Group items tagged

Peter Evans, adviser to the Toronto technology organization MaRs, believes Canada's economy is at a crossroads, as critical to job growth as the Industrial Revolution was at the turn of the last century.

In November, Skymeter moved into the incubator at the MaRS Centre, where marketing expert Peter Evans has become their mentor and godfather. "Being surrounded by other entrepreneurs is inspiring and enlightening," Hassan says. "MaRS is an amazing place, with excellent speakers and events that are open to the public."

The father of Skymeter Corp. – which developed a BlackBerry-sized device that uses GPS signals; placed in vehicles, it meters the use of roads, parking and pay-as-you-drive insurance

Skymeter's black box will be attached to the windshield of cars so the box has a clear view of the sky. (Grush has figured out how to cope with tall buildings blocking signals.) The box contains a GPS receiver, some memory, a processor and a telecommunications chip. The satellite beams down to the earth, the GPS receiver computes where it is and uploads its history to a data centre to generate the bill. The vehicle measures its own use; the bill is itemized like a cellphone bill. If you prepay, the bill can be calculated on board.