Innovation + Job News

Current university and college students and recent grads from across the GTA are being challenged to find innovative ways for people to interact with the city of Toronto in mobile applications. The Battle of the Apps, sponsored by both the City of Toronto and Ryerson University's Digital Media Zone, asks students to form teams to design applications that enhance the city or showcase it to users. The winners of the contest will get more than $5,000 in prizes.

The contest is being run by mobile development company D1 Mobile. Company President Daniel Ezer says he was tired of constantly hearing about how rich with talent Silicone Valley is. "Toronto is an amazing and diverse city. Battle of the Apps is our way of bringing out students' innovative minds and encouraging them to develop something which benefits our city," he says.

Registration for the contest is open until this weekend. Finalists will be announced on March 21, and the winners will be chosen and announced April 7. More details are available at www.battleoftheapps.com.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Daniel Ezer, President, D1 Mobile

Last week, the provincial government issued a directive to the Ontario Power Authority regarding the mixture of generation sources the agency should be aiming for. The directive drew notice for its commitment to both nuclear power and its renewed commitment to sustainable energy.

The Canadian Wind Energy Association was among those who were quick to welcome the directive. By their math, the directive should mean roughly $12.5 billion in new investment in the province in wind energy over the next seven years, and will create 12,500 jobs in construction and operations of wind farms.

Association president Robert Hornung said in a statement that if the province follows up its renewed commitment by quickly granting contracts under the province's feed-in-tariff program, it will shore up investor confidence in the region's sustainable energy industry. There are currently 700 wind turbines in Ontario now. The Association estimates that a typical 100W wind farm creates 100 construction period jobs and 33 full-time permanent positions.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Ulrike Kucera, CanWEA

Concept Plastics, a manufacturer of food packaging and car mats (Canada's only source of the latter) will be getting an injection of capital to fuel innovation from the provincial government. A $3.07 million grant from the Ministry of Economic Development announced earlier this month will finance new equipment for the company's production line, including upgrading the process to allow the innovative injection of PVC powder. The improved process should lower costs by about 40 per cent and ramp up production for the Mississauga company.

According to company President Kiran Kulkarni, the investment will allow the company to be far more competitive internationally, which he expects to lead to significant growth, especially in the auto market. As Canada's only manufacturer of car mats, the company is hoping to claw some market share in a sector reported to be worth $50 million annually in Canada, and more than a quarter billion dollars per year in the US. The investment is projected to add 27 new jobs to the company's current staff of 26 over the next five years.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Leigh-Ann Popek, Ministry of Economic Development; Kiran Kulkarni, Concept Plastics

VitalHub, a company started by the IT department at Mount Sinai hospital, has developed a technology that allows doctors and nurses in a hospital to easily track patient information using iPads and iPhones, a solution to longstanding and often-noted paperwork problems. As a company, they've had a busy couple of months.

In December 2010, VitalHub launched at Mount Sinai hospital, allowing clinicians to access patient's charts on mobile devices from anywhere in the hospital. This replaces a patchwork of different types of computer terminals and software programs that stored different types of information and often required multiple passwords. While the hospital plans for ever-wider deployment of the technology, they also established VitaHub to allow its commercialization and use at hospitals elsewhere.

Last month, the plan attracted a $300,000 investment from MaRS that VitalHub CEO Neil Closner says will enable the company to continue its deployment at Mount Sinai, further develop the product and market it to other hospitals. And befitting that expansion plan, the company is also in the process of hiring three full-time and two part-time staff to enable that expansion.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Neil Closner, CEO, VitalHub

At an event at MaRS last week, the provincial Minister of Research and Innovation, Glen Murray, announced that MaRS would become part of the Ontario Network of Excellence. At an event that showcased the innovative power of the GTA displaying companies launched at MaRS and by incubators such as Ryerson University's Digital Media Zone and OCAD, Murray touted the importance of Toronto.

"There are things that can only happen in this country's financial and cultural capital, things that cannot happen anywhere else. In a knowledge economy... if you do not have a large city, you are North Dakota, or Montana," he said. He added that Toronto has taken up the challenge of leading the country. "We are not a place of small ideas, we are a place of big ideas that go to big places and change our world in real time."

