Postmedia Network to open digital lab this fall at Kitchener’s Communitech Hub

Postmedia Network, Canada’s largest newspaper group and the publisher of the Sun, has reported that it will open a digital lab this fall at the Communitech Hub, an industry centre in Kitchener, Ontario that works with more than 1,000 tech companies and start-ups.
Thomas Jankowski, Postmedia’s Chief Digital Officer, said in a media release that the company will launch a development team to expand its innovation capabilities and grow its business-to-business product strategy.
“Communitech is one of the leading tech innovation centres in the world,” Jankowski said. “Establishing our presence there allows us to attract new talent and gain insights into breakthrough technologies that we can in turn layer onto our strategic objectives.” The new development team will work on evolving the company’s digital possibilities for small and medium-sized businesses, and develop the company’s digital properties.

Postmedia added that access to the 50,000-square-foot Communitech Hub will allow it to work with emerging technologies such as React.js (an open-source Javascript library being developed by Facebook), and Node.js (an open-source run-time environment used by IBM, Microsoft and Netflix, among others).
Postmedia’s new team at Communitech will work on media sales and offerings well beyond its traditional platforms.
“As our industry continues to evolve, what’s going to predicate future success is our ability to innovate and develop new solutions in the digital world,” said Andrew MacLeod, Postmedia’s Chief Commercial Officer.

“That world is increasingly dominated by the Google and Facebook platforms. We need to be able to be fluent in these new platforms and the language of those platforms is technology oriented. With our strategic focus set on cultivating innovative new business approaches and continuous transformation, opening this new space within the Communitech Hub will help jump start a new team with new ideas to set new, higher benchmarks for success,” MacLeod added.
The launch is scheduled for this fall and Postmedia’s new team will complement the company’s existing development teams based in Toronto and Ancaster, Ontario.