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Assunta Krehl

Federal Commission's support for pay-as-you-drive to renew aging infrastructure poses..... - 0 views

  • U.S. commission report released today underscores the need for a nationwide pay-as-you-drive system - a system akin to one refined and tested worldwide by upstart tech firm Skymeter Corp.
  • Skymeter as its technical solution partner of choice for 'Smart Transportation Pricing' technology in the city of Seoul under the Connected Urban Development program.
  • Skymeter solution solves severe GPS signal problems among numerous intersecting and parallel side-roads and offers a high degree of billing accuracy, critical to system acceptance. Skymeter is currently being tested in San Francisco against what are considered to be the best GPS receivers in North America. The results of these tests to date mirror successful European and Asian trials of Skymeter's system.
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  • "The Commission has hit the bull's eye with its recommendations", says Skymeter CEO Kamal Hassan. "Recognizing and recommending sensible policy using reliable and cost-effective technology addresses the three evils plaguing surface transportation: under-funding, CO(2) emissions, and traffic jams." Hassan says that by opting for a sensibly-designed GPS-driven user fee system America's total CO(2) emissions will be reduced by 5% or 350 million metric tonnes, the same reduction as if one out of every four cars on the road were replaced by electric cars. It will also make the average commute around 10% faster. "Those are pretty good side effects for a system that returns the nation's road financing system to health" says Hassan.
  • Skymeter Corporation is a Toronto, Canada-based data services operator that enables location-based payments using financial-grade GPS telematics. Its billing-delivery services include Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) metering for road use, parking and PAYD insurance. These services incorporate methodologies for both privacy and anonymity to ensure motorists enjoy complete privacy while traveling and absolute confidentiality of their trips. Skymeter is equivalent to an anonymous, in-car cell-phone that automatically pays for all transport services based on actual usage. Skymeter enables every form of road-use charging from small city areas such as London and Stockholm's cordon charges up to metering every vehicle in a state, province or country in order to replace fuel taxes.
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    U.S. commission report released states that there is a need\nfor a nationwide pay-as-you-drive system - a system that is similar to Skymeter Corp which is an upstart tech firm and a MaRS Tenant. Skymeter technicial solution solves the severe GPS signal problems as is currently being tested in North America. Feb 26, 2009
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    U.S. commission report released states that there is a need for a nationwide pay-as-you-drive system - a system that is similar to Skymeter Corp which is an upstart tech firm and a MaRS Tenant. Skymeter technicial solution solves the severe GPS signal problems as is currently being tested in North America.
Sarah Hickman

Amazon.com: The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (978157... - 0 views

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    From Publishers Weekly\nChristensen (The Innovator's Dilemma) analyzes the strategies that allow corporations to successfully grow new businesses and outpace the other players in the marketplace. Christensen's earlier book examined how focusing on profits can destroy even well-run corporations, while this book focuses on companies expanding by being "disruptors" who are able to outpace their entrenched competition. The authors (Christensen is a professor at Harvard Business School and Raynor, a director at Deloitte Research) examine the nine business decisions integral to growth, including product development, organizational structure, financing and key customer base. They cite such companies as IBM, AT&T, Sony, Microsoft and others to illustrate their points. Generally, the writing is clear and specific. For example, in discussing whether a company has the resources necessary for growth, the authors say, "In order to be confident that managers have developed the skills required to succeed at a new assignment, one should examine the sorts of problems they have wrestled with in the past. It is not as important that managers have succeeded with the problem as it is for them to have wrestled with it and developed the skills and intuition for how to meet the challenge successfully the next time around"; they then provide a real-life example of a software company. Similar important strategies give readers insights that they can use in their own workplaces. People looking for quick fixes may find the charts, diagrams and extensive footnotes daunting, but readers familiar with more technical business management tomes will find this one both stimulating and beneficial.
Assunta Krehl

TMX Group confirms support for impact investing - Advisor.ca - December 14, 2011 - 0 views

