From Resource Town to Tech Testbed: A 36-Month Playbook for Thunder Bay’s Digital Leap
Why mining’s AI future, Tbaytel’s fibre/5G, and a talent-first strategy can turn Thunder Bay into Northern Ontario’s innovation hub
THUNDER BAY – TECHNOLOGY UPDATES – Thunder Bay is known for grit and natural beauty. It’s also at a turning point. While forestry has softened in recent years, mining is surging—and modern mining isn’t picks and hard hats; it’s AI-driven targeting, core-sample analytics, autonomous vehicles, and digital twins. Layer on the steady rise of local digital and creative tech, and you have the makings of a real transformation—if we organize around it.
The thesis is simple: becoming a tech city isn’t a slogan; it’s infrastructure, talent, livability, and proof.
Thunder Bay already has an edge most mid-sized cities don’t: Tbaytel, Canada’s largest independently owned telecom, rolling out 5Gand deep local fibre.
If the City, Lakehead University, Confederation College, Indigenous partners, and the business community align around Tbaytel as the platform for innovation, Thunder Bay can be Northern Ontario’s testbed for AI, martech, and data-driven services—and a place young professionals choose to live.
There are some who fear Artificial Intelligence (AI) – which is doing a lot more than simple Chat GPT. The reality is a person is not likely to lose their job to AI, but could certainly lose their job to someone who is trained and knowledgeable in AI.
Getting started means following a new pathway for our city. That isn’t going to be easy. At the civic level, leadership needs to be very focused on the future, and over the past year it has been very difficult for the city to get focused and stick to a decision.
At the provincial level it is going to take some real change, that is going to take a combination of Associate Minister Holland, Minister Rickford and Premier Ford.
Nationally it is going to need the skill sets to bring Indigenous leadership into the initial planning. This could be the means to make it possible for Indigenous youth to live and work in their communities.
Lets look at the path forward
1) Build the Digital Backbone
Citywide fibre + dense 5G.
Prioritize last-mile fibre to employment districts (Waterfront/Port Arthur, Intercity, campuses, health & industrial zones). Accelerate small-cell 5G on main corridors using alleyways/utility poles, with fast-tracked permits. Why this matters: community networks elsewhere have been credited with multi-billion-dollar impacts over a decade by enabling multi-gig speeds and attracting firms. Thunder Bay can replicate the regional testbed model.
Tbaytel OpenLab (Edge & IoT).
Create an open R&D environment where startups and industry co-develop low-latency solutions: inspection drones for tailings and bridges, smart-port logistics, computer-vision safety, AR/VR tourism, LoRa/5G IoT for utilities, forestry, and mines.
Public-sector data platform.
Open and standardize municipal datasets (transport, permitting, lighting outages, 311) with privacy-by-design and robust governance. This fuels local AI and marketing analytics for SMEs while protecting residents.
Why Tbaytel as anchor?
Local ownership, local reinvestment, and regional reach make Tbaytel the natural neutral platform partner with the City, universities, colleges, Indigenous economic development corporations, and private industry.
2) Train, Retain, Attract: A Talent Engine for the North
AI literacy for all.
Launch a free “Elements of AI – Thunder Bay Edition” to upskill 5,000+ residents in 18 months, paired with micro-credentials in prompt engineering, analytics, CX/martech, and data stewardship.
Leverage Lakehead University.
Expand co-ops and capstones; stand up a Tbaytel-funded AI & Marketing Clinic so SMEs get data help while students earn portfolio experience. Promote CS/SE degrees (incl. AI/ML specialization) and streamline pathways from Ingenuity/Ascend to paid pilots with local customers.
Confederation College alignment.
Map interactive media/ICT programs to employer demand in content, web, XR, security, and marketing ops. Keep “responsible AI” in the curriculum and community (e.g., open demos, hack days).
Bring new workers here.
Pilot a Thunder Bay Remote Talent program (cash + co-working + outdoor passes) modeled on successful attraction programs elsewhere. Sync with Canada’s Tech Talent Strategy to speed permits for global hires.
3) Make It Easy to Start and Scale
City as First Customer.
Create a procurement sandbox where local startups pilot solutions—traffic-safety analytics, tourism funnels, digital permitting, parks & lighting maintenance—and walk away with a paying reference.
Anchor partnerships.
Invite national platform partners to run AI commercialization sprints and investor days here twice a year. Put Thunder Bay on the national startup calendar.
Digital Growth Hub for SMEs.
Stand up a municipal-Tbaytel hub offering shared ad-tech, CRM, content studios, and analytics coaching, helping local firms level up e-commerce and export marketing—without needing downtown Toronto price tags.
4) Fix the Reputation: Safety & Anti-Racism—with Metrics
Young professionals (and their families) choose cities that feel safe, inclusive, and accountable. We must measure and publish progress.
Public safety dashboard.
Monthly updates tied to StatsCan indicators (e.g., CSI, homicide rate), with targets for sustained reductions. Expand focused deterrence, improve corridor lighting/CPTED, and fund crisis outreach. Progress is possible—make it visible.
Anti-racism & reconciliation.
Report and fund recommendations from Broken Trust and related reviews using Indigenous co-governance. Publish a quarterly scorecard: training completion, hiring/promotion equity, complaint resolution times, investment in Indigenous-led services. Safety and inclusion aren’t side projects—they are core tech-talent enablers.
5) Tell the Story (and Make It True)
Brand pillars.
-
Northern Testbed: Pilot faster here; real users, real weather, real results.
-
Outdoors After 5: Paddle at 6, ship code at 9.
-
Indigenous Innovation: Co-design products and data governance for a more inclusive digital future.
Always-on marketing.
Target remote tech/mar-ops workers with paid/social/creator content: fibre/5G speeds, affordable studios, lake-to-meeting-room lifestyle.
Measure the flywheel.
Share monthly KPIs: co-op placements, startup births, capital raised, new residents, safety metrics, and net tech job growth (benchmark against Waterloo, Calgary, Halifax).
Why Mining Makes This All Urgent
Thunder Bay can lead on digital core logging, geochemical data lakes, computer mapping, and AI-assisted exploration—especially as Canada and Ontario work toward more consistent digital core records (where other jurisdictions like Australia are ahead).
There’s a credible opportunity to develop a regional digital core repository & analytics hub here—serving juniors and majors across the Shield, anchored by our port, rail, airport, and fibre.
12-Month Sprint (Start Now)
-
Tbaytel OpenLab (edge/IoT testbed + startup credits).
-
AI for All rollout + employer micro-certs in AI/martech/analytics.
-
Remote Talent pilot (100 workers) with co-working and outdoor packages; track 1-yr retention.
-
Procurement sandbox with 5 pilots (traffic, tourism, permitting, safety lighting, parks).
-
Public dashboards: safety and anti-racism metrics with quarterly updates.
24–36-Month Scale
-
Fibre infill to target districts; blanket outdoor 5G on growth corridors.
-
1,000+ graduates of AI/digital programs; double co-ops at Lakehead/Confed.
-
Two annual investor days; 50+ startups through accelerator tracks.
-
Measured declines in violent-crime indicators; anti-racism milestones achieved.
-
Digital core repository pilot with mining partners; first commercial analytics customers.
Bottom Line
Thunder Bay can absolutely become a tech city—if we build on a world-class network, open procurement for real pilots, scale talent, and show measurable progress on safety and inclusion. With Tbaytel, Lakehead University, Confederation College, Indigenous leadership, and business partners rowing in the same direction, we can convert potential into durable advantage for young professionals and the companies that hire them.
