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Speaking to a full house at Toronto's MaRS Centre on July 9, 2009, Tom Rand explains why he has decided to focus on buildings in his approach to climate change. “Buildings are responsible in our large urban centres for between a half and three quarters of our carbon emissions. That’s a huge part of our footprint,” he says. “In terms of climate change, buildings are the lowest hanging fruit, as far as I can tell.”

Tom Rand’s talk Green or Green Wash? Lessons from Building North America’s Greenest Hotel in Toronto

According to Tom Rand, if you’re not talking low carbon, you’re greenwashing.

Tom Rand believes any building can and should achieve in the immediate future using sustainable technologies that already exist.  Moreover, he claims to have found a magic bullet, alleging that these carbon cuts can be made without spending a dime.

and has come a long way since then, transforming the Planet Traveler hostel into a kind of cleantech gallery. Utilizing solar-voltaic and solar-thermal heating, geo-exchange, 100% LED lighting, and a wastewater heat re-capturing unit called the Powerpipe, it boasts a rich collection of renewables. It also seeks to educate. The geo-exchanger and Powerpipe are featured behind a glass wall in the basement, and the rooftop mezzanine bar offers a full view of the solar panels in the foreground of Toronto’s skyline.

Rand had to look to an adjacent alley to bury the pipe.

Rand, a carbon tax, widespread education campaigns, and third party support for green infrastructure via green bonds or a geo-utility are sure-fire ways “to build a cleantech economy in Canada without spending a dime.”

If any country wants to participate in the next economic revolution they had better start dealing with clean-tech and they had better start dealing with it quickly.”

New graduates are known as ‘Generation Yers’. Born between 1979 and 1998, they want to be successful business people, but they also want to do good with their skills. They want luxurious products, but won’t buy from unethical companies. For businesses to recruit and retain the best, they have to offer more than the corporate package. Community engagement is fast becoming a key competitive differentiator between professional services firms. In a recent survey of UK graduates by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 70% said that they will actively seek out employers whose corporate responsibility behaviour reflects their own. An Aspen Institute study shows business school students citing ‘business's responsibility to society’ as a top concern when choosing a job.

social entrepreneurship will be rattled by this economic situation, but we will make changes to our approach where necessary and come out stronger and more central to both business and community.

A key strategic focus of the SickKids Research Institute is the commercialization of research findings-translating discoveries into new technologies and treatments to improve the understanding and treatment of diseases that affect children.

"An environment like the Discovery District allows research institutes and the University of Toronto and its affiliated hospitals to work together to promote research and its application," she explains.

One of the unique aspects of Toronto is its open, collaborative environment. Individual institutes are not fighting each other for funding resources. This collaborative nature is what people comment on when they come here." A Toronto location provides other advantages too, she says. "There is a strong university and college environment, which provides a great pool from which to draw talent. There is strong support from all three levels of government. And there is strong philanthropic support, which is important." Dr. Rossant says working for the Hospital for Sick Children has been very gratifying.

Dr. Rossant is also looking forward to the opening of the new research and education building going up in the Discovery District. "The Research Institute currently has 2,000 people spread across the Discovery District and the new building will bring us all together and allow us to interact in new ways."

W. Geoffrey Beattie – Deputy Chairman & President, Woodbridge Company Limited, Thomson Reuters Corporation, Toronto Christopher C. Capelli – Vice President, Technology Based Ventures, Office of Technology Commercialization, University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX Ron Close – Information technology entrepreneur, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, MaRS, and Executive Entrepreneur-in-Residence, The Richard Ivey School of Business, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON Nicholas Darby – Formerly Director of Physical Sciences, Corporate Venture Capital, Dow Chemical Company, President, Darby & Associates Consulting LLC, Midland, MI  Mary Jo Haddad – President & CEO, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto Jacqueline H.R. Le Saux – Former General Counsel, North America and Corporate Secretary, Patheon, Inc., Toronto David A. Leslie - Chair, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, and Former Chairman & CEO, Ernst & Young, Toronto Michael H. May – President & CEO, Rimon Therapeutics, Toronto Chandra J. Panchal – Founder, President & CEO, Axcelon Biopolymers Corp., Dollard-des-Ormeaux, QC Ilse Treurnicht – CEO, MaRS Discovery District, Toronto Donald A. Wright – President & CEO, The Winnington Capital Group Inc., Toronto

MaRS Innovation serves as a business accelerator platform with a single point of entry for industry partners and investors.  It will increase the scale, scope and viability of IP offerings, and the quantity and quality of deal flow from partner institutions.  MaRS Innovation will also facilitate strategic research collaborations with industry partners, strengthen the innovation capacity of Canadian industry through adoption of new technologies from its member institutions, and launch a new generation of robust, high-growth Canadian companies that will become global market leaders.   The quality of the combined discovery pipeline will catalyze and attract sources of risk capital for translational research, market validation, company formation and growth.  “MaRS Innovation represents a unique and timely platform to contribute in a meaningful way to Canada’s knowledge economy, leveraging Toronto’s remarkable research excellence.  The vision and serious commitment of its members to work together to transform our commercialization results, and the support of the Federal Government, made this possible.  The announcement of this outstanding group of leaders to the Board of Directors for MaRS Innovation is an exciting step forward,” said Ilse Treurnicht, MaRS CEO and interim Managing Director of MaRS Innovation.

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.

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.

With support from the Mississauga Technology Business Accelerator (MTBA) he started his business, which grew to occupy some state-of-the-art labs at MaRS and is about to take the next step forward by moving its business outside of the protecting and nurturing environment of MaRS. This is the entire purpose of MaRS, which says on its website (www.marsdd.com), "We measure our success through the companies that emerge after receiving help from MaRS." "The resources, the facilities, the training and everything else that MaRS is bringing to the table - we're able to capitalize on that and get off on a very solid footing," says Kamal. Inside the Incubato

Whether you're looking for work - or you want to start your own business, MaRS is one of the best places to start your search.

Everybody you talk to in the elevator, the hall, the cafeteria - they are all in the science field - so you can network with one another," says Ratheesh. "MaRS does not just provide research space, they are bringing business people, people with money." These are the connections that can turn your idea into a profit-making business that employs many people. This is exactly what MaRS is all about. As they say on their website, "MaRS connects the communities of science, business and capital and fosters collaboration among them." MaRS advisors are able to connect entrepreneurs with private funding opportunities as well as free educational programming and hands-on advisory services. Corporate sponsor CIBC funds an entrepreneurship lecture series, for example. Ratheesh adds, "Patent people are here as well, so if you have patentable technology, you can talk to them." Once you start your business, MaRS offers many supports. "When we had the lab space we had the chemical hood that had to be set up so MaRS came and provided people to set up our hood," explains Ratheesh. "They help us dispose of chemical waste, provide water service, fridge and freezer service - so these are all important. "For smaller companies that have problem buying fridges and freezers, they can use common equipment." MaRS facilities also include lecture theatres, meeting rooms and an auditorium. Growing Cultures Bacteria and tissue cultures aren't the only cultures that thrive in the MaRS environment. It's also a great place for newcomers from every culture to

Clera, one of many emerging companies housed in the MaRS incubator.

He says, "MaRS is a one-stop shop for job and information seekers. Here we have many companies - so quite a few job opportunities

purpose of feeding India’s rural poor. He invested $1m—and many years of his life—in breeding a superchicken

invented a “lapdesk” that sits on the child’s lap and provides a stable surface. The desks are covered in advertisements, so Mr Immelman is able to hand them out free,

In the long run, however, the best thing that entrepreneurs can do for the poor may be simply to see them as workers and customers.