Innovation + Job News

"One in three people in their lifetime will develop a brain disorder," says Jordan Antflick, outreach lead for the Ontario Brain Institute. And right now, we don't do nearly a good enough job of helping many of them.

The Liberal government included a funding announcement for the OBI in the Speech from the Throne that was delivered last week, a sign of how important it is that we make progress on this front.

Created in 2010, the OBI is a non-profit, government funded project whose mission is to bring researchers, government, and the private sector together to help make Ontario a centre for commercialization and a leader in patient care when it comes to treating brain disorders. It began with a three-year funding commitment. After spending some time getting organized and off the ground, OBI pursued work in three areas: neurodevelopment, epilepsy, and cerebral palsy.

This new announcement, says Antflick, covers five years of funding, and will allow OBI to "move out of start-up mode." OBI will continue its work in those initial three research areas, and also be expanding to cover two new ones. Details of the precise funding amount or the brain disorders involved aren't public yet, but Antflick told us those two new areas will have to do with treating the elderly. The first tranche of funding was for $5 million a year.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Jordan Antflick, Outreach Lead, Ontario Brain Institute

In the years since compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) and light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs started appearing on hardware store shelves, we've all gotten used to the idea of switching to more energy efficient lightbulbs in our homes. Now, in several jurisdictions around the world, the old incandescent bulbs are being phased out by law. In Canada this process will culminate during 2014, as bulbs become subject to new energy efficiency regulations.

Hoping to help consumers become even more efficient, three University of Toronto alumni are preparing to launch a new bulb called NanoLight. It's a new form of LED bulb devised by applied science and engineering grads Gimmy Chu, Christian Yan, and Tom Rodinger.

It took the three entrepreneurs "probably about two or three years" to settle on the NanoLight's design, Chu told us over the phone from California. It uses 12 watts of energy to create the same light as a traditional 100 watt light bulb. A NanoLight will, he says, provide 30,000 hours of illumination. (You can learn a bit more about the technical details in this video.)

The three founders are in the last days of a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to help them launch the product--a campaign which has already raised more than 10 times the $20,000 they were aiming for. "The last thing you want to do is give up equity," Chu says when asked about choosing to crowdsource their start-up funding rather than pursue more established investment routes. With investors potentially calling the shots, Chu and his co-founders were worried, the entrepreneurs might "end up doing work you don't believe in."

The first NanoLights are expected to ship in May, and the trio's next goal is to build up momentum and generate orders. After that, Chu says, they hope to expand the product line to include dimmable bulbs, as well as bulbs in a range of colours and to fit different sockets. There is also "a solar product" already in the works, though Chu is saving the details of that for now.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Gimmy Chu, co-founder, NanoLight

The federal government is investing nearly $800,000 in Toronto-based Engineering Services Inc. to help it develop "a next-generation mobile robotics platform." The robotics and automation company develops technologies that can be applied in a variety of sectors, ranging from the medical to the military.

The robotics platform's main task is to develop ways to use automation to perform certain tasks in high risk environments, such as ones where the military or law enforcement are operating. The more robots can be used in such environments to perform key functions such as exploration and information-gathering, the safer those environments, and the people who work in them, may become. The repayable investment comes via the governments Strategic Aerospace and Defence Initiative (SADI), which supports research projects in defence, security, and aerospace.

"Canada is a world leader in robotics, and through targeted and repayable investments such as this one, we are helping cement that reputation," said industry minister Christian Paradis, upon announcing the investment. "Advanced economies have to become leaders in the high-value-added stages of production." The research and development will be done with help from University of Toronto faculty and students.

ESI was founded in 1982 by Dr. Andrew Goldenberg who joined the University of Toronto as a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering that same year. A researcher with a long history of work in robotics, Goldenberg spent the years just prior to that working on the development of the first Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS), which most of us know more colloquially as the Canadarm--the jointed, robotic, arm-like mechanism that was used for decades to move shuttle payloads during missions in space.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Office of Christian Paradis

There's some good news coming out of the federal government: the University of Toronto has been awarded a total of $7.3 million over the next five years to support eight separate research projects. The money comes via the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), which is the federal government's primary agency for issuing scientific research funds.

The largest grant comes via the Strategic Network Grants (SNG) program, which focuses on supporting research that is likely to have an economic impact on Canada within a decade, and specifically on large-scale collaborative projects that span organizations and disciplines. This $4.4 million grant will go to the Canadian Network for Aquatic Ecosytems, which includes researchers from 11 universities and several government departments, and whose lead researcher is the University of Toronto's Donald Jackson. The network will use the money to investigate how the loss of aquatic biodiversity will affect Canadians—how our services, economy, and industry are changing as a result of environmental stress in aquatic ecosystems. That, said the network in a statement announcing the grant, "will help inform policies on the development of Canada’s natural resources in regions where rapid economic development is underway."

