Research and Innovation : Innovation + Job News

In 2006, the Toronto Zoo launched a clever initiative designed to turn all the animal dung they produce into a profit: a biogas energy generation facility. But when they launched a request for proposals last summer, they found no partners. The reason, according to Daniel Bida of Regenerate Biogas is that the plans were too ambitious, calling for too large a plant.

So Bida and a host of other community partners stepped in with a more modest proposal for a 500 kilowatt biogas facility to be owned and operated by a cooperative made up of community members. That proposal, formalized as ZooShare received approval in early June and is now seeking investors for its project.

The facility will divert waste from landfill while producing heat, water and usable fertilizer. The non-profit cooperative is selling membership bonds to finance the project that promise a 7% return on investment. Zoo members and those who live within a kilometer of the zoo can invest for $500, while other Ontarians can purchase $5,000 bonds.

Bida says that bond sales await the approval of financial authorities. The co-op plans to offer bonds for sale between September 2011 and May 2012, and to then immediately commence construction on the project. "The reception from the public so far has been overwhelmingly positive," Bida says. "People are attracted to it as an investment, as an environmental project, and as a way to help out the zoo. They just ask, how can I sign up."

Writer: Edward Keenan

Source: Daniel Bida, ZooShare

The new Pickering Learning Centre, announced this week by Dave Ryan, the Mayor of Pickering will be the first-ever post-secondary educational institution in the suburban GTA municipality. The facility will be run by Centennial College in partnership with Durham College, and will be located downtown, and is scheduled to be open in time to offer graduate certificate and continuing education programs in time for the fall 2012 semester.

In an email, the mayor's office said that the two-storey centre's location near the under-construction landmark pedestrian bridge will connect it to GO Rail, making it the only Ontario post-secondary educational facility with a direct link to rail transit (although Ryerson and the University of Toronto's proximity to the Toronto subway is effectively similar, and the under-construction subway link to York University will provide that school a similar distinction).

The school is part of an office tower complex directly north of the highway 401 in downtown Pickering that is the centrepiece of the city's downtown revitalization plan.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Mark Guinto, Public Affairs Coordinator, City of Pickering

Eclipsall Energy Corporation is scheduled to hold an opening celebration on June 23 for its new $10 million, 120,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in northeast Scarborough to build solar panels to serve the booming local market in sustainable energy.

Company CEO Les Lyster said last month that the facility was expected to create 100 new jobs in Toronto--a job fair was held in late May to find applicants. Eclipsall was founded in 2009, its launch coinciding with the introduction of the provincial government's Feed-in-Tarrif program that provides significant market incentives for green energy production, especially solar energy, and requires percentages of local production. Fittingly, provincial ENergy Minister Brad Duguid is scheduled to appear at the opening of the new factory and headquarters.

Eclipsall will produce " high performance monocrystalline PV modules in both 60 and 72 cell configurations," and has previously announced a financing program for potential solar energy clients as well as a supply contract with Honeybee Solar. "With the manufacturing space in hand, our vision to become a leader in providing efficient, accessible and sustainable solar solutions is becoming a reality," Lyster said in a statement.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Shaun Markey, Eclipsall Energy Corporation

Mississauga'a MedX Health has announced the purchase of Siascopy, including its proprietary non-invasive imaging system MoleMate for diagnosis of dermatalogical issues such as moles and lesions. MoleMate has already received approvals in the United States, and MedX intends to begin marketing and sales of the product to American physicians within a matter of weeks.

"The FDA approved MoleMate Skin Imaging System is a significant advance in the early detection of potentially life threatening moles and lesions. Physicians have also found the hand-held device easy to learn and use, and that it rapidly provides accurate images of the pigment, blood, and collagen below the mole or lesion. Now, for the first time, physicians can more accurately evaluate suspicious moles and lesions in a non-invasive, pain-free way. Experts also believe it may reduce the need for time consuming and expensive biopsies," Steve Guillen, President and CEO of MedX Health Corp, said in his statement announcing the purchase.

