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Cathy Bogaart

Nonclinical IVDs: Growing interest in a growing field - 0 views

  • Manufacturers of human IVD technologies have been contributing their skills and knowledge more and more to the nonclinical and agricultural diagnostic markets.
  • To learn more about why IVD manufacturers are making the switch from human diagnostics and testing to agricultural and other nonclinical diagnostics, IVD Technology editor Richard Park spoke with Rocky Ganske, president and CEO of Axela Inc. (Toronto)
    • Cathy Bogaart
       
      Axela is a MaRS client.
  • Our technology allows us to work directly in a variety of sample types that are difficult for other technologies to detect pathogens in without some additional sample preparation. So that led to people who were doing BSE (mad cow)–type testing asking if we could do tests for protein directly in matrices like milk or brain homogenate, and people asking for testing in plant extracts and things like that because other technologies don’t have that capacity.
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  • Axela sells to the $20-billion life sciences market with its current platform, focusing first on protein-research applications, and enabling and capturing applications for downstream personalized medicine and human diagnostics.
  • Because it’s an attractive market, you see large diagnostic companies like Bayer Animal Health move some of its testing platforms that it would use for diagnostics into animal health testing
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    MaRS Client, Axela, talks about moving from human protein testing into the agricultural markets -- the challenges and the opportunities.
Assunta Krehl

reportonbusiness.com: Failure and risk - 0 views

  • Charles Plant, Managing Director of the Market Readiness Program for entrepreneurs at MaRS
  • Plant says that acceptance of failure is a cultural problem in Canada in that we tend not to reward the people who have failed. "We tend to punish people who fail whereas in Silicon Valley, they tend to reward people who have failed because they've learned lessons and can gain from that failure.
  • "I think you have to quickly acknowledge when something is a failure and have a back up plan of what you're going to do," says Plant. "Don't keep flogging a dead horse."
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  • "To make failure a learning experience, first you have to celebrate it by acknowledging in a very positive way, the person who tried something and failed. You can't hide it under a table," says Plant. "You've got to develop a system that both rewards for the attempt as well as the success. Frequently, we don't do that and that sends a bad message. The act of punishing people makes them want to stop innovating."
  • We also need to build more accountability into failure, according to Plant who says that when failures are detrimental to the economy, we can't pretend that nothing happened. "Right now, some people are being rewarded for absolutely hideous failures, such as in the banking system," says Plant, who is also a Chartered Management Accountant. "Part of the problem is accounting which does a very poor job of measuring risk. Never leave anything up to the accountants!"
  • "You have to allow people to fail in this economy," says Plant. "It's failure that leads to productivity gain and innovation."
  • According to Plant, there's a different risk tolerance in smaller companies versus big ones, although he doesn't see a real difference by industry. Whether a company tolerates or accepts risk depends largely on the nature of the company. "The more established companies probably don't tolerate failure as well so they don't actually incubate a culture of risk," says Plant. "Larger companies do a lot of things to make sure they don't fail. Smaller ones tend to favour risk because it's the only way they can get ahead. And if you're doing things that haven't been done before, then you're going to fail again and again."
  • "You need a culture that allows failure for success because without it, people become anti-failure," says Charles Plant. "Trying different things is the act of innovation. If you fail 14 times, hopefully you're going to succeed on the 15th try. Without failure, we're not going to be driving and growing the economy."
  • Innovation is the result of taking big leaps,
  • Innovation is the result of taking big leaps, but failure is often the downside of taking those leaps.
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    without failure, you can't drive productivity. without failure, there is no innovation. So we need to fail to improve the economy!
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    The Globe and Mail investigates the failure and risks with businesses and innovation with business leaders, Tony Chapman, CEO of Capital C, a Toronto communications and advertising company, Charles Plant, Managing Director of the Market Readiness Program for entrepreneurs at MaRS, and Naeem 'Nick' Noorani, founder and publisher of Canadian Immigrant magazine.
Tim T

