Within a few days of arriving in Ontario, Andrew Laczynski realized he was in the right place to pursue the vision developed in his native England. It's been a rocky road since he landed in 1988, but he's optimistic about the future.

Laczynski is a designer and innovator in the high-tech field of holography. Unlike a photograph, a hologram is three-dimensional and can store an exact reconstruction in light of a real-world article. As a world expert, Mr. Laczynski marries holography with fibre optics to create new uses for the technique, which will continue to develop into the next century.

"I'm one of those people who say, 'let's give it a go and let's make something happen.'"

He and his partner recently reached an agreement with an international corporate giant to develop a state-of-the-art full-colour holographic facility that he describes as a "super opportunity for Canada" in both job creation and production. Holographic manufacturing has grown over the last five years at an average annual compound growth rate of 35 per cent. Current annual sales for the industry reached $1 billion, and sales are projected to be $3 billion by the end of 2002.

While his business has enormous potential, Mr. Laczynski emphasizes that it took 20 years to get this far, He says many of his early business ventures didn't develop because partners didn't have the patience to share his vision as developed his innovations. Often, he's had to start over at considerable expense. Now, the future is promising and the sky is the limit. He adds that Ontario's computer technology is a world leader, and when that technology is applied to his own science, it will help him blaze new trails in holography.

"In the home of the future, you might have holographic tiles on the wall with valuable artifacts that appear to be floating in space:' he says. "Or a holographic window on a wall with no windows, and you can create a scene within it."

If he could turn the clock back 10 years, he says the most important thing would be to find a good team of business people who could finance and market his innovations and "who understand the business turf here, because the new business immigrant usually does not." For business immigrants in the creative field, he advises finding suitable people who will work with the "ideas people" to develop products and markets. "The professionals need to be less conservative and more patient when it comes to the marketing of new ideas and technologies."

"We're learning all the time and we've made lots of mistakes, but I think you can't explore new ideas without making mistakes," he says. "I'm one of those people who say, 'Let's give it a go and make things happen."'

He is negotiating with other international companies that will benefit from this approach. "We're basically working towards developing products and services that will benefit the lifestyle of the 21st century,"

Meanwhile, he enjoys pursuing his vision and lifestyle in Ontario's capital city of Toronto. "The thing that really came across for us was that so many different communities from around the world have made their home here and they've been given the right to be who they are and where they came from. We like the way people live together here. It's a very harmonious city."