MedX is a 12-year-old company that designs, manufactures and distributes a range of light- and laser-based non-invasive therapeutic tools, including "laser accupuncture" treatements marketed for addiction therapy, dental, vetrinary and arthritic and muscle therapies.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Steve Guillen, President and Chief Executive Officer, MedX Health Corp.

Earlier this month, the McEwan Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Toronto launched an innovative new approach to raising awareness of the need for stem cell research and to generate support for regenerative medicine: a website called joinstemcellcity.com.

The website will use social media tools--updates on new discoveries and devlopments in research, a "join the community" approach to recruiting and educating supporters, and functions that allow people to direct their support to specific areas of research--to create public support for the field. Cheryl McEwan, a founder of the McEwan Centre for Regenerative Medicine, said in a statement announcing the project that it would allow users to "Stand up and be counted as an informed Canadian who believes that stem cell research will help us achieve a future free of many of the diseases that continue to devastate us all."

Organizers told reporters that they had noted that public support is a key element in attracting both private donations and public grants, and said the site will serve the purpose of both raising awareness that supports research in general and in generating private donations.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Stacy O'Rourke, for the McEwan Centre; The Globe and Mail

The two-year-old start-up My City Lives, based at the Centre for Social Innovation at the Annex, is dedicated to local storytelling. As founder Adil Dhalla explains, after a grassroots recession-beating brainstorming initiative he and his business partner set up in 2009, "we realized our city required innovative ways to support local business people, artists and creative people, and to find ways to help people better appreciate Toronto." After meeting with various community leaders and thinkers--including the office of David Miller--they founded their project: an interactive online map that allows people to post stories about places in the city.

Since beginning in earnest in 2009, My City Lives has shown impressive growth, attracting more than 150,000 views of videos of Toronto stories, and growing from the two founders to six staff. Now, armed with more than $500,000 in funding from the Canada Media Fund, the company is "a couple months away from relaunching the website and mobile platforms that will position us for global growth." Dhalla sees the coming expansion growing the staff to 12-15 people over the next 12 months.

But in addition to business success, Dhalla sees the project as contributing to the cultural life of the city. "What's important for us to articulate is that the site is not simply a collection of videos, it's a collection of stories of individuals that collectively tell the story of the city." Dhalla, who has a history background, sees the eventual global network as offering a new perspective on local history, once the archive of location-based stories is five or 10 years old. "It could have a dramatic impact on how people can learn about not just where they live, but where other people live--places they'd like to visit or possibly move to."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Adil Dhalla, Founder, My City Lives

Local startup LeanIn reached a significant milestone earlier this month when it was among 20 Canadian firms that made a trip to Silicon Valley for the C100"48 Hours In The Valley" pitch and mentorship conference. The event allowed LeanIn and the other companies to meet and pitch venture capitalists and mingle with mentors in the digital capital of the world.

"It was pretty awesome to go and hang around in San Francisco and Silicon Valley for a 48 hour period," says Luke Davies, president of LeanIn. "We got to meet  a lot of influential Canadians who live in the valley who are incented to help us...we met 100 or so new friends in the valley who have joined our support network."

LeanIn's technology allows users to use search and social media tools within videos. As Davies puts it, the product allows users to search within videos for specific scenes, and to share specific scenes within videos with their friends on social media. Davies says the motivation came when founder and CEO Hescham Ghazal, already a successful technology engineer, set out to "look at online video because it's a massive market, and it's broken." Davies says that one of the key "really cool" assets of the software is to provide companies with analytics based on how users interact with their video content at the scene level.

LeanIn was incubated at the Ryerson Digital Media Zone beginning in May of 2010, graduating from the space just last month. The software can be set up by creators within any of the major online video platforms within 10 minutes. The company has developed key partnerships Brightcove and YouTube, among other key video giants, though Davies says that parterships they are attempting to set up with social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter could be just as key to their success. Already, they have grown to six employees, and plans are afoot to hire another six. "We're incredibly resource restrained right now, like a lot of startups, everyone is incredibly overworked. I'm literally the dishwasher," says Davies. "But we're undergoing a fundraising round in the next few months and we expect to hire another six or so people--to essentially double our staff--soon after that."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Luke Davies, President, LeanIn

Waterfront Toronto announced last week that the residential condos it is building will feature ultra-high-speed fibre-optic internet service. The project will be the first residential connection by Toronto-based internet service provider Beanfield Metroconnect. "It's our first foray into residential service," says Beanfield president Dan Armstrong. "We've built quite a fibre optic network around the downtown core near the waterfront, but we've never had the critical mass to get into condominium buildings."

