Working with a range of public sector research and education assets, including school boards, libraries, post-secondary institutions, hospitals and local business incubators, Chris project managed the exploration of developing a York Region Research and Education Network. The purpose the initiative was to provide dedicated high-speed connectivity between York Region's education and research assets in order to foster research, collaboration and innovations in service delivery.

The project envisioned connecting all of the participating organizations via the Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network so that they could take advantage of not only high-speed connectivity, but also a range of cloud-based services, internet peering and reduced costs for internet connectivity.