Another $2.9 million will be distributed among seven other projects at the university via a separate grants program. Among the scientists awarded research funds: a chemical engineer studying innovative ways to process pulp and paper mill waste; a materials science researcher exploring efficient light harvesting; and an ecologist examining how to optimize marine protection areas.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

Last year, after concluding that "Canada is weak at business innovation," the Conference Board of Canada announced that it was establishing a Centre for Business Innovation (CBI). The new centre's goal: "To learn why Canada is not a leader in business innovation…and to formulate public policies that will successfully stimulate business innovation." The CBI is hosting an innovation summit in Toronto later this month, at which they'll unveil the results of their first major study examining how Canada fares when it comes to financing innovation.

That report's key message: Canada has a large and strong public equity market, but unfortunately also "has a serious issue with innovation commercialization." As a nation we aren't particularly strong when it comes to riskier investments, in particular when it comes to financing research and development in a business context: "Canadian-based businesses would need to more than double their annual spending on R&D…to equal the business R&D intensity of the United States," the report finds.

In order to make progress, the report goes on, Canadian innovators "need practice tools to help them explain to investors both their innovative activity (e.g. innovation metrics) and the way it makes money (e.g. the business model and financial projections)." In short, we need to smooth the path to commercialization, and in order to do that we need to both provide new financial tools for innovation and develop a more sophisticated marketing culture around innovation. It's not that we lack the capacity for this--as the report points out, "Canada successfully funds risky ventures in mining and oil and gas development."--But we need a broader culture of business innovation, and Canadian innovators need to improve their capacity to sell innovation to potential investors. The CBI will turn to the practicalities of accomplishing that in future reports.

"Financing Innovation by Established Businesses in Canada" is available online [PDF] (free, but registration required).

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Conference Board of Canada

Toronto is known for its cutting edge academic and medical research facilities, but the path from the lab to the marketplace isn't always short or direct.

In 2008, with the goal of making the most of the findings coming out of those facilities, 16 leading institutions including Ryerson University, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, and OCAD University joined forces to create MaRS Innovation, a collective commercialization agent. (The MaRS Discovery District, the innovation centre for entrepreneurs, is also a member, though they are often confused, MaRS DD and MaRS Innovation are two separate organizations.)

MaRS Innovation was started with the help of a five year, $15 million federal investment, and this month they were glad to announce they've been awarded a new $15 million grant. The new round of funding comes from the federally run Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) program.

MaRS Innovation was created, says president and CEO Raphael Hofstein, "to address a very interesting challenge for Canada, which is 'how do you turn outstanding research into something that directly helps the economy?'"

The initial five year period of support, he goes on, was to establish a foundation for the organization. "Now in the next three or four years, we will build the tower on top of the foundation." The first five years gave them a good start, he explains, but it's "a bit of a challenge" as far as the timeline for development with still-emerging technologies. By the end of this second five year period, MaRS will have "meaningful operations"--businesses that have emerged from the research innovations coming out of the member institutions. This funding program, he concludes, "is a game-changer."

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Raphael Hofstein, President and CEO, MaRS Innovation

The municipal government unveiled a new economic development plan at City Hall last week. It hopes the plan will improve conditions for businesses that are thinking of setting up shop in Toronto as well as businesses that are already here, but face bureaucratic hurdles to success. Titled Collaborating for Competitiveness: A Strategic Plan for Accelerating Growth and Job Creation in Toronto, the plan is very much interested in sweating the small stuff: its focus is on streamlining zoning processes, maintaining infrastructure, and raising our city's profile--the nitty-gritty, daily details.

Among the report's key recommendations: 

- Reduce the time it takes to review development applications for employment uses.
- Maintain the current commitment to reducing the ratio of residential to non-residential property tax rates.
- Request the Province to conduct property tax assessments based on current (employment) use rather than highest market value use. Effectively, this would stop the assessment process from penalizing developers who want to retain property for employment uses rather than building lucrative condos.
- Conduct outreach "to identify and assist Toronto-based manufacturers seeking global product mandates."
- Establish a wider network of incubators and accelerators.

The ideas contained in this report are smaller-scale than ones found in some other recent economic development strategies. In 2010, the Toronto Board of Trade issued a sweeping report that was much broader in scope, for instance, including recommendations on everything from environmental policy to attracting immigrants. The emphasis on employment land use in the City report is well-timed, as Toronto is also in the middle of an Official Plan review, and a consideration of how to preserve employment lands in the face of increasing development.

Collaborating for Competitiveness will be debated at the next city council meeting, on February 20 and 21. The full text of the report is available online [PDF].

Writer: Hamutal Dotan

The Business Development Bank of Canada wants to give you money--one of you, at least. The BDC has just opened applications for its 2013 Young Entrepreneur Award.

