Thirty years ago, Iranian scientist Hadi Mahabadi fled oppression in his home country and sought a new life in Canada. The young chemical engineer landed a job at Xerox and eventually rose to become director of the U.S.-owned giant's Canadian research centre in Mississauga. Over the past seven years, he has led the centre to big productivity gains, including doubling its annual output of patents to almost 150. Mahabadi has generated 86 patents of his own over the years. Now, at 65, he's retiring to pursue a grand mission: extend Xerox's research and innovation model to all of Canada.
How did you end up in Canada? I was at the best university in Iran, where I was head of chemical engineering. But after the revolution in 1979, they closed the university. The Shah was not a freedom-loving person, but things went from bad to worse. I had the option of going to Germany, Japan or Canada. I came to Canada and took a job at Xerox as a researcher. I worked hard and they promoted me to management.
Why did you choose Canada? The first reason was respect for multiculturalism. The second was its social stand—Canada is recognized around the world as a peace-loving country. If I'm running from my homeland, I want to go to a country where there is respect for human rights.
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Why retire now? I had a 10-year plan for this research facility and part of it was to identify, develop and prepare my successor. I've been able to implement that plan in seven years. The centre is at the top of its performance. We've almost doubled the amount of patents each year with the same number of researchers. Could other companies in Canada do this?Of course they could. Researchers at our centre now recognize that they're going to spend eight hours of their day here, and they'd better do something during that time that's effective. They could go to the lab and do pie-in-the-sky research, but there would be no use for it. They have to grasp that they must do something useful for the customer, and that will make money for Xerox. But it's not purely applied research. You can also bring the forefront of science to solving people's problems, as we have done with nanotechnology.
You have a great patent record, but where in your company are the inventions then developed? The patents are developed here and the technology is developed here, too. With one of the toner technologies on which I hold patents, we built the manufacturing in Mississauga—50-plus high-quality jobs were created in Canada.
What will you do next? Five years ago, I started to get involved with science and technology organizations. I realized that what I did for this research centre can be applied to the country.
What are the challenges? Canada's innovation lags behind a number of other countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. We're good at creating graduates from university. But when it comes to being effective researchers and using current technology, as well as having policies to encourage innovation, we're not in good shape.
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What can governments actually do? Canadians have to realize that innovation is important. When I talked to Tony Clement when he was minister of industry, I asked why we don't invest more in this area. He said if he asks voters what's more important: spending money on roads and bridges, or scientific knowledge? They say: roads and bridges.
Should more of the stimulus money since 2008 have gone toward innovation? Yes. It's infrastructure if we create 100 more PhDs and keep them in Canada and help them start companies. They could hire more people and there would be more wealth that is not based on resources but on the creativity of people. That's what they do in Silicon Valley. It's what the South Koreans are doing.
Are we too fat and happy in Canada? We have a good standard of living here, but we're not taking advantage of it. Let's use this money to invest in innovation. We should not wait until we are against the wall.