To continue to foster that environment, Murray announced a $2.25 million commitment over the next three years for MaRS so that it may continue its mandate to foster innovation in Toronto by harnessing expertise from across academic and business sectors to aid in launching and developing companies. MaRS will become on of 14 centres in the province-wide "Network of Excellence" being built to foster innovation.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Glen Murray, Ontario Minister of Research and Innovation

At an event in downtown Toronto last week, Ontario Minister of Research and Innovation Glen Murray suggested that investing in knowledge should be the provincial government's re-election issue -- a position he compared favourably to the Conservative party's plan to offer cheaper beer prices. He said there's a reason such an investment is important.

"The economy is changing at a pace unheard of in human history. This is bigger than the industrial revolution, which took 200 years. This is bigger than the agricultural revolution which took 2,000 years. These revolutions are happening in months. It took less than two years for Facebook to get 58 million participants, it took television 20 years to get that many people. The pace of change is monthly for what used to take place in decades. The pace of change in society has become a social challenge in itself."

In what he said he thought was one of the "most important things I'll ever be involved in in my life," Murray announced the launch of a "multi-year, fully funded project" to share data. While details were not made available, Murray said the "core strategic research centre" would be set up at MaRS and rolled out over the next four months. The plan, he said, is to "try to create a collaborative open-source platform where companies, government and not-for-profits will provide data" and knowledge that would be available to other researchers of all stripes across the province. "My goal is, in the next decade, to drive this collaborative centre to make us the first true wiki-mobile-digital economy."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Glen Murray, Ontario Minister of Research and Innovation

At the recent CIX conference, Green Mantra Recycling Technologies was honoured as Canada's Hottest Innovative Company in the CleanTech sector. That's high praise, but to those who have long followed the recycling industry, it will appear completely justified.

Green Mantra has developed a proprietary technology that can recycle products such as plastic bags and bottles -- they've long been thorns in the side of recyclers because plastics are made of different compounds that cannot be recycled together -- and turns them into waxes and greases. The products are commercial quality and can be sold for uses such as industrial lubricants, car and floor waxes and candles. The process produces no greenhouse gases.

Founded by Indian-born Pushkar Kumar, the company is currently headquartered at MaRS. "I bring a unique international perspective to GreenMantra -- having grown in Indian business environment, I have an acumen to successfully run operations in cost effective manner," Kumar writes in his profile. A graduate of the Richard Ivey School of Business, he says that, "Canada is my new home and I want to work towards improving the place."

The company's business model sees municipal recycling stores (through which less than 5% of plastics currently wind up recycled) as a resource for materials to supply a manufacturing business that sells wax on the market to manufacturers of consumer and industrial products.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Pushkar Kumar, Founder and CEO, Green Mantra Recycling Technologies

Toronto tech company BlueCat Networks is on a hot streak that can now be measured in years: they've been among Deloitt's "Fast 50" list of Canadian growing companies four years running, made the list of Red Herring's top 100 private companies in North America and at the most recent CIX conference, they were named the hottest innovative company in Canada in the information and communications field.

And last year the company, which provides IP services, grew considerably, expanding its list of foreign offices into Europe and Asia. Recently it launched a first of its kind DDI software in the US with Cisco systems. And they continue to grow, hiring two in their Toronto office now.

Founder and CEO Michael Hyatt says that the company's growth is built on "world-leading DDI technology innovation." Anyone looking to join the team can rely on the endorsement of another award: last year I Love Rewards named BlueCat one of the 50 Most Engaged Workplaces in North America.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Michael Hyatt, CEO, BlueCat Networks

During the last municipal election, the Town of Markham employed a novel approach to getting voters engaged. DIY Markham used Facebook, Twitter and other social media to get people involved. In a presentation in Ottawa last week, a two PhD students at Carleton University presented a study of the project as a model for other governments to follow.

