North York City Centre - Willowdale : Innovation + Job News

In 2001, back when many of us were on our first email accounts and nobody had yet dreamed of Wikipedia, a new e-learning company was incorporated in Toronto.

Called NewMindsets, the company was founded to "help improve personal and team work effectiveness by offering situation-based solutions"--that is, with a focus on practical problem-solving strategies. The company's work was based on research conducted by two professors at York's Schulich School of Business, Gareth Morgan and Jean Adams.

Now, NewMindsets has been acquired by Waterloo-based e-learning company ClevrU, which wants to take the insights and content developed by NewMindsets and introduce them to clients internationally.

ClevrU is "in the space of providing a global online learning platform," explains CEO Mark Arnason. Its focus on emerging global markets requires ClevrU to ensure they have everything from servers in their countries of operations to multi-lingual services to mobile-friendly technology that can be easily used by users who may not have ready access to desktop machines. And what they are hoping they can offer those users elsewhere, in the wake of this acquisition, is insight into North American business practices.

NewMindsets' business focus, "especially around leadership learning," Arnason says, is particularly useful in this context. One of ClevrU's markets is China, where they have more than 58,000 users and 130,000 social media followers so far--and where, he goes on, "there is a thirst for North American business content." It's not, Arnason explains, an interest in traditional courses such as accounting, but rather in learning to navigate North American markets. It's the type of softer skill that can be especially important for business leaders who are accustomed to working elsewhere.

NewMindsets and ClevrU were connected in part thanks to MaRS Innovation, which introduced the two companies and helped them work out the details of the acquisition.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Mark Arnason, CEO, ClevrU

Technology news site Techvibes has just unveiled the finalists for 2012's Canadian Startup Awards with Toronto startups snagging more spots than any other city. 

The finalists this year were selected from "well over 1,200 nominees," writes Techvibes president Rob Lewis in a blog post announcing the shortlist. It's a list, happily, that features many Toronto startups, and includes several you might have learned about here on Yonge Street.

Among them are photo sharing site 500px, which has seen exponential growth in its staff over the past year, and also made its first acquisition, Algo Anywhere, in 2012; Wave, which makes cloud-based apps for small businesses; and data sharing platform Hubba, which helps retailers and brands tell their stories more effectively.

Techvibes introduced the awards, in conjunction with consulting firm KPMG, just last year. Toronto-based e-reading company Wattpad won that inaugural award, after more than 11,000 votes were cast.

You have until midnight on Friday, January 25 to cast your ballot.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Techvibes

When engineer Nikola Tesla died, it was as a penniless eccentric. Though he had attained wealth and recognition for his many technological breakthroughs and patents, later in his life he lost hold of those achievements as he pursued a great many further experiments.

Over the past decade or two, his reputation has undergone significant rehabilitation. Like many innovations, it turns out, his work faced several setbacks before it found a firmer footing. The car company founded in 2003 and named after him—Tesla Motors—makes electric vehicles, with motors based on his original designs. And earlier this month, Tesla Motors opened its first Canadian store to help showcase those electric vehicles. It's located, perhaps surprisingly, in a mall: Yorkdale, where it's part of the shopping centre's recent renovation and expansion.

Vice-president of worldwide sales George Blankenship highlighted that seemingly incongruous location choice in a press statement, explaining that Tesla's primary goal "continues to be focused on informing as many people as possible about EVs.... Customers in our store are invited to ask questions and engage with informative product specialists to learn more about the many advantages of driving an electric car."

It's certainly an education many of us lack right now—for the moment, electic cars remain novelties in Toronto. We are, however, slowly building up more infrastructure to support them. Charging stations are available in several locations across the city, and a city-run pilot project for several more is in the works.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: George Blankenship, Vice-President, Worldwide Sales and Ownership Experience, Tesla Motors

"While nearly all high growth technology startups have historically emerged from no more than 3-4 startup ecosystems, namely Silicon Valley and Boston, this trend appears to have reached its end. Simultaneous with a global explosion of entrepreneurship has been an explosion in the rise of new startup ecosystems around the world, and a newfound maturity in others."

So begins a new report from the Startup Genome called the Startup Ecosystem Report (available for free online, though registration is required). And among those ecosystems that are currently flourishing: Toronto, which ranks the highest in Canada on the report's index, and eighth in the world. (Vancouver is right behind us in ninth; more surprisingly Waterloo is further behind, at sixteenth.)

All cities in the index are compared to Silicon Valley (which predictably is the benchmark first-place ecoysystem) across a variety of metrics. While we are similar to Silicon Valley in terms of our level of ambition, our technology adoption rates, our sector mix and mentorship support, one key area of difference, according to the report, is that "startups in Toronto receive 71% less funding than SV startups. The capital deficiency exists both before and after product market fit."