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    Melissa Shin, Advisor.ca reporter states "Toronto is now home to the world's first non-U.S.-based hub for B Corporations, or companies that use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.   The hub will be hosted at the MaRS Discovery District as part of the Centre for Impact Investing, which officially launched December 13."
Cathy Bogaart

Social innovation: Let's hear those ideas | The Economist - 0 views

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    In America and Britain governments hope that a partnership with "social entrepreneurs" can solve some of society's most intractable problems.
Cathy Bogaart

Stanford's Entrepreneurship Corner: Tina Seelig, Stanford Technology Ventures Program -... - 0 views

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    Stanford Technology Ventures Program's Executive Director Tina Seelig shares rich insights in creative thinking and the entrepreneurial mindset. Her talk, based on her 2009 book, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, cites numerous classroom successes of applied problem-solving and the lessons of failure.
Cathy Bogaart

Skymeter: the future of road tolls in Toronto? - 0 views

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    Have you read or heard about Andrew Coyne's paper, "Stuck in Traffic?" It talks about how Torontonians are spending more time commuting to work. Eye Weekly points out that we've got the technology to solve that problem right here at MaRS. It's our tenant and client, Skymeter. Skymeter, a company founded by local businessman Bern Grush, has designed a device that sits inside vehicles and tracks the location and distance of travel using GPS technology, adjusting for price changes in real time. To address privacy concerns, the Skymeter sends only the price information to authorities-data about where and when you've travelled stays inside your car, and you can erase it as often as you like. The technology has already been tested for road pricing in Asia and proved effective. So why aren't we using it in Toronto, Eye Weekly asks?
Sarah Hickman

IT in Canada - Canada's Only Integrated Social Media News Network - 0 views

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    The IT Forum Exchange Network (ITFX) has launched its first microsite, Unified Communication in Canada, designed to stimulate informed discussion of Unified Communications and its role in enhancing the competitiveness of Canadian private and public sector enterprises. UC in Canada's Unified Communications discussion area will be featured on "forum pages" across the network. Visit the Unified Communication in Canada Website. About ITFX: Leading trade publishers and other technology thought leaders have created ITFX with the intention of establishing a national problem-solving dialogue on key IT issues. Issues which are within their discussion forums include; Green IT, Unified Communications and Investment and Go-to-Market activity linking portals operated by leading trade publications, IT industry associations and social media sites.
Sarah Hickman

SIX - 0 views

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    The social innovation eXchange (SIX) is a network that has been set up by a group of organizations to help build the emerging field of social innovation. They believe that many of the big problems that the world faces - from climate change to the care needs of an aging population - will only be solved by experiment, enterprise and innovation, and that innovation needs to tap into the creativity of every part of civil society, business and the public sector.
Cathy Bogaart

What's Thwarting American Innovation? Too Much Science, Says Roger Martin | Design of t... - 0 views

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    "The enemy of innovation is the phrase 'prove it'," says Roger Martin, dean of UofT's Rotman School of Management. He says corporations are killing themselves with too much analytical thinking, and not enough creative, design thinking. "You can't send a 28-year-old with a calculator to solve your problem." Martin says of management consultants.
Assunta Krehl

Andrea Hamilton - Co-founder of Hatch Toronto - The Morning Show - November 29, 2011 - 0 views

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    Andrea Hamilton, Senior Associate of Advisory Services at MaRS Discovery District and Co-Founder of HATCH discusses about her platform to get people collaborating together to solve problems for any size shape or purpose.
Sarah Hickman

Amazon.com: Unstoppable: Finding Hidden Assets to Renew the Core and Fuel Profitable Gr... - 0 views

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    Over the next decade, two out of every three companies will face the challenge of their corporate lives: redefining their core business. Buffeted by global competition and facing an uncertain future, more and more executives will realize that they must make fundamental changes in their core even as they continue delivering the goods and services that keep them in business today. "Unstoppable" shows these managers how to look deep within their organizations to find undervalued, unrecognized, or underutilized assets that can serve as new platforms for sustainable growth. Drawing on more than thirty interviews with CEOs from companies such as De Beers, American Express, and Samsung, it shows readers how to recognize when the core needs reinvention and how to deploy the "hidden assets" that can be the basis for tomorrow's growth. Building on the author's previous books, "Profit from the Core" and "Beyond the Core", this book shows how any company in crisis can transform itself to become truly unstoppable.
Assunta Krehl

