Former Interactive Ontario president Ian Kelso is on a not-so-secret mission to revitalize the CIA.

The Canadian Interactive Alliance/Alliance Interactive Canadienne (CIAIC), as it is formally called, is a national trade association made up of seven regional interactive organizations, including Alliance Numerique (Quebec), Interactive Ontario, New Media Manitoba, SaskInteractive, DigiBC, Digital Alberta and IMA (PEI).

Formed in 2005, the association’s mandate is to be a cohesive national voice for the interactive industry, both domestically and internationally.

At home, that means facilitating communication between regional organizations and acting on behalf of the industry in lobbying and advocacy roles as new government policies and funding mechanisms are developed. Research is another core function, as well as representing Canada at international gaming conferences and markets.

In taking on his new role, Kelso hopes to bolster the CIAIC’s visibility in achieving all of those mandates, and bring back the research arm of the association, which has been largely dormant for several years.

But the overarching goal most immediately is to bring the CIAIC forward as a national voice for Canada’s well-recognized interactive industry, he says. Toward that goal, the organization has hired gaming expert and former Playback writer Emily Claire Afan as its new director of development and communications.

“Now we can be better organizers and promoters of the nation as a more coherent and unified brand. That’s our mission and goal,” he says. “We believe Canada to be an extremely strong player on the international stage, one that is well recognized around the world as a great place to do business and has great tax incentives, [and hosts] creators of some of the world’s top content in interactive media.”

One of the first orders of business, Kelso says, is working to bring back the Interactive Industry Profile, a comprehensive national survey that is meant to show “where the industry is at and where it’s going,” Kelso says, adding that two-thirds of the funding to execute a 2012 edition of the survey has been secured.

More immediately on deck are two projects: the first to manage the Canadian presence at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco from March 7 to 9, handling the Canada Lounge, its reception and hosting a space where companies can conduct meetings. The second is a smaller research project examining how companies are using different funding mechanisms and tools to finance projects in an effort to see what’s working and what’s not, to understand how to better shape future policy, Kelso says.

“It’s going to take a look at across the country, what tools are available for finance for companies, for doing projects, and start to look at how some of those tools, both public sector and private sector, are meshing together. It will be very case study driven – taking a look at deals that have been done, pull them apart and look at what the financial mechanism as involved, and start to look at how the pieces fit together.”

Editor’s note: The headline of this story was updated at 11:30