Sony's Digital Book Downloads from the Public Library - BusinessWeek - 0 views

  • One of the neat features of the Sony Reader is that you can “borrow” electronic books from participating libraries, including ones in New York, Chicago and my public library in Seattle. So I went to digital media page on its Web site and searched for Eclipse. It turns out that six of the library’s eight copies of the book in Adobe’s eBook format, which works with Sony’s eBook devices, were available to borrow for 21 days. I typed in my library card number and PIN, clicked download, and a few seconds later, the book was on my PC. Then, I connected the Sony Reader via the USB port and the book zipped over to my device.
  • a 7-inch touch-screen version with 3G connectivity, so users can download books without having to plug the device into their PCs.
  • It’s not a closed business model
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  • We want to innovate to get better and better access to content
  • Reader owners can already buy electronic books from 200 bookstores
  • don’t know how important those booksellers will be to the success of the Sony Reader. The Kindle has mindshare as well as market share. But the opportunity to instantly get a book from the library at 8 pm so my 11-year-old could have something to read before bed was pretty nifty. And it didn’t cost me a dime
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    eBook reader
Tim T

Nintendo's Game Designer Unfazed by Profit Drop - BusinessWeek - 0 views

  • Shigeru Miyamoto expresses patience with the recession but wishes rivals would innovate more and copy less
  • smart priority: consumers over investors
  • Nintendo is generally insensitive to investors and sensitive to consumers
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  • What can we do that really nobody else can?
  • It's the query that sparked the DSi's dual/touchscreen action, the Balance Board's super-accurate weight and mass measurements, and the Wii's revolutionary motion-sensing gameplay
  • Nintendo has sold 4.02 million Wiis this year, compared with Micosoft's (MSFT) 2.39 million Xbox 360s and 1.94 million Sony (SNE) PlayStation 3s, according to market trackers NPD Group
  • Miyamoto says their mimicry shows that Nintendo was right to gamble with the Wii. But he worries that a sameness will turn off gamers. "I don't necessarily think all the companies should move in the same direction," he says. "I would like to see each individual company take advantage of its own uniqueness and specialties."
  • For Miyamoto, that means coming up with a sequel to the Wii. Or does it? Updates such as the Wii MotionPlus accessory and Wii Fit Plus are proof that "there are still a lot of different opportunities and possibilities that haven't been exhausted yet on that console," he says. And it's clear he works by his own schedule. Miyamoto is notorious for scrapping or rebooting projects he thinks aren't up to snuff. Even the new Mario Bros. game ran late, nearly missing the upcoming holiday season because, as Miyamoto admits, "I got deeply involved rearranging elements and polishing it." Although Nintendo investors may want a blockbuster, you can bet the company won't be introducing any new products until Miyamoto says so.
Tim T

Japan's two lost decades: An end to the Japanese lesson | The Economist - 0 views

  • It does, however, still leave a general lesson common to all economic disasters: don’t be suckered by false signs of economic recovery. In Japan’s case, such hopes have led it repeatedly to tighten fiscal policy before private demand was strong enough to sustain a recovery. That entrenched deflation. Japan also left its banks too short of capital to cope with subsequent shocks.
Cathy Bogaart

The Little Nano that Could - 0 views

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    Vive Nano receives accolades for its clean tech approach. Its appeal is in its business model: to develop new processes and company-specific nanoparticles, then lease out their know-how to established companies who have both their own distribution networks and capability to deal with the various national regulatory hurdles that a small firm could never hope to manage.
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    MaRS client and Toronto nanotechnology upstart Vive Nano is featured in Yonge Street magazine as a good news story for innovative business in TO.
Tim T

Apple Inside: the Significance of the IPad's A4 Chip - PCWorld Business Center - 0 views