The service Beanfield offers will see download speeds about double what are possible through conventional providers such as Rogers and Bell, and upload speeds 50 times as fast. "What we're going to see is a significant shift in the way residents in this community use the internet," Armstrong says. While it may seem that such features would be attractive to many condo developers, Armstrong explains that typically service providers pay developers a "doorway fee" to be allowed to install their service into buildings at the construction phase. He says that while many condo boards might prefer the faster service Beanfield offers, the retroactive installation of fibre-optic cabling to every unit post-construction and occupancy is a significant hurdle. And since it is very expensive for Beanfield to install the service, it would be impractical for them to pay doorway fees.

So Waterfront Toronto exercised unique foresight in awarding the contract that will see this project offer premium service to residents. Armstrong says that his company plans to offer a support centre located in the waterfront community, staffed with people who will be available for onsite service. Armstrong says that while specific numbers are difficult to project, he expects to hire "dozens" of staff to fill new jobs on the project.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Dan Armstrong, President and CEO, Beanfield Metroconnect

GalaxoSmithKline (GSK) has announced an expansion of its Mississauga manufacturing facility that will see more than $33.6 million invested in expanding the pharmaceutical company's production. The plant already employs more than 300 staff, and the expansion, according to a company spokesperson, will see 70 new jobs created at the facility.

The global pharmaceutical giant has had a presence in Ontario for more than 100 years, and manufactures pharamaceutical "foams,
ointments, lotions, liquids and other niche products" here, according a statement by GSK VP of Global Manufacturing and Supply Sue West. The expansion will introduce production of carvedilol tablets, zanamivir dry powder inhalation and new dermatological products.

In addition to more than $30 million in investment from GSK, the project is receiving a grant of $3.6 million from the provincial government. "GlaxoSmithKline's efforts to create a global centre of innovation here in Mississauga will create and protect hundreds of jobs," said Innovation Minister Glen Murray in a statement.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Ralph Benmergui, Office of Minister of Innovation Glen Murray

Profound Medical, headquartered in the Yonge and Lawrence area, recently closed a venture capital round that raised an astonishing $9.4 million to advance clinical trials of its new prostate cancer treatment. "To put that in perspective, venture capital financing for the entire life sciences sector in the first quarter of 2011 was $12.5 million," says Paul Chipperton, co-founder and CEO of Profound Medical. "So we've basically almost doubled that in this one announcement."

The company is a spin-off from Sunnybrook Health Sciences, where the MRI-based, relatively non-invasive treatment for localized prostate cancer has been pioneered and developed over the past decade. In Profound's short history, it has won a series of accolades, including the Premier's Catalyst Award for best Life Sciences Innovation and winning the Canada's Top 10 Life Sciences competition.

Chipperton says that the new financing will lead to the hiring of about 15 new staff--he's already hired three this month--and will help the company proceed to human clinical trials. Though time frames for trials and approvals vary by jurisdiction, Chipperton says a best-case timeline would see Profound entering the market with approval to treat in some places in roughly two years.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Paul Chipperton, CEO and co-founder, Profound Medical

BNOTIONS, which bills itself a "technology agency," set up shop in the Yonge and Bloor area just over three years ago with a team of four. Today, through a dedication to growth and innovation, says company CEO Paul Crowe, they have 30 employees and are looking to add another three or four immediately.

Last month, the Financial District company A.U.G. Signals secured an investment of almost $2.90 million from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation's Innovation Demonstration Fund to support its early-warning system to detect contaminants in drinking water. Company CEO Dr. George Lampropoulos says the new technology will lead to the hiring of more than 100 new staff at the company's Toronto manufacturing facility to develop and market the product.

