The Barrett Centre is getting a $4 million upgrade

Sep 20, 2018 | Biz/Tech

Maheen Malik

Technology-driven education is the main goal of the new multi-million dollar collaboration between Humber College and Cisco Canada.

The partnership is launching a five year initiative to engage students, and companies in projects and collaborations within digital technology. Cisco Canada will be providing $4 million towards technology being input into Humber’s new Barrett Centre for Technology Innovation (CTI).

The highly anticipated building is going to be opening its doors this fall according to Guillermo Acosta, the Dean of Media Studies at Humber College.

“It (CTI) will be equipped with a lot of Cisco gear,” he told Humber News. “One of the things that is central to this partnership is an Academic Research Network that Cisco provided the equipment for.”

The CTI’s Transformation Zone will become a hub for all sorts of tech-driven interdisciplinary projects throughout the centre.

“The Centre for Technology Innovation is a great playground for the industry to come and play and advance research at Humber College,” Acosta said.

Progress as of
May 3, 2018 of the Barrett Building. (Humber College)

Darren Lawless, Dean of Applied Research and Innovation agrees. Cisco will be helping the college set up an entire network throughout the building that will help with communication as well as cyber safety, Lawless told Humber News.

“There will many opportunities for students through this collaboration,” Lawless said. “Cisco will be offering paid internships, and even scholarships to students.”

According to Lawless, the tech being incorporated in this project is going to be state-of-the-art technology and will allow for much advancement in terms of innovation and research for students. The project will also allow for better networking systems by involving many companies in the industry, he said.

Apart from the Transformation Zone, the CTI building will feature collaborative audio-visual systems that will allow for communication, networking, and connection between everyone involved.

“This collaboration is an example of how our polytechnic model of education connects industry with faculty and students to use emerging technologies to solve real-world business challenges.” Chris Whitaker, president of Humber College told Humber Today.

Every project that will be started at the Barrett Centre’s transformation zone will have an industry component, a student component, and a faculty component, said Acosta. A setup like this one will allow for a merging of ideas that is very well rounded and inter-disciplinary.

“Basically, it’s a win-win situation for everybody,” he said.