Unfortunately not in this case. It's a kind of political issue right now with the current provincial government, and it's looking a lot like greed got in the way since it is in a prime location.
Justifying the adjacent "Science Center" subway station, increasing real estate value of the science museum land. If the land was going to be auctioned to the highest bidder, a tech company consortium could have bid for the opportunity to protect this science student feeder of US/Canada university and industry tech talent.
Instead of Ontario Science Center, why not Apple/Bell/Google/Rogers/Samsung/Shopify or even Toronto Science Center, if that would forestall destruction of a priceless historical landmark? Same principle for the Living Computer Museum, why not Amazon/Microsoft/Valve Living Computer Museum?
Because companies are there to make money, especially those owned mostly by nameless shareholders and run by committee.
And this "brand building" that you describe here has basically zero return on investment.
Of course some company - proablably a private one (not public), could invest into it, but if you want to burn money on something your CEO likes or the owners like, you can use other ideas like paying millions to put your logo on soccer tshirts for hundreds of millions. Or hosting a forum ;)
On a side note, I worked in a company that paid a lot of money for golf sponsorships and couldnt figure out why this "marketing" does not work in countries where nobody plays golf. I think they still havent figured out that there are countries outside of USA.
250,000 students a year benefit from Ontario Science Center, the best of whom go onto the engineering and computer science programs of Canadian universities like U of Waterloo and U of Toronto, from where they are recruited by North American tech companies.
> zero return on investment
Any junior i-banker can produce a spreadsheet showing the lifetime labor value of high-quality technical talent educated at Canadian universities, many of whom are recruited to work for US technology companies.
When you translate a sentence using Google, or ask Siri to send a text, or play a song recommended by Spotify, you are using a technology that owes much to the innovative research of Geoffrey Hinton.. “deep learning” – a form of artificial intelligence (AI) based on neural networks.. Hinton’s revolutionary contributions to the field have earned him the nickname “the godfather of deep learning,” and have made Canada a hotbed for high tech.. for his excellence as a global pioneer in deep learning, Hinton received a Doctor of Science, honoris causa from the University of Toronto, where he is a University Professor Emeritus.
> companies are there to make money
Nvidia agrees and invested in the future long before others. Thanks Geoff Hinton for planting seeds of science and money!
Any junior banker can produce a spreadsheet for you that will claim anything you want - it is called Management Consulting.
Anyway, since you know better how those big companies can invest, you can use your own money to reap the benefits. Money is literally lying on the street for you.