Want to learn about innovation? Head to Toronto - Business Innovation Factory - 0 views

  • Probably most impressive was The MaRS Centre - an old hospital converted into a non-profit innovation centre connecting science, technology and social entrepreneurs with business skills, networks and capital. The building is undeniably cool. Located in Toronto’s “Discovery District” -- two square kilometres have been designated as the city’s center of innovation. The MaRS Centre is a gateway of sorts to Canada’s largest concentration of scientific research. It’s anchored by major teaching hospitals, the University of Toronto and more than two dozen affiliated research institutes.
  • MaRS Centre from the outside
  • MaRS was created in 2000. The founding group raised significant capital (almost $100 million from all three levels of government and both institutional and individual private sector donors and an additional $130 million of debt and credit lease instruments were also secured) to support the development. What’s so clear is that leadership to drive public/private sector collaboration is required to effect real change. Many credit Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty for helping to not only create the MaRS Centre but also invigorate the region as a whole.
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  • Martin has transformed the Rotman School from a mediocre Canadian business school to a world-class institution. It’s one of the few business schools around with an innovative curriculum built around the fundamentals of design thinking. Martin believes designers approaches to thinking and problem-solving can and should be applied to all components of business (He calls it integrative thinking and business design.) Most of our own processes here at the Business Innovation Factory are firmly rooted in design thinking principles.
  • Martin also managed to lure Richard Florida to Toronto in 2007 to direct the Rotman School's new $120-million Martin Prosperity Institute. Spinning off from much of Florida's research, the institute's goal is to build a leading think-tank on the role of sub-national factors – location, place and city-regions – in global economic prosperity. By taking an integrated view of prosperity, the institute will look beyond economic measures to include the importance of quality of place and the development of people’s creative potential. I'm looking forward to ongoing conversations with our new friends at the Rotman school. I suspect there might even be a collaboration or two about to happen as well. Bottom line: if you want to learn about innovation, Toronto is the place to be.
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    Chris Flanagan talks about the benefits of moving to Toronto and the great work happening at the MaRS Centre. Mention of Martin transforming the Rotman School to a "world-class institution" ... that has "an innovative curriculum built around the fundamentals of design thinking." There is also a mention of the Martin Prosperity Institute spin off.
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    Chris Flanagan talks about the benefits of moving to Toronto and the great work happening at the MaRS Centre. Mention of Martin transforming the Rotman School to a "world-class institution" ... that has "an innovative curriculum built around the fundamentals of design thinking." There is also a mention of the Martin Prosperity Institute spin off. Oct 30, 2008
Assunta Krehl

