Our Roadmap
Strategic Priorities
DAVI is organised around five interconnected pillars. Together they form a single system: shared data infrastructure enables sector pilots, pilots drive adoption, adoption reveals barriers, and removing barriers unlocks investment. No pillar works in isolation.
Data Services Foundation
Everything starts here. Before organisations can adopt AI, they need reliable, well-governed data. DAVI is building the shared platforms, standards, and services that give Vancouver Island a common data backbone, so that every sector can operate from a position of confidence rather than fragmentation.
This means standing up shared data infrastructure that organisations of any size can plug into. It means governance frameworks that balance openness with privacy and security. And it means interoperability standards so data can move between systems, sectors, and jurisdictions without manual translation.
The foundation is not a single product or platform. It is a living ecosystem of tooling, policy, and practice that grows alongside the region it serves. Getting this right is what makes every other priority possible.
Shared Infrastructure
Common data platforms accessible to organisations of every size, from startups to Crown corporations.
Governance Frameworks
Clear rules for data access, privacy, security, and ethical use that earn public trust.
Interoperability Standards
Open standards so data flows between health, marine, public sector, and industry systems.
Data Quality Services
Tooling and support for cleaning, cataloguing, and maintaining high-quality datasets over time.
Sector-Focused Pilots
Vancouver Island has distinct sector strengths that are nationally significant. Rather than spreading effort thinly, DAVI is concentrating pilot projects in areas where the region already has critical mass, anchor organisations, and policy alignment. Real projects, in real sectors, producing real outcomes.
Each pilot is designed to demonstrate value quickly, generate reusable patterns, and build momentum for broader adoption. They are not experiments in a vacuum. They are proof points that pull the entire ecosystem forward.
Ocean and Marine Technology
12+ companies
A growing cluster anchored by BC Ferries and aligned with federal defence priorities. Marine AI, autonomous vessels, and ocean data analytics represent a world-class opportunity.
Health Informatics
Largest NA deployment
Island Health and the Ministry of Health operate the largest electronic health record deployment in North America. DAVI can help unlock the data intelligence layer on top of it.
Data Sovereignty and Governance
OCAP framework
First Nations leadership in Indigenous data governance, grounded in the OCAP principles of Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession. A national model in the making.
Manufacturing, Housing, and Agriculture
33% of BC GDP
Construction alone accounts for a third of provincial GDP. Data-driven approaches to housing, manufacturing efficiency, and agricultural resilience are overdue.
Public Sector Innovation
29% of regional jobs
Government is the largest employer in the region. Modernizing procurement, permitting, and service delivery through data creates outsized impact for residents and businesses.
Literacy and Adoption Programs
The technology is ready. The workforce mostly is not. Across the region, 40 to 50 percent of small and medium-sized enterprises describe themselves as "AI-curious" but lack the knowledge, tools, or confidence to act. Only 11 to 14 percent consider themselves "AI-ready."
DAVI is closing that gap with sector-specific education programs, hands-on proof-of-concept support, and a growing library of local case studies. The goal is not to turn every business owner into a data scientist. It is to give leaders the fluency they need to ask the right questions, evaluate tools, and make confident decisions about data and AI.
Programs are designed to meet people where they are, whether that is a half-day workshop for a construction firm or an embedded technical residency for a health-tech startup. Practical, relevant, and grounded in the realities of Island business.
40-50%
of SMEs are "AI-curious"
They see the potential but lack the resources or roadmap to get started.
11-14%
of SMEs are "AI-ready"
Only a small fraction have the data maturity and skills to adopt AI tools today.
What adoption support looks like
- Sector-specific workshops and training cohorts
- Proof-of-concept funding and technical mentorship
- Local case studies showing measurable outcomes
- Peer learning networks across industries
Barrier Reduction
Good ideas stall when the systems around them are not designed for speed. On Vancouver Island, data centre permitting can take seven or more years. Procurement cycles outlast the technologies they are meant to evaluate. And a deep culture of risk aversion makes it easier to say no than to say "let us try."
DAVI's "Possibility Charter" is a commitment by participating organisations to streamline permitting, simplify procurement for pilot projects, and create safe-to-fail spaces where new approaches can be tested without requiring years of approvals.
This is not about lowering standards. It is about matching the pace of governance to the pace of opportunity. The region that figures this out first will attract the talent and investment that others are competing for.
7+ years
Data centre permitting timeline
Current approvals processes were designed for a different era. Speed is a competitive advantage.
Possibility Charter
A new operating agreement
Participating organisations commit to streamlined permitting, faster procurement, and safe-to-fail pilot approvals.
Cultural shift
From risk aversion to managed experimentation
Changing the default from "no" to "how might we" is the single highest-leverage move the region can make.
Infrastructure and Capital
Data and AI workloads need physical infrastructure: power, connectivity, compute, and the capital to build and sustain them. Vancouver Island has a remarkable asset that few regions can match. Approximately 400 megawatts of available power capacity could support significant data centre development, fed by clean hydro energy that gives any facility built here a genuine sustainability advantage.
DAVI is working to ensure that infrastructure decisions are made strategically, not reactively. That means aligning with federal funding programs, building sustainable coordination models that outlast any single grant cycle, and advocating for the connectivity upgrades the region needs.
The goal is not to build one data centre. It is to create the conditions for a durable, diversified digital infrastructure ecosystem that serves local needs while competing for national and international workloads.
~400 MW
Available power capacity
Vancouver Island has substantial clean hydro power capacity that could support significant data centre development with a sustainability edge.
Strategic infrastructure planning, not ad hoc development
Federal funding alignment across multiple programs
Sustainable coordination models that survive grant cycles
Clean energy advantage for global competitiveness
Interconnected by Design
These five priorities are not a menu to choose from. They are a system. The Data Services Foundation gives sector pilots something to build on. Pilots generate the success stories that drive literacy and adoption. Growing adoption reveals the regulatory and procurement barriers that need to come down. And removing those barriers is what unlocks the infrastructure investment the region needs to scale.
Progress in any one area accelerates all the others. That is the logic of the cluster, and it is why DAVI works across all five simultaneously.
Get Involved in a Priority Area
Whether you are an organisation with data to share, a company ready to pilot, or a government partner looking to remove barriers, there is a place for you in DAVI.