While that may sound like grim news, it actually provides a very useful roadmap for future growth. The report goes on to conclude that the current under-investment in Toronto-area startups "presents a large opportunity for investors. Moreover, "policy makers can help closing the funding gap by attracting late-stage venture funds through tax breaks and incentives, and investor-friendly policies."

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Startup Ecosystem Report

As Canada's population ages and baby boomers make increasing demands for healthcare support that allows them to live vibrantly and independently, research into technologies and therapies that can provide better quality of life for seniors is ramping up.

The lastest announcement: the federal government is investing nearly $1 million in five research projects aiming to improve seniors' activity levels, including two based in Toronto, at York and the University of Toronto. The projects are funded via the European Research Area on Ageing (ERA-AGE), a Europe-based research program; Canadian participants will be working with colleagues from several European nations, as well as Israel. The overall funding envelope for the projects is approximately $5 million.

The projects tackle a range of issues in seniors' day-to-day lives, ranging from assistive technologies to navigating the complexities of urban life. Toronto researchers will be working on two projects—each of which will receive about $225,000—Healthy Ageing in Residential Places (York University), and Hearing, Remembering and Living Well: Paying Attention to Challenges of Older Adults in Noisy Environments (University of Toronto).

The York University project is exploring ways to use technological supports in the home to allow seniors to maintain both physical and mental activity. The University of Toronto initiative is looking at methods of helping seniors communicate effectively in noisy environments, when it can be harder to make sense of a great deal of incoming auditory information.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Office of Alice Wong, Minister of State  for Seniors

Every so often—and especially at this time of year, when many of us are ordering presents and holiday gear—you come home to one of those annoying notices flapping on your door. Missed delivery.

To help shoppers (and the businesses trying to send them their goods) avoid that frustration, a new network of parcel pick-up stations has just launched in the GTA called BufferBox. There will be eight stations in Toronto by the end of this week, with several more elsewhere in the region. Another 10 are expected by year's end, with the goal of expanding nationwide.

To use the service, someone signs up with BufferBox and selects a home location—one of the pick-up stations that have been installed—and then provides that address to a company when ordering items for delivery. When the parcel arrives, BufferBox puts the package in a locker within the station, and then sends you an email with single-use PIN, which you use to open the box and retrieve your item.

The initial set of locations is geared to commuters and transit users: in its first partnership, BufferBox is working with Metrolinx and has installed parcel boxes in five GO stations (Union, Clarkson, Burlington, Oakville, and Port Credit). Three other parcel stations are in 7-Eleven locations, and in the near future, BufferBox also hopes to announce a supermarket partner.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Brad Moggach, Sales & Marketing Director, BufferBox

As the country's demographic profile shifts, more and more attention is being paid to the diseases of old age—diseases which, as life spans increase, will correspondingly increase in frequency. Recently, the federal government announced a $5.4-million investment into bringing new Alzheimer's treatments to market.

The investment, announced by Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology (also responsible for Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario), will facilitate the creation of the Centre of Innovation Excellence for Alzheimer's Care with the new B'nai Brith Alzheimer's Home. That new centre will host what's being described as an "innovation laboratory" to test new Alzheimer's-related technologies, ranging from diagnostic tests to monitoring tools. The Centre of Innovation Excellence for Alzheimer's Care (based at the University of Western Ontario) is a partner in the new project, as are several local health care companies. 

Among the tools whose efficacy and marketability they will be testing are technologies that facilitate communication between Alzheimer's patients and family members or friends (an attempt to mitigate the isolation many patients experience), and monitoring tools which allow health care providers to check on a patient's vital signs and status remotely. 

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Office of Gary Goodyear

Though it can take decades and be fraught with peril—witness any number of eHealth controversies in Ontario—Canadian jurisdictions are gradually making headway in their quest to modernize the delivery of healthcare in this country. The latest initiative: storing medical records via cloud-based tools, to allow both patients and healthcare providers to access them easily, quickly and from anywhere.

Last week the federal government announced what it is calling the Connected Health and Wellness Project, which will aim to drastically simplify our ability to access our own medical files. The project is spearheaded by a partnership between York University, North York-based NexJ Systems (which specializes in cloud software) and McMaster University. It will see the creation of a set of online tools which will allow patients, their health care providers and supporting parties (such as family members involved in medical care) the capacity to access and share information, and also to work collaboratively on ongoing health management issues. For example, a diabetic patient could automatically update her file with the latest information about her diet, exercise and insulin levels, while a nurse or physician could moniter that patient's status remotely by accessing that information in real time.