Pharmafocus.com - 0 views

  • Canada has always had to fight hard to attract talent and investment
  • MaRS Vital to Toronto's life sciences vision is MaRS (derived from Medical and Related Sciences) a non-profit organisation and business centre located in the heart of the city. Its core function is as a biotech incubator and business park, known as MaRS Discovery District. The venture was first established in 2000 to help foster and accelerate the growth of successful Canadian businesses and, after some uncertain times, it is now gathering momentum. A separate technology transfer office, MaRS Innovation, has also been established that, it is hoped, can be a world beater in its own right (see Turning good ideas into world beaters below). The location of the MaRS building in central Toronto is important, as it is just a stone's throw away from an existing cluster of universities and academic hospitals. MaRS has many links with other research-based organisations, including collaborations with three local universities, 10 academic teaching hospitals and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. MaRS occupies the Old Toronto general hospital, where insulin was first discovered by Best and Banting in 1921 and then developed for use in human trials. The 21st Century organisation can build on this heritage in patient-focused discovery and development. Formerly the head of venture capital firm Primaxis, Ilse Treurnicht is chief executive of MaRS Discovery District. She acknowledges the crisis in venture capital funding, and says Canada's sector has always had less access funds through this route than other countries. This is one of the drivers behind the search for a new approach. Treurnicht says the old models of building biotech and life sciences businesses have to be discarded, as they have failed to build companies with critical mass. She says MaRS' new 'Convergence Innovation' strategy of bringing science, capital and business together will pay off.
  • "We call our strategy 'Convergence Innovation' and what we are trying to do is move away from the old linear model of academics struggling in their spare time to build companies or entrepreneurs doing this in a very incremental way."It takes time and it has many risk points along the way. So using this Convergence centre model to create a much more dynamic organisation which can help accelerate good ideas towards the commercialisation." But she says Canada's geography and demographics are always going to be a challenge. "This is a very large country with a small population. If you think in terms of clusters and hub regions, Canada's business hubs are separated geographically, and there is not much in between in terms of people."That means we can't try to be a little United States, because we just won't show up on the radar. We have to take a different approach. We have to think about collaboration as our potential competitive advantage - that means using networks and associations to solve problems and build businesses."So as new opportunities emerge, we can take them to market faster and hopefully with a higher success rate." The centre currently accommodates numerous start up companies, as well as those providing legal and financial services to them. AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline also have offices on site. In all, MaRS provides mentoring for over 200 different companies across Ontario, and runs courses on entrepreneurship and preparing products for market.
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  • Transition Therapeutics is one of the companies based at MaRS, and is an example of a biopharmaceutical company that is taking a new approach to the science and business of drug development.
  • Now Toronto's MaRS Innovation (MI) has been launched to try to guide and accelerate these promising ideas out of the wilderness and onto the market. MI is a not-for-profit technology transfer company that will channel all the best ideas to come out of Toronto's renowned academic centres. In the Toronto and Ontario area there were between 14-16 different technology transfer offices in the different institutions, and MaRS Innovation resolved to bring these interests together into a single entity after industry partners told them it was an inefficient way to do business. Bringing together the different institutions under one umbrella organisation has been an arduous task for MaRS, but the reward could be considerable for all parties. MI now oversees probably the largest intellectual property pipeline of its kind, representing about $1 billion in annual research spending. This means MI will be a unified route for all of Toronto's academics and their institutions when they want to develop and commercialise a bright idea. Most importantly, investors from industry who are looking to collaborate will now be able to deal with just organisation and one IP process. MI will cover patentable ideas across a broad range of areas, and not just life sciences - the discovery pipeline in physical sciences, information and communication technology, and green technology ('cleantech') will all be funnelled through MI. MI now represents three universities, 10 academic teaching hospitals and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. MaRS Innovation, with support from MaRS and BioDiscovery Toronto, will advance commercialisation through industry partnerships, licensing and company creation.
  • ts chief executive is Dr Rafi Hofstein. Hofstein has been headhunted from Israel where he was chief executive of Hadasit, the technology transfer company of the Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem and chair of the publicly-traded company Hadasit BioHolding. He brings this considerable experience in technology transfer to what he thinks is a groundbreaking enterprise."MaRS Innovation is a unique global initiative, and I must commend the institutional leaders in Toronto for pulling this innovation powerhouse together to strengthen commercialisation output." He adds: "I believe this is going to modernise the whole notion of tech transfer." He says the scale and diversity of MaRS Innovation's remit puts it into a league of its own. Other research clusters elsewhere in the world have attempted similar projects before, but have been thwarted by the difficulty in bringing parties together. MaRS Innovation will also help launch and grow new spin-off companies and incubate them for 2-3 years to ensure a strong commercial footing. Hofstein says MI will also fund proof of concept trials which will persuade major pharma companies to invest in their development.
  • MI has just announced its first two commercialisation deals with academic partners in the city. The first is with the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital to develop stem cell from umbilical cords to treat cardiovascular disease, diabetes and neurological disorders. "With the Toronto area identified as a world-leading cluster in stem cell research, we are extremely excited to have identified this technology as our first commercialisation opportunity," said Dr Hofstein.
  • "Our partnership with MaRS Innovation on developing methods for using stem cells for diseases such as diabetes will allow us to work towards advancing care for these critical conditions."
  • The second collaboration is between MI and The University of Toronto (U of T) and involves a novel sustained release formulation of nitric oxide (NO) for applications in wound healing, including diabetic ulcers. "There are 300 million diabetics worldwide, of which some 15% develop troublesome foot ulcers. This wound healing technology is extremely exciting, making it an early commercialisation opportunity that MaRS Innovation has identified as being a potential win for some 45 million diabetics globally," said Dr Hofstein.
  • "This is one of many new commercialisation ventures that will be initiated by MaRS Innovation, our partner in commercialisation of research with 13 other academic institutions across the Greater Toronto Area," said Paul Young, U of T's vice-president, Research. "We at U of T are delighted that this innovation from Dr Lee will be taken to the marketplace to the benefit of society and the economy of Ontario and Canada." By aggregating the leading edge science of its institutional members and being a one-stop commercialisation centre for industry, entrepreneurs and investors, MI could really help put Toronto and Canada on the map."MaRS Innovation is deeply committed to facilitating strategic research collaborations with industry partners, strengthening the innovation capacity of Canadian industry through adoption of new technologies, and launching a new generation of robust, high-growth Canadian companies that will become global market leaders," added Dr Hofstein. "We look forward to working closely with all of our institutional members and to continue to jointly announce exciting commercial opportunities."
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    Canada has always had to fight hard to attract talent and investment. As stated in Pharmafocus.com, "MaRS Discovery District helps to foster and accelerate the growth of successful Canadian businesses." MaRS Innovation has also been launched to accelerate ideas onto the market.
Assunta Krehl