Founded in 1986, A.U.G. Signals is an R&D company that focusses on monitoring and data collection and management whose products have found applications in a range of areas including national defence, natural resource exploration and environmental monitoring. Headquartered in downtown Toronto, the company now has offices in China, Greece and the United States as well.

The provincial investment will support a monitoring technology that Lampropoulos says is the first to provide real-time online reporting on contaminated water in municipal systems. Traditionally, as is the case in the city of Toronto right now, water is monitored by random sampling with report times of up to several weeks, which means that acute threats may not be discovered until after they prove deadly.

The pilot project was first developed in partnership with the city of Edmonton, and has already been deployed in London, Ontario. He says he's going to Beijing this week to negotiate a potential $200 million contract for the system, and is also in negotiations with the cities of Shanghai, York Region and Toronto.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Dr. George Lampropoulos, CEO, A.U.G. Signals

Since its opening as a sustainability showcase in 2009, the the 12-acre Evergreen Brickworks has gone from being an abandoned industrial area to becoming one of Toronto's most treasured sites and, according to National Geographic magazine, one of the world's top 10 ecotourism attractions (drawing about 400,000 visitors a year). Last week the facility embarked on the next step in its progress when it drew a $4.75 million investment from the provincial government to embark on a new Sustainable Cities Network initiative.

Evergreen Executive Director Geoff Cape says that the project, which will draw private funding for a total budget of about $15 million, will tie together the parallel agendas of the Brickworks. "We've always thought we needed to be a critical venue for Toronto to explore big ideas for the future of our city and also to be an international venue for showcasing best practices and innovations for green cities around the globe," he says.

The new project will work to further those two missions by being a testing and demonstration ground for a host of new green technologies over the next five years, while also hosting "thought leaders" for conferences and workshops, and will host the 2010 Transportation Expo.

Cape says the project will create a good number of jobs directly, but will have an even bigger impact for the region. "For the regional economy, the development of the sustainable green economy will create tens of thousands of jobs, at least."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Geoff Cape, Executive Director, Evergreen Brickworks

A contract awarded to AMP Solar LP, a joint partnership between Port Credit's AMP Solar Group and downtown Toronto firm Potentia Solar to provide rooftop solar installations on 450 Toronto schools is "history making," according to AMP Solar Group president Dave Rogers, who reports that his company is honoured to have received the award.

Toronto District School Board (TDSB) representatives, in a release announcing the project, agree, noting that at 66 megawatts, the size of this project makes it the largest rooftop educational solar project in Canada and leads the way for institutional North American projects to come. TDSB Director of Education Chris Spence calls the project "groundbreaking."

The project will retrofit school roofs that are due for repairs with solar panels that will in turn feed into the grid, their energy sold to the provincial electricity provider under the province's FIT program. The program costs the school board nothing, as it is financed through the sale of the energy produced.

Writer: Edward Keenan

Source: Steve Shaefer, AMP Solar Group

Kristy Wieber and Lisa Delorme were invited to a wedding about a year ago and faced a prospect familiar to many women: buying a designer dress for the event, "a dress I'm going to wear once and then it will sit in my closet making me feel guilty for years," says Wieber. The experience led the pair to think of solutions, culminating in the launch of Rent frock Repeat last week.

The innovative service offers a wide range of designer dresses, in sizes ranging from 0-14 or 16 in most cases, for rent. Wieber says the pair was inspired by a similar service they encountered in the US that did not ship to Canada.

The business just launched last week, so it is still early to measure success, but Wieber notes that before they officially launched they already has over 200 followers on each of Facebook and Twitter, and that since the launch, "Things are moving so quickly and growing so quickly, it's an absolute certainty we'll do some hiring soon." Wieber says the pair, currently working out of Delorme's Scarborough Bluffs-area home, are now identifying in which area of the business an additional employee would be most effective.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Kristy Wieber, co-founder, Rent frock Repeat