Canadian entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 35 are eligible to enter. Eleven finalists will be selected, one from each province plus one from the territories, by a panel of judges in each jurisdiction. Those finalists will move on to compete for the grand prize of $100,000, and a second prize of $25,000 in consulting services, with the winners chosen by the public, who will vote on BDC's website.

The BDC Young Entrepreneur Awards are meant specifically for businesses at a critical juncture; judges are looking for "turning point projects that will propel small- and medium-sized businesses to new growth," BDC explains in a video guide to the awards.

To apply, you must create a short original video (just one to two minutes, no fancy camera work expected) explaining your turning point, and your approach to tackling it effectively. There's no specific constraint on what counts: it could be a new marketing strategy, an equipment purchase, or some advice that will help set up export operations. The key is that it's something that you haven't been able to do yet, but that the judges are convinced could mark a fundamental moment of growth for your company.

All applications must be received by noon on April 2.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Business Development Bank of Canada

Innovation requires, first of all, innovators: people with the creativity and talent to come up with plans and projects, products and services, that hadn't quite occured to anyone else before. And innovation in the globalizing world requires increased flexibility, knowledge of foreign markets, and the capacity to adapt to changing technologies and circumstances.

Enter a new immigration initiative from the federal government. Announced last week, the Start-Up Visa Program is a pilot project that will run for five years, with 2,750 visas available each year for immigrant entrepreneurs and their family members.  The goal is to attract entrepreneurs and entice them to start new businesses -- and by extension creating new jobs -- here in Canada. To be eligible, applicants must have some funding from Canadian backers lined up: a minimum of $75,000 from an angel investor or $200,000 from a venture capital firm. If accepted, applicants will become permanent residents. The Start-Up Visa Program is the successor to the defunct Federal Entrepreneur Program, a previous immigration stream that the government halted in 2011.

"Recruiting dynamic entrepreneurs from around the world will help Canada remain competitive in the global economy," said Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney when announcing the program. In order to help support the program, the government will be working with Canada’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) and the National Angel Capital Organization (NACO), who will help line up potential investors.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Ministry of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism

It's the single largest ever private donation to cancer research in Canada: $50 million to Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital. The gift comes from Canadian philanthropists Emmanuelle Gattuso and Allan Slaight, who will be making their donation over the next ten years.

It's a personal commitment for them: Gattuso was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002 and treated at Princess Margaret.

Paul Alofs, president and CEO of the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, announced the donation earlier this month at a press conference. He was joined by Gattuso and Dr. Bob Bell, president of the University Health Network, who said that, "This donation is going to add significant momentum to Princess Margaret Cancer Centre's global leadership in advancing personalized cancer medicine."

The money will go to creating a "superfund" for recruiting researchers in, and accelerating the development of, personalized cancer medicine. Personalized cancer medicine is based on genetic analysis of individual tumours in order to allow for the development of customized treatment plans that target the specificities of any given patient's disease.

The hospital's work in this area includes precision genomics, advanced tumour biology, immune therapy, and molecular imaging, explained research director Benjamin Neel. "We've probably learned more about the basic biology of cancer in the last year than in all of human history before that," he says. Researchers are now learning how to treat cancer far more precisely. Current therapies like chemotherapy provide only blunt tools by comparison.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Princess Margaret Hospital

It's not the most pressing medical issue, but it's one that affects almost all of us at some point in our lives: post-surgical scarring. It's not just an aesthetic concern -- though in cases like the treatment of burns, the disfiguring effects of scarring can be life-altering -- since scarring can be painful and, depending on its location on the body, also inhibit movement. A local startup called ScarX Therapeutics is working on commercializing a new treatment for post-surgical scarring, and it's just received a $250,000 cash infusion to help things along.

The investment comes courtesy of the Ontario Centres of Excellence, a non-profit research accelerator funded by the provincial government. It's the first award distributed through Ontario's recently expanded market readiness program. It will allow ScarX to begin clinical trials later this year.

The topical treatment, a cream patients would apply themselves, emerged from research done by Hospital for Sick Children scientist Dr. Benjamin Alman. His work (which has also been supported by MaRS Innovation) actually focused on a rare type of tumour originally, until he realized that a pain-relief treatment he'd come across in the course of that research had the effect of diminishing scar formation. He's still hoping that after the scar treatment, which could serve a much wider group of patients, is finished, the molecule in question can be developed into a treatment for that tumour as well.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Ontario Centres of Excellence

Entrepreneurs are, by definition, people with new ideas they want to bring forward in the marketplace. Knowing what you want to create and sell, however, doesn't necessarily mean you know how to go about selling it.

Enter a new partnership between MaRS Discovery District’s information technology, communications and entertainment practice (ICE) and e-commerce agency Demac Media. Last month, they launched a new advisory service to help startups handle e-commerce effectively.

