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The Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC) is pleased to announce today's appointment of Gordon M. Nixon, president and chief executive officer of RBC, as Chair, and Zabeen Hirji, chief human resources officer of RBC, as Co-Chair of TRIEC.

As top executives at one of the largest financial institutions in North America, Gord Nixon and Zabeen Hirji are key ambassadors to articulate how Canadian companies can benefit from the international experience and networks, language skills and cultural knowledge that skilled immigrants bring with them to Canada."

Nixon has for years been a champion for promoting diversity in Canadian communities and of leveraging skilled immigrant talent as a driver of Canadian innovation and prosperity. Nixon is chairman of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and chairman of MaRS Discovery District. In 2007, Nixon was invested into the Order of Ontario and was named Canada's Outstanding CEO of the Year.

Net Change Week: June 8 -12th, 2009 Net Change is a week-long event designed to explore how social technology can bolster social change. Presented by the Social Innovation Generation team at MaRS (SiG@MaRS), Net Change Week will tap into the potential that exists when new methods of communicating, organizing and mobilizing are brought to bear on chronic social issues.

Netchange Week taking place at the innovation hub of Toronto – the MaRS Discovery District.

Net Change is Canada’s first week long, city wide event designed to dissolve the divide between digital professionals and social change-makers. With a full five day schedule of sessions helping learn more about leveraging technology to aid awareness of their causes and as a catalyst for social change.

ssues faced by the charity we noticed they shared similar problems that many for-profits and small businesses faced. They had limited marketing resources, need to reach out the people that need their services and increase awareness of the good work they were doing.

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.

MaRS aggregates the discovery pipelines of its member institutions, which include three universities, 10 academic teaching hospitals, and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.

MaRS is another good example. Located in the heart of downtown Toronto, the MaRS facility is less than a mile from five major teaching hospitals, the Ontario legislature, and the University of Toronto. More than two dozen research institutes and Toronto’s financial district are also nearby.

Consequently, MaRS is a vertical incubator, with a wide variety of companies and stages of development. That mix helps companies better understand the conditions that foster growth. MaRS is home to more than 65 organizations, including The Hospital for Sick Children, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Merck Frosst Canada, the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, Celtic House Venture Partners, AIM Therapeutics, and AstraZeneca Canada.

Market research leader IDC Canada has featured MaRS client Mensante as one of its "Ten Canadian Health Companies to Watch" in 2009.

Leading international psychiatrists, family physicians, psychologists, work place mental health experts and mental health economists developed an innovative web-based mental healthcare system called FeelingBetterNow(R).

Dr. Ozersky, Mensante's CEO, was selected by the Canadian Association of Health Informatics as recipient of the 2008 Community Physician Leader and Innovator of the Year Award.

Between June 8-12, 2009, MaRS held our first ever Net Change, a week dedicated to exploring this intersection between social technology and social change.

Fourteen different Net Change events, including an art show, experimented with ways of creating and sharing information and knowledge on this question. Bridging the “digital divide” between web professionals and people creating social change, participants were from all different sectors and leadership levels. T

Net Change also addressed critical concepts such as how to measure the impact of social technology, and what we really mean by social change, while including storytelling to hit theoretical concepts home.

MaRS Innovation appoints president and CEO

A research commercialization leader from Israel, Dr. Raphael Hofstein, has been named president and CEO of the new MaRS Innovation initiative.

MI was created as a single, market-facing commercialization storefront for Toronto's university and health research institutions. Located in the MaRS Discovery District complex, with business development and administrative support from MaRS, MI will advance commercialization through industry partnerships, licensing and company creation. MaRS Innovation (MI) was founded in 2008 with $14.95 million in funding from the Government of Canada's Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) Programme, matched by $10 million from the research partners. The MI partnership includes U of T, the 10 partner hospitals and health research institutes affiliated with the university, Ryerson University, the Ontario College of Art & Design, BioDisocovery Toronto, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and MaRS. Hofstein joins MaRS Innovation from his previous position as president and CEO of Hadasit Ltd., the technology transfer company of the Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem.

Minister of Research and Innovation John Wilkinson is guest of honour as Ontario's research and education advanced technology community gathers to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the world-leading Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION)

MaRS Collaboration Centre - Auditorium 101 College Street, Toronto

Toronto, where a small firm is using 21st-century software to create maps with similar goals - the containment of disease - by showing infection patterns that can be understood at a glance.

Toronto, where a small firm is using 21st-century software to create maps with similar goals - the containment of disease - by showing infection patterns that can be understood at a glance.

There's nothing wrong with Infonaut using the H1N1 flu outbreak to gain exposure, as long as the company is careful in the tone it takes, said John Lute, president of Toronto communications firm Lute and Co.

the Chief of Research at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, collaboration is the key to the future.

That's why Dr. Janet Rossant is so enthusiastic about the work being done in the MaRS Discovery District - a unique zone in the city where innovations in science and technology are commercialized through partnerships between researchers and private enterprise.

"The MaRS Centre and biomedical community have seen tremendous growth over the past few years," says Dr. Janet Rossant. "And it continues to grow." "This growth is attracting the world's best scientists to come work here, which is very exciting."

Charles Plant of MaRS Discovery District, the innovation hub in Toronto. Charles communicates a rather negative view of venture capital, but it has the merit of presenting some of the important things to consider before seeking VC money.

I especially like the call to focus on customers first. This is not always possible, but designing for a defined market certainly is, and anyone involved with tech commercialization will tell you it’s often the exception rather than the rule.

The event will mark the official opening of the new WORLDiscoveries office at MaRS.   WORLDiscoveries is a joint business development consortium formed between Western, Robarts and Lawson Health Research Institute to bridge local inventions and global industry.  

The MaRS Discovery District is a non-profit innovation centre that connects science, technology and entrepreneurs with business skills, networks and capital to stimulate innovation and accelerate the growth of successful Canadian enterprise

Skymeter Corporation – a high-tech upstart that has perfected "financial-grade" GPS telematics – is being hailed as an innovator that has captured the attention of global giants such as IBM, Cisco and Siemens.

Hassan admits while North America may not be ready for road and congestion tolls, governments elsewhere are beating a path to his modest office at the MaRS business incubator at College St and University Ave.

While Skymeter is a relative flyweight (the company is estimated to be worth $10 million), it hopes to be the technology provider to large multinationals such as IBM and Siemens in the project tenders.

A Toronto-based startup, called Skymeter, is developing this technology using what it calls 'financial-grade GPS' data.

Skymeter recently received a $500,000 loan from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation and is a tenant in Toronto's MaRS Centre. In 2007, at the Canadian Venture Forum held in Toronto, Skymeter was selected as "the best angel company" and attracted investment interest from a group of US-based investors in the transportation field. According to the company's website, they are currently seeking funding from professional/strategic investors in the >$5million range.

MARS DISOVERY DISTRICT has appointed businessman and philanthropist Richard Ivey to its board of directors.

"Richard Ivey has a strong track record of community involvement and commitment to research and innovation, most recently through his continuing role as chair of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research," said John Evans, founding chair of the board at MaRS. "His integrity and dedication to building a strong foundation for Canada's innovation economy will be of tremendous benefit to MaRS"

MaRS is a Toronto non-profit centre linking science, technology and social entrepreneurs with business skills and capital to stimulate innovation and the creation of successful Canadian companies.

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.

"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.