The Federal Economic Development Agency will be contributing $15.5 million to the project; private investment partners have contributed more than $23 million. In total, there are 16 public, private, not-for-profit and academic partners involved, also including George Brown and Seneca colleges, the University Health Network and Research in Motion.

One potential growth area opened up by projects like this is the relatively new field of health coaching, which governments are hoping will help lower healthcare costs through ongoing management of and support for patients between doctors' appointments.

The technologies being developed under the auspices of the Connected Health and Wellness Projected are expected to be commercialized and reach the market in about two years.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Office of Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario

Electric vehicles (EVs) are as old as cars themselves—the first ones date back to the 1830s, and in the early 20th century they constituted a significant portion of the market. They eventually lost ground to their gasoline-powered counterparts, but as calls for sustainable transportation options grow louder, so are calls for modern, commercially viable electric cars.

Right now electric vehicles largely remain the purview of enthusiasts. The provincial government is hoping to change that; it wants five per cent of all new cars to be electric by 2020. If they're going to succeed, we're all going to need to get better acquainted with the technology.

That is one reason that the South Central Ontario chapter of the Canadian Automobile Association just opened its first electric-vehicle charging station outside its head office in Thornhill. Electric vehicle owners, CAA members or not, can use the station free of charge, and the rest of us can get a better glimpse of what the future of driving might look like.

Teresa Di Felice, director of government and community relations for South Central CAA, told us that currently there are about 400 electric vehicle owners in Ontario. CAA is hoping to help that number increase: they've made submissions to the government, seeking partnerships to facilitate future growth.

"There are a lot of people talking about [EVs], and a lot of interest, but like anything new, there are hurdles," she says, pointing out that the government's five per cent goal is "very aggressive."

The CAA charging station joins three others in the GTA; you can find them all via the map on ChargePoint.


Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Teresa Di Felice, Director of Government and Community Relations, South Central CAA

Last August we reported that 500px, the explosively popular Toronto-based photo-sharing platform, was ramping up, growing to eight staff members, up from just two. That, as it turns out, was just the beginning.

The company is now up to 22 staff members, and plans to grow to 30 or 40 by year's end. On top of that, 500px has just made its first acquisition, last week announcing it had entered into an agreement to purchase another Toronto company, Algo Anywhere.

Algo is a young company—founded just 10 months ago—that has been working on applying academic research in artificial intelligence to real-world online environments. The first major tool they developed is called Recommender, a platform for providing personalized recommendations for customers on e-commerce and other sites. It's this expertise in personalizing a website user's experience that caught 500px's eye, says Oleg Gutsol, the company's CEO.

"Algo's technology was very attractive to us because it will allow us to greatly enhance the experience of our users on the 500px platform. We will be able to deliver better image search and discovery results, display more relevant content, personalize photo recommendations for browsing and purchase."

The financial details of the acquisition haven't been disclosed, but the deal does include job offers for Algo's staff. Algo's principals, Zach Aysan and Adam Gravitis, will become chief data scientist and chief software architect, respectively. 500px is also currently looking to hire a user experience designer and several software developers.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Oleg Gutsol, CEO, 500px

It was just in September that Wattpad announced it had secured $3.5 million in Series A financing. Now, nine months later, they've closed another round of funding—a whopping $17.3 million.

"We still have a lot of money in the bank," says Allen Lau, Wattpad's co-founder. "The [original] plan was to raise Series B next year, but the traffic was growing so quickly that we thought it was a good time to raise a bigger round and secure the future."

Wattpad is a social media platform for sharing stories; it currently hosts five million user-generated pieces of writing in 25 languages. A key focus for the company and its users is fostering relationships between writers and readers: authors engage with their audience while developing story outlines, for instance, or seek feedback as they publish a novel in chapters. The growth was so strong, explains Lau, that "we ended up spending time and effort in sustaining activities—adding more servers, making sure our infrastructure was scaling up—rather than improving the product per se."

The Series B financing, spearheaded by San Francisco's Khosla Ventures (also including former Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang and current investors Union Square Ventures and Golden Venture Partners), will enable Wattpad to focus on enhancing its product, with a particular emphasis on the streamlining the user interface and boosting social functions on its mobile apps. They'll be doubling their current staff complement, going to 40 from 20, and are currently seeking a talent acquisition specialist manager to help them manage that growth. Lau says they will be primarily seeking developers, designers and community managers.

Citing an old business maxim, he adds: "The best time to raise money is when you don't desperately need the money."

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Allen Lau, CEO and co-founder, Wattpad

"Trading technology is really complex stuff," says Lynn Suderman, director of communications for Questrade, Canada's largest independent provider of online trading services. Questrade is hoping to make it easier soon, with the launch of a new suite of software in early June that will help clients make their investments more easily, and with better information at hand.

