects that will help the college enhance its suite of environmental program; expand future programming, and support remote learners,” said Trent Keough, President and CEO of Portage College.
Of the $1.6 million, Portage will allocate a total of $210,000 to the Cold Lake campus to be used for updating Information Technology (IT) infrastructure. This will double the current funding for IT infrastructure, bringing the total to $420,000. The remaining funds will be split between the Natural Resource Technology program at the Lac La Biche campus, which will receive a new greenhouse, and the construction of a water and wastewater simulation lab.
Jamie Davies, manager of corporate communications with Portage, touched on the importance of the funding.
“The college relies heavily on information technology to deliver content to our students across campuses. Through these enhancements, the college has an opportunity to enhance the course offerings... especially to our remote locations,” noted Davies.
She went on to explain how the funding provides a boost to the areas that need it most.
“Current infrastructure doesn't support the delivery of high bandwidth application to all locations, in particular to Aboriginal communities,” Davies said. “The college cabling has been installed over many years with some of the older cabling not being capable of supporting high bandwidth connectivity and it limits the ability to deliver rich content to the desktop.”
Davies believes the much needed funding will speed up an already ongoing process.
“The college has been renewing its IT infrastructure on a continuous basis for the past three years and developed an ever greening strategy that's seeing a gradual replacement of much of the college IT equipment. Portage has, for the past few years, devoted up to 70 per cent of its annual capital expenditures to the replacement of aging IT equipment,” said Davies. “The renewal needs greatly exceed the ability of the college to move as quickly as it would like, and the SIF funding would allow the college to accelerate the required renewal of its infrastructure.”
The $21.78 contribution is just the beginning; the province plans to invest over $1.4 billion in Alberta post-secondary institutions by 2021 with $734 million put towards new infrastructure. The remaining $676 million will go to maintenance and renewal of infrastructure.
