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On September 8th, MobileMonday Toronto, Toronto's premier networking event for mobile industry professionals, will be hosting its first annual MobileMonday Toronto Marketing Awards. This event was set up to recognize Toronto area marketing professionals for their effort in helping grow the use of mobile as a marketing channel.

Since announcing the partnership with MaRS in February 2009, MobileMonday Toronto has experienced explosive growth with monthly attendance exceeding 250+ attendees and has received general appreciation for the chapter's approach to support all stakeholders within the mobile industry which includes telecom providers, device manufacturers, startups, venture capital and developers in addition to many industry verticals such as search, m-commerce, advertising, and media.

The first annual MobileMonday Toronto Marketing Awards will be held on Tuesday September 8th (due to Labour Day holiday) at MaRS Discovery District, located at 101 College Street (south east corner of College and University). The event starts at 6:30pm. To RSVP for this event, please visit www.mobilemondaytoronto.com.

MobileMonday Toronto, Toronto's premier networking event for mobile industry professionals, will be hosting its first annual MobileMonday Toronto Marketing Awards on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009The event recognizes Toronto area marketing professionals for their effort in helping grow the use of mobile as a marketing channel.

Since announcing the partnership with MaRS in February 2009, MobileMonday Toronto has experienced explosive growth with monthly attendance exceeding 250+ attendees and has received general appreciation for the chapter's approach to support all stakeholders within the mobile industry which includes telecom providers, device manufacturers, startups, venture capital and developers in addition to many industry verticals such as search, m-commerce, advertising, and media.

The first annual MobileMonday Toronto Marketing Awards will be held on Tuesday September 8th (due to Labour Day holiday) at MaRS Discovery District, located at 101 College Street (south east corner of College and University). The event starts at 6:30pm.

MaRS Innovation is honoured to announce its permanent Board of Directors, who brings together a remarkable and broad set of experiences and networks to support the development of this dynamic partnership of Toronto research institutions.  Designed to enhance the commercial output of Toronto’s world-leading research cluster, MaRS Innovation is positioned to make a significant contribution to Canada’s innovation economy and the quality of life for Canadians and others around the world.

upported by the Government of Canada through the Centres of Excellence in Research and Commercialization (CECR) program, and its member institutions, MaRS Innovation is focused on converting important discoveries into a new generation of products, services and high value jobs. The newly appointed Board of Directors, which includes academic and business leaders from across Canada and the United States, has the targeted expertise to guide MaRS Innovation to deliver on this critical mission.   MaRS Innovation represents a unique collaborative model, which aggregates the exceptional discovery pipeline of 14 leading Toronto academic institutions to build a diversified portfolio of assets, and harness the economic and job creation potential of the best opportunities for Toronto, Ontario and Canada.

“MaRS Innovation is privileged to announce a Board of Directors of this caliber and breadth of skill,” said Mary Jo Haddad, Chair of the MaRS Innovation Board and President and CEO of The Hospital for Sick Children. “The collective experience and guidance of these individuals will be critical to developing a collaborative, integrated and agile approach to this transformational organization that will move Canada into its next phase of economic development.”

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.

Addictive Mobility and its Brisk iPhone campaign as the winner of the 2009 MobileMonday Toronto Marketing Award.

Mobile Media World 09 is one of the key anchor events of MOBILEINNOVATIONWEEK in Toronto September 12-16, 2009.

The September 8th award event was held at the MaRS Discovery District in downtown Toronto. Since announcing the partnership with MaRS in February 2009, MobileMonday Toronto has experienced explosive growth with monthly attendance exceeding 250+ attendees and has received general appreciation for the chapter's approach in supporting all stakeholders within the mobile industry which includes telecom providers, agencies, advertisers, device manufacturers, startups, venture capital and developers in addition to many industry verticals such as search, m-commerce, advertising, and media.

2009 Cleantech Issue

exclusive look at the continent’s greenest hotel: The Planet Traveler Hotel in Kensignton Market, Toronto.

The big talk by the cleantech lead at the MaRS Discovery District, and the man behind VCi Greenfunds and Green Bonds, is backed by bigger action. Rand’s latest project is what he claims to be “the continent’s greenest hotel”, which Corporate Knights first told you about in October 2008.