Questrade's goal is to dramatically increase usability in a software sector that is isn't known for it. On the one hand, clients need to be able to actually understand the transactions they are contemplating, since most aren't professionally trained investors. On the other, the information required to make those transactions is detailed and often hard to parse. Building software that can process all the relevant data—from various markets and exchanges, from the client's account information, and from Questrade itself—and do so in a very secure environment compounds the design issues.

The upshot, says Suderman, is that "what most platforms provide is either a very basic view, where you just get to buy and sell, or it's a patchwork of all sorts of complex pull-down menus that are meant for professional trades."

Questrade's new platforms will be available for desktops, mobile phones and tablets, and they will follow web design trends in allowing clients to completely customize their screens: change displays, modify order and placement of information, select how detailed that information is, add and subtract widgets, and more.

In order to support this platform relaunch, Questrade has been and continues to be looking for new talent. In addition to a spate of recent hires, the company currently has 11 positions to fill in Toronto, and 11 more elsewhere.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Lynn Suderman Director of Communications, Questrade

Last week, the prestigious Branham300 listing of the top information technology companies in Canada named York Mills-based firm SecureKey among the top 25 "up-and-coming" ICT firms in Canada. While the company welcomed the news, SecureKey EVP Robert Blumenthal noted, "It's a recognition milestone, not a business milestone."

Of course, over the past year, as the online security ID tech startup has grown to 100 employees from 60, it has hit plenty of business milestones too. Most notably, SecureKey secured a major investment from chip-manufacturing powerhouse Intel and announced that the SecureKey configuration will be included in millions of Intel products being manufactured over the next year.

Blumenthal says the firm's technology solves the increasingly ubiquitous problem of secure online logins. For the sake of convenience, most username and password combinations are unsecure and often reused from website to website. More complicated (and secure) login procedures become too much trouble for users. The gold standard, he says, is a two-step process, "something you have and something you know," such as a bank card and PIN code combination. SecureKey's technology uses a small, portable "applet" contained in cards, USB keys or devices to create a similar authentification process.

Blumenthal says that next week SecureKey will launch the first phase of a collaboration with the Government of Canada that will enable citizens to use banking credentials to interact securely with the government.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Robert Blumenthal, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, SecureKey

North York-based health technology startup Infonaut's innovative disease surveillance system, Hospital Watch Live, has been generating buzz for a while now—it's been about 18 months since the product was featured in Popular Science magazine, as Yonge Street reported in November 2010. But the system will now be tested in real hospital conditions after Infonaut signed a contract with the University Health Network last month.

After two years of live tests at various hospitals and a full-time simulation at George Brown College, Infonaut CEO Niall Wallace says this 18-month trial will be the "final-stage commercialization test" for the company.

"Innovation is a tough game," he says. "There's invention and then there's innovation. Innovation is when people start paying you for your invention." The system will be tested at Toronto General Hospital in the multi-organ transplant unit. Wallace says Infonaut is very focussed on selling to the US market; hospitals south of the border will be watching results from Toronto General very closely. "It's a very well respected academic and teaching hospital," he says.

The technology is designed to prevent the spread of infectious organisms in hospitals by automating disease surveillance and infection control functions. "Infonaut is the only system that automates and applies these techniques inside the hospital to save money, save lives and create a new gold standard for safety and quality that is driven by evidence and analytics," Wallace said in an announcement. The system tracks the movements of and interactions between patients and staff, while preserving patient privacy, in order to identify chains of transmission and prevent the spread of infections.

In preparation for its final commercialization, the company has been staffing up. Wallace says they've hired five employees in the past 10 weeks, bringing their staff to 12; they continue to hire developers, as well as sales and marketing staff.


Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Niall Wallace, CEO, Infonaut

Founded in 2006 by Toronto entrepreneurs Alan Lau and Ivan Yuen, the mobile e-reading app company Wattpad, has a written an exciting story for itself this year.

"The easiest way to explain the concept is that it's like YouTube for books," says marketing coordinator Pamela Odina by phone. "People can share their own stories. We've got partnerships with some major publishers, there's a real mix of content."

That mix now extends to more than 1,000,000 free titles, and continues to grow. As does the company. This summer, Wattpad added their 1,000,000th registered user, and have added another 300,000 since then. But Odina says even those numbers don't tell the bigger story. "Many of our users are not registered, they're just reading. We get 7-million visitors a month."

On the heels of that success, the company announced $3.5 million in financing in September and moved into new office space near Yonge and Sheppard. Odina says the company is currently focused on building its team to develop more products and platforms. From the two founders five years ago, the company started the year with six staff and just hired number 11 this month. Odina says they plan to add another nine or so staff over the next year.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Pamela Odina, Marketing Coordinator, Wattpad