Social change event aimed at young people - UW Daily Bulletin - 0 views

  • “Social technology: This workshop will focus on emerging online media strategies, products and services in order to advance social purpose work. The use of online media strategies is absolutely critical as we can no longer use old methodologies to look at new ways for solving problems.” Leaders: Joseph Dee and Lisa Torjman of Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District, and Ryerson University sociologist Sam Ladner.
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    Studio Earth will be held in downtown Kitchener and is sponsored by SiG@Waterloo - the university's "Social Innovation Generation" agency. Lisa Torjman and Joseph Dee from MaRS Discovery District along with Sam Ladner from Ryerson will lead the Social Technology workshop.
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    Studio Earth will be held in downtown Kitchener and is sponsored by SiG@Waterloo - the university's "Social Innovation Generation" agency. Lisa Torjman and Joseph Dee from MaRS Discovery District along with Sam Ladner from Ryerson will lead the Social Technology workshop. Jan 9, 2009
Assunta Krehl

Problem-solving surprisingly profitable - The Star - 0 views

  • The agency is now working with Toronto's non-profit innovation centre, MaRS, to develop a marketing plan, which it never had.
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    St. Stephen's House, a downtown social agency is one of Toronto's successful social enterprises. Mention of how St. Stephen's House is working with MaRS in developing a marketing plan. April 15, 2009
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    St. Stephen's House, a downtown social agency is one of Toronto's successful social enterprises. Mention of how St. Stephen's House is working with MaRS in developing a marketing plan.
Tim T