  • three year old startup called PA Semiconductor
  • Apple's A4, a system-on-a-chip (SoC) that reportedly combines a low-power CPU, a graphics processing unit (GPU)
  • Apple A4, a brand new design for a SoC produced and owned by Apple, using the same ARM architecture that powers the iPhone. The A4 runs at 1GHz and supposedly helps the iPad achieve a maximum battery life of 10 hours, thanks to its tight placement of circuitry and small form factor. In integrating a CPU with a GPU, it follows in the footsteps of other energy-efficient SoC processors, like Nvidia's Tegra
George Botos

Lux Research: Strategic advice for emerging technologies in nanotech, nanomaterials, so... - 0 views

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    Echologics, a MaRS client in the Water IT space is included in the Lux Innovation Grid
Melissa Hughes

6 startups launch as part of JOLT Demo Fest - IT Business - June 4, 2013 - 0 views

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    From wearable technology products to reimagining advertising flyers, tech-driven entrepreneurs gave their best pitch last night  at the Jolt Demo Fest in Toronto as the accelerator showcased its most recent cohort of early stage startups.
Melissa Hughes

MaRS to unveil report on Canadian accelerators - IT Business - June 10, 2013 - 0 views

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    On June 6, MaRs Data Catalyst announced it would be releasing a report on June 20, featuring information gleaned from the data of 34 different accelerators and interviews with 11 accelerator managers.
Melissa Hughes

Local education startup Crowdmark aims to change how teachers grade - YongeStreet - Jun... - 0 views

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    It is the bane of every teacher's existence: grading. Though essential, it's also repetitive and time-consuming. It is also increasingly prone to concerns about inequity: from grade inflation to inconsistent standards across different classrooms, sometimes parents, students, and even teachers themselves have a hard time deciding just what the grades they have assigned actually mean.
Melissa Hughes

Ontario startups receive $5.4 million from Investment Accelerator Fund - Yahoo! Finance... - 0 views

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    Twelve Ontario companies have received funding from MaRS' Investment Accelerator Fund (IAF), bringing the program's total investment in Ontario's emerging enterprises to $26.6 million in 57 companies since its inception.
Assunta Krehl

The Next Frontier in Mental Health: Moving Science to Patients - The Wall Street Journa... - 0 views

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    "The Graham Boeckh Foundation will be hosting its' first symposium, The Next Frontier in Mental Health: From Research to Patients, to discuss and provide insights on the translation of research into improved patient care and how we can move forward towards greatly improving community mental health practice in this country." The event will be held at the MaRS Centre on April 24, 2012.
Assunta Krehl

Jolt accelerator startups to get $30K in initial funding - IT Business.ca - April 30, 2012 - 0 views

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    JOLT was created by MaRS and is a new technology accelerator dedicated to building high-growth web and mobile companies that promise to transform the way consumers and enterprises connect, work and play. Applications for the JOLT program are being accepted until May 30. JOLT also announced that the program has joined the U.S.-based Global Accelerator Network, a group of accelerators from around the world which was founded in 2010.
Assunta Krehl

Addictive Mobility Set to Participate at Dx3 Canada - Marketwire - January 24, 2012 - 0 views

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    Addictive Mobility showcased its AMO adSocial technology in exhibits hosted by MaRS Discovery District from Jan 25-26th, 2012
Karen Schulman Dupuis

InGamer Secures Investment and Scores Rick Wolf as EVP - MarketWatch - 0 views

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    InGamer Fantasy Inc., an innovator in real-time second screen gaming for sports publishers, announced that it has secured investment from a group of strategic investors. The funding round will be used to enhance InGamer's product offering and expand sales & distribution in preparation for their US launch in September, 2012.
Assunta Krehl

Hovione Announces the Appointment of Colin Minchom, PhD, MRPharmS as Vice President - P... - 0 views

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    Hovione announced the appointment of Dr. Colin Minchom as Vice President of its Particle Design Business Unit. Dr. Colin Minchom was a MaRS Discovery District Advisor.
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