Nova Scotia Come to life Surpasses 400 Charter Members

Fifty-three businesses, associations and learning institutions are becoming new charter members of the Nova Scotia Come to life place branding initiative today, Sept. 16, bringing the total to more than 400.

Premier Darrell Dexter joined the new signatories of the charter document at a ceremony at Acadia University.

"These charter members are making a commitment to the province and are helping us create good jobs and grow the economy," said Premier Dexter. "They are going beyond our borders to promote our competitive edge and encourage economic growth."

The charter formalizes the involvement of public and private-sector organizations in telling Nova Scotia's story.

Bastionhost was among the new charter members inducted today. Bastionhost is developing a Dataville in Debert, Colchester Co., converting the 64,000 square-foot Diefenbunker into a state-of-the-art, carbon-neutral data centre serving markets in Europe and North America.

The founder and CEO of Bastionhost, Anton Self, calls Nova Scotia the perfect location for his business.

"Dataville's directly in between Wall Street and London, England with very attractive sources for power, bandwidth and smart people," said Mr. Self. "Nova Scotia's location has allowed us to be innovators in engineering the most efficient co-location data centres on the planet, saving over 50 per cent of the energy used by most data centres today."

A charter member since 2009, Turbine Fashion's Lisa Drader-Murphy was master of ceremonies. She is just back from Toronto where she showcased her clothing line at the International Film Festival's gifting suite.

"We moved to Nova Scotia from Alberta because I wanted to find balance," said Ms. Drader-Murphy. "Here my business is more profitable and my family life is able to thrive, too. While in Toronto, the response to my product from international media and A-listers was overwhelmingly positive. I was so proud and honoured to be selected to represent Nova Scotia."

Since 2005, Nova Scotia Come to life has carried out several programs and award-winning campaigns to strengthen the province's image.

For more information about the initiative and its charter members, go to www.novascotialife.com .