The goal, says ICE's go-to-market lead Nathan Monk, is "to close the gap between what we're seeing developed and what is coming to market." That is, right now e-commerce's capacities often outstrip the uses to which new companies put it. "A lot of the time," he explains, no matter how great their products or ideas are, startups "haven't actually done the customer development. They need the methodology to reduce the risk of failure."

"Canadians will almost double their mobile spent…by the end of this year," Monk says, but many startups aren't well positioned to offer their customers an optimal e-commerce experience.

The new advisory services (many of which are exclusive to MaRS clients) include office hours for clients to discuss potential strategies with Demac Media experts, workshops for tackling topics such as e-commerce interfaces, and public discussions on broader subjects like email and seasonal marketing. A meet-up group is now online for those interested in the latter.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Nathan Monk, Go-to-Market Lead, ICE practice, MaRS Discovery District

Globalive founder Anthony Lacavera announed recently that he'll be stepping down as chairman and CEO of WIND Mobile, one of that company's key holdings, and will focus his energy on a new venture capital project, Globalive Capital.

WIND Mobile was launched by Globalive in 2008, with financial backing from Orascom Telecom, and reports that it currently has more than 600,000 subscribers across Canada, making it the fourth-largest mobile provider in Canada after "big three," Rogers, Telus, and Bell.

“As an entrepreneur, my vision was to ignite change across the wireless landscape in Canada, bringing more competition, better prices and superior service to Canadians...[a]nd that is exactly what we did,” Lacavera said in a press statement, explaining his reasons for leaving now.

The financial details haven't been made public, but Orascom will purchase Lacavela's shares from him, pending regulatory approval. Orascom is an Egyptian company, but recent changes to legislation allow foreign ownership of telecoms with less than 10 per cent of the market.

A timeline hasn't been announced yet, but Globalive Capital will launch in "early 2013," the company says. It will focus specifically on "entrepreneurs developing early-stage technology, media, and telecom companies." Further details are so far scarce, but more are promised soon.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Globalive

The presence and capacity of mobile devices have outstripped the services available on them, according to a new report from OCAD University, but dealing with this problem could provide ample opportunity for Ontario, including job creation. 

The Taking Ontario Mobile report examines, "how to engage mobility in order to better realize the full potential of all of Ontario's residents, bring significant increases in productivity, create and retain jobs in the knowledge industries, allow inclusion and engagement, and build on Ontario's extant leadership in the broadcast of mobile industries."

The goal is to lay out some courses Ontario should be charting in order to become more productive, create more jobs, and and increase engagement with the development of new mobile strategies.

In general terms, the report argues that "public services can be delivered in a more cost-effective and efficient manner" with the help of mobile technology -- important at a time where deficit-fighting is the government's prevailing concern. More specifically, the report considers mobile opportunities in five key sectors (some governmental and some commercial).

1) Education, including applications in primary and secondary classrooms, at the post-secondary level, and in retraining to create a more flexible workforce. 

2) Health, for instance providing more efficient care to seniors with remote monitoring.

3) Government services, where a large range of efficiencies may be found by managing data more effectively and making it available more quickly, and where mobile may be an invaluable tool for offering necessary services to rural and remote populations.

4) Cultural industries, where we already have a strong talent pool, can be made even stronger by using mobile to create larger audiences for the work we produce.

5) Commerce, especially significant given that Ontario is home to most of Canada's banks and financial institutions. "The face of m-commerce is still undeveloped," the report finds, "and the area is ripe for design, creating opportunities for the traditional finance sector and for new players."

"Failing to act now," the report warns, "will disadvantage Ontario in numerous ways."

The full text of the report is available online [PDF].

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: "Taking Ontario Mobile" (OCAD)

The Conference Board of Canada has announced it will host an innovation summit in Toronto in February. The summit is part of the board's plan to support businesses in their efforts to become more innovative. The Innovation for the Corporation summit is a two-day event that will seek to better understand why Canada isn't as strong a leader in innovation as many think we could and should be.

"We've seen the report cards that put us in a declining space...our innovation performance is ranked 21st," explained Bruce Good, executive director of CBC's Centre for Business Innovation, in a video announcing the summit. As several indices all show that same slip in our comparative success in innovation, Good goes on, "the time for change is now."

He believes infrastructure, stable government, sound fiscal management capabilities, and a lot of latent energy and enthusiasm are raw resources ready to be tapped. The summit will focus on four key areas to help the business community make the most of those strengths, and understand specific areas where we're falling behind: funding mechanisms, people and skills, business strategies, and what has to change for us to do better. Speakers range from the presidents of several major corporations -- IBM, Cisco, and GE, for instance --to researchers and the leads at young startups who are finding success in their own innovative smaller businesses.

The Innovation for the Corporation summit takes place on February 19-20 at the Fairmont Royal York. Online registration is now open and early bird fees available until January 18.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Conference Board of Canada