TechLink Innovation Exchange waives network fees in effort to break Canadian manufacturing bottleneck during COVID-19 pandemic

BURLINGTON, ON, April 7, 2020 /CNW/ - To free a deadly bottleneck in the manufacture of critical COVID-19 equipment, TechLink Innovation Exchange announced today the non-profit organization is waiving subscription fees — forever — to any Canadian company that signs on to the network in 2020.

"The tragedy of personal loss during the pandemic is magnified by obstacles that for too long have made it difficult for Canadian producers to leverage inventors and their research," said TechLink co-founder Steve Leach, partner at Ridout & Maybee LLP.

"The impediment is on full view amidst news reports of life-saving face masks curtailed at the border," said Leach. "It's testing the limits of all Canadians."

Rapidly deployed initiatives are critical to our ability to respond to COVID-19, Leach said.

"The forgiveness of fees — forever — is one clear message we can send as an organization that for five years has been working to streamline the outmoded methods that have stood between ideas and the markets they need to reach," said TechLink co-founder and STANMECH president Paul Subject.

As a legacy of thanks to heroes of the pandemic, many of whom are working without protective gear, TechLink joins a growing corporate response to the crisis.

"TechLink's aim is to leave the future a gift: a Canada that produces the goods that it will need to trade in the future good times -- and to better handle, and hopefully avoid, the next pandemic," Leach said.

TechLink Innovation Exchange is a non-profit organization formed in 2015 that, though its online platform TechLink.Network, provides qualification, introduction and matching services to holders of intellectual property.

SOURCE TechLink Innovation Exchange

Contact Steven Leach at [email protected] or 905 363 3620; Paul Subject [email protected] at 905 631-6161 ext. 205; For background and media requests: c2e Consulting at [email protected] or 289 501 3337