"The Town of Markham's integration of social media into the 2010 municipal election highlights its experience in dealing with some of the common concerns raised by government," PhD student Nicole Goodman writes in her report. "The steps that it followed to ensure all legal and political conditions were satisfied could be used as a model for the development of social media programs by governments and election agencies elsewhere."

The innovative project was run for the GTA municipality by the digital consulting firm Delvinia. Company CEO Adam Froman says that the campaign was used alongside more traditional voter outreach initiatives to make Markham a "leader in e-democracy and public engagement."

In a statement sent out by Delvinia, Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti said, "Social media is now a critical element of any municipal communications campaign. We know that social media users represent the highest proportion of our election demographics and expect this trend to increase dramatically. Markham now has an effective and proven platform to capitalize on this in future."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Susan O'Neil, Delvinia

Toronto's Innovative Composites International was born in 2007 when some former Magna engineers struck out to find applications for a new type of thermoplastic material they had developed. The composite compound they developed, suitable for building things (shipping containers, houses) is lightweight, fireproof, hurricane-proof. As company spokesperson Clive Hobson says, the composite can be used to build "virtually anything" and is "virtually indestructible."

Now up to 22 staff members at the Front Street office and the Michigan manufacturing facility, the company brought its product out to market last year. Since then, it's started to see tremendous growth -- their materials have been used to construct a 125-foot pedestrian bridge in Chicago, and they just signed another contract for storage containers last month. All the while they've continued to innovate with their product line, as evidenced by their late-January announcement of three new patent applications.

But Hobson says the potential for growth an order of magnitude larger is on the horizon: the company is on the list of six finalists for contracts to rebuild the shattered country of Haiti in cooperation with the Clinton Foundation. While Hobson says there are a lot of "ifs and buts" remaining in the tendering process there, but the firm is optimistic that they and their partners may soon be constructing 5,000 or more homes using ICI's materials. "I'm trying not to use hyperbole, but that would be represent a 'home run' in terms of growth in revenue." Hobson says ICI would need to construct a new manufacturing facility to accommodate such an order -- and hire approximately 100 more staff (representing a sixfold increase in employees). A decision on the Haiti rebuilding contract is expected within the next 60-90 days.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Clive Hobson, Innovative Composites  International Inc.

It's a little early in the company's development to say they're attracting buzz, but development-stage startup Unata has already landed on the watchlist of tech entrepreneur and CommunityLend CTO John Phillip Green.

Specific information on the tech startup's developmental product is still under wraps, but according to founder Chris Bryson, Unata is developing customer loyalty applications that are "data-driven" applications that will both generate customer loyalty and allow companies to "really understand their customers better." Bryson, who was formerly employed by Aeroplan, thinks that while some programs in the UK are delivering more of the potential of loyalty programs, the field is ripe for reinvention, especially in North America. Hence the company's pre-launch tagline, "Loyalty 3.0."

The project is funded fully by angel investors, and Bryson is currently looking to double the size of his team. Until now Unata has consisted of three developers, and they are looking to add three more immediately. Bryson says the company should have much more to announce by mid-to-late February.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Chris Bryson, Unata

As it appeared would be the case when we wrote about them in April 2010, the cloud backup innovators Asigra had a banner year in 2010, growing their staff by more than 20 per cent and becoming the only Canadian company featured in the prestigious Gartner Magic Quadrant report.

Asigra was the first company in the world to offer secure backup systems online (this was before everyone started calling it "the cloud"), and according to Asigra marketing director Amrita Chandra, meeting the challenges of being the innovator in the field is now paying off. "One of the biggest advantages we have is that our product is rich and deep," she says from Asigra's University Heights office. "We've been doing this for decades -- a lot that's been adopted as standard industry practice is what we've been doing for years."

And as the company now claims more than 250,000 customers, Chandra says the market is finally catching up to the company. "The challenge of building something new is that you wind up doing a lot of education. When you're first to market, sometimes you're there before the market is there. For us, we were there when the market was in its infancy, so now the great thing is we've got this history and all these great customer references ... we have companies that have used our products for years."