How to Make Wealth - 0 views

  • Remember what a startup is, economically: a way of saying, I want to work faster. Instead of accumulating money slowly by being paid a regular wage for fifty years, I want to get it over with as soon as possible. So governments that forbid you to accumulate wealth are in effect decreeing that you work slowly. They're willing to let you earn $3 million over fifty years, but they're not willing to let you work so hard that you can do it in two. They are like the corporate boss that you can't go to and say, I want to work ten times as hard, so please pay me ten times a much. Except this is not a boss you can escape by starting your own company.
  • What is technology? It's technique. It's the way we all do things. And when you discover a new way to do things, its value is multiplied by all the people who use it. It is the proverbial fishing rod, rather than the fish. That's the difference between a startup and a restaurant or a barber shop. You fry eggs or cut hair one customer at a time. Whereas if you solve a technical problem that a lot of people care about, you help everyone who uses your solution. That's leverage.If you look at history, it seems that most people who got rich by creating wealth did it by developing new technology. You just can't fry eggs or cut hair fast enough. What made the Florentines rich in 1200 was the discovery of new techniques for making the high-tech product of the time, fine woven cloth. What made the Dutch rich in 1600 was the discovery of shipbuilding and navigation techniques that enabled them to dominate the seas of the Far East.
  • What a company does, and has to do if it wants to continue to exist, is earn money. And the way most companies make money is by creating wealth. Companies can be so specialized that this similarity is concealed, but it is not only manufacturing companies that create wealth. A big component of wealth is location. Remember that magic machine that could make you cars and cook you dinner and so on? It would not be so useful if it delivered your dinner to a random location in central Asia. If wealth means what people want, companies that move things also create wealth. Ditto for many other kinds of companies that don't make anything physical. Nearly all companies exist to do something people want.And that's what you do, as well, when you go to work for a company. But here there is another layer that tends to obscure the underlying reality. In a company, the work you do is averaged together with a lot of other people's. You may not even be aware you're doing something people want. Your contribution may be indirect. But the company as a whole must be giving people something they want, or they won't make any money. And if they are paying you x dollars a year, then on average you must be contributing at least x dollars a year worth of work, or the company will be spending more than it makes, and will go out of business.Someone graduating from college thinks, and is told, that he needs to get a job, as if the important thing were becoming a member of an institution. A more direct way to put it would be: you need to start doing something people want. You don't need to join a company to do that. All a company is is a group of people working together to do something people want. It's doing something people want that matters, not joining the group.
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  • When wealth is talked about in this context, it is often described as a pie. "You can't make the pie larger," say politicians. When you're talking about the amount of money in one family's bank account, or the amount available to a government from one year's tax revenue, this is true. If one person gets more, someone else has to get less.I can remember believing, as a child, that if a few rich people had all the money, it left less for everyone else. Many people seem to continue to believe something like this well into adulthood. This fallacy is usually there in the background when you hear someone talking about how x percent of the population have y percent of the wealth. If you plan to start a startup, then whether you realize it or not, you're planning to disprove the Pie Fallacy.What leads people astray here is the abstraction of money. Money is not wealth. It's just something we use to move wealth around. So although there may be, in certain specific moments (like your family, this month) a fixed amount of money available to trade with other people for things you want, there is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world. You can make more wealth. Wealth has been getting created and destroyed (but on balance, created) for all of human history.Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is-- and you specifically are-- one pristine old car the richer. And not just in some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you'll get more for it.In restoring your old car you have made yourself richer. You haven't made anyone else poorer. So there is obviously not a fixed pie. And in fact, when you look at it this way, you wonder why anyone would think there was.
Assunta Krehl

Energy: The Problem to Solve - TVO: The Agenda with Steve Paikin - June 11, 2011 - 0 views

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    Tom Rand, MaRS Senior Advisor, Cleantech and Physical Science along with Barry Brook, Walt Patterson, Zoe Caron and Jatin Nathwani discuss about the alternatives of energy which is paving a path away from our current reliance on oil-based energy.
Cathy Bogaart

Home renovation free ride - Macleans, April 4, 2011 - 1 views

  • On the other hand, some say that we should pursue these subsidies because they are better for the environment and green business than nothing at all. Tom Rand, author of Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit and a lead adviser at MaRS Discovery District, an innovation centre that helps fund clean technology firms, notes that buildings account for 40 per cent of our energy use, and making them more efficient is “low-hanging fruit on the carbon tree.” He also sees the program as an effective economic stimulus for the Canadian market for green business.
  • But Rand agrees with all the people who say the only way to solve the environmental problem is to put a price on carbon. “We’ve been talking about that for 15 years and we’re not going to get it any time soon.”
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    in this Maclean's article on the home renovation tax credits, MaRS cleantech practice lead Tom Rand is quoted as an expert in cleantech and business issues. He says that making buildings more efficient through such government incentives is "low hanging fruit on the carbon tree."
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