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.

MaRS Innovation and The University of Toronto (U of T) are pleased to announce that they have entered into an agreement to collaboratively commercialize a novel sustained release formulation of nitric oxide (NO) for applications in wound healing, including diabetic ulcers. 

This wound healing technology is extremely exciting, making it an early commercialization opportunity that MaRS Innovation has identified as being a potential win for some 45 million diabetics globally,” said Dr. Rafi Hofstein, President and CEO of MaRS Innovation. 

disruptive technology that facilitates continued therapeutic release of NO over a two week period has been developed by Dr. Ping Lee, Professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and GlaxoSmithKline Chair in Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery at U of T.

Other successes of the past year include the creation of the MaRS Discovery District, a new centre on University Ave. that focuses on commercializing biomedical research, and the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp., he said

For Dr. John Evans, growing a strong biotechnology industry is much the same: cities must provide a nurturing environment where science and business can thrive together.

That's why Evans, former president of the University of Toronto and current chairman of Torstar Corp., is spearheading the $345-million Medical and Related Science initiative, or MaRS--a petri dish of sorts for commercializing science research. "A lot of intellectual property is being commercialized outside Canada," says Evans. "I think we've been slow in realizing just how important technology developments are to the economic future of the country. MaRS is an attempt to give this a kick into a higher gear." The centrepiece of the MaRS plan, which will officially launch May 12, is a 1.3-million-square-foot, five-building complex in downtown Toronto that will provide office and lab space for small and medium-size companies and incubators, including the not-for-profit Toronto Biotechnology Commercialization Centre. While Evans is reluctant to limit its scope, MaRS will generally focus on health-related technologies, from new drugs and genetic treatments to medical devices and imaging software. Branded a "convergence centre," it will also house a careful mix of support services: intellectual property lawyers, accountants, marketing experts, government funding organizations and venture capital financiers. Plus, start-ups will have access to all the latest equipment on site. For instance, MaRS is in talks with MDS Sciex to supply mass spectrometers, used in proteomics research.

But MaRS will be more than just a New Economy real estate development. Evans's intention is to funnel tenants' rent money into services--such as entrepreneurship seminars and angel-matching programs--that MaRS will offer to the broader biotech community. That's why MaRS's location is key: the centre will be built in the heart of what Toronto has dubbed the "Discovery District," a two-square-kilometre chunk of the downtown core, encompassing U of T and four major hospitals. From there, MaRS hopes to act as a network hub across Ontario, with links to research-intensive universities. "None of them," says Evans, "have the critical mass to put it all together on their own."

From Venice to MaRs party in celebration of Italian filmmakers (guests include Tilda Swinton), MaRs Discovery District, 8:30 p.m.

Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District has combined the creative genius of science and technology with the drive of entrepreneurs and capital to create a marriage that will see more Canadian ideas commercialized in this country and for those efforts it has won the Canadian Urban Institute’s 2009 Creative City Award to be granted to MaRS on June 5 at the Urban Leadership Awards in Toronto.

“MaRS has found a creative way for science and business to collaborate rather than compete and to help Canada become a knowledge-based economy. This award recognizes them as a leader in stimulating the creative capacity of the city and advancing entrepreneurship, not only in science and technology but also in social ventures. 

Located in the Discovery District of Toronto, where billions of dollars of creative capital are created every year, the MaRS Centre first opened in 2005 in two new towers that bookend a heritage building that once housed the Toronto General Hospital. The three buildings, that total 700,000 sq. ft, house labs, companies of all sizes, business advisors and investors. Its professional services include hands-on advisory services, entrepreneurial programming and both structured and electronic networking. A second building phase of the MaRS Centre will add 750,000 sq ft and is planned to open in the next few years. “The underlining reason for creating MaRS is to capture the value of Canadian discoveries and to better commercialize these innovations at home in Canada,” said MaRS CEO Ilse Treurnicht. “Hub cities like Toronto are key drivers in shaping Canada’s innovation economy. MaRS works to strengthen the pull of that hub, acting as an accelerator and building the best ideas into companies that can compete on the world stage but are anchored here,” said Treurnicht.