As such, the boom time continues for job seekers at Asigra, as the company looks to add an additional 30 staff to their team this month.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Amrita Chandra, Senior Director of Corporate Marketing, Asigra Inc.

Shiny Ads President Roy Pereira got the idea to change the advertising industry in May 2009. "Some really small advertisers were coming into a friend's website, and unfortunately it was very different than the traditional media buy with a large brand advertiser and a large budget and a lot of understanding. These guys were coming in, they had $50 in their budget, they knew nothing about online advertising, they didn't have any ads designed and ready to go. And taking their ads was a losing proposition because it would cost you more to service them than the revenue they'd bring in. So I looked for a solution, and didn't find one. So I thought, well, we can build one."

He says that when he built his business plan that year, it dawned on him what a large opportunity he'd stumbled on in small advertisers. "Really every niche and news site has a good chance of converting their readers into advertisers -- everyone at a niche website is interested in that one topic, and so you have this great targeted audience. News is interesting because its mostly local or topical."  Custom-made for small, "long-tail" advertisers, in other words.

Pereira launched his service, a fully automated self-serve ad platform that connects web publishers with smaller-scale advertisers, in January 2010. Since then they've attracted a lot of large websites, according to Pereira. The success led the company to move into a new, larger office space and to double the size of the team from two to four staff last month.

VP of Business Development and Sales Zunaid Khan, brought onboard to professionalize the sales end now that the technology has been demonstrated, chips in that even while the company continues to add to its offerings, the existing product is already serving up ads on smartphones and other platforms. "Essentially, whatever the customer is willing to sell, they can do it through our system."

He notes that the technology is turning heads in the industry: they were invited to present at the recent Toronto DEMO event; they'll be presenting at Innovation Alley at the upcoming ad:tech conference in San Francisco; and they were recently named by IDC as one of the 10 hot tech companies in Toronto to watch.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Roy Pereira and Zunaid Khan, Shiny Ads

Rick Nathan is the managing director of Kensington Capital and co-chair of the Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX) conference. "What we're trying to do at CIX is strengthen commercialization in the technology sector in Canada," he says of the mandate of the organization behind the annual meeting of Canada's best and brightest technology innovators.

Last week, CIX announced a new program to further that mission, called the Canadian Technology Accelerator. "It can be a challenge, when you're in Toronto, to break into the whole Silicon Valley culture of get noticed. This program is a great chance for an emerging tech company to jump into the heart of Silicon Valley for three months," Nathan says.

The program, run in conjunction with the federal government's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and with the Consulate General in San Francisco, will give three early-stage Canadian tech firms the opportunity to spend three months working, rent free, out of the Plug and Play Tech Centre in California.  Nathan says the companies will have improved access to Silicon Valley venture capital and an opportunity to establish a presence in the Bay Area, the heart of North America's digital sector.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Rick Nathan, co-chair, Canadian Innovation Exchange

Solar panels installed by GEMCO (Glennbarra Energy Management Company) at three city-run agencies will provide hot water through solar power. The zero emissions water heating is expected to meet almost half the hot water needs of the Toronto Zoo, Birchmount Community Centre and True Davidson Acres. The truly inspired touch is that the installations and the water will cost the city no more than regular hot water usage would have, thanks to an innovative financing arrangement through the Toronto Atmospheric Fund.

"The innovation we provide is a utility-style service -- we install and maintain the solar system and the city facilities get hot water at the same price as fossil-fuel heated water, without up-front capital costs, operations and maintenance responsibilities or pollution," Darren Cooper, President and CEO of GEMCO, said in a statement.

The 237 solar panels that will provide the power were financed through the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, who expect to get a competitive return on their investment. The city agencies have contracted to pay rates equivalent to what they would pay a carbon-based utility for their water usage for the next 20 years. Glennbarra expects to see a profit as a result of that contract. Everyone wins.

Tim Stoate of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund says that this type of financing arrangement represents a new model for clean energy companies and users that offers both financial return and environmental benefits.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Tim Stoate, Toronto Atmospheric Fund; Darren Cooper, GEMCO