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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.

Top 150 blogs for entrepreneurs - Note MaRS made the list!

MaRS Blogs ranked 100 in the Top 150 Blogs for Entrepreneurs. The top 150 blogs contain relevant information for entrepreneurs in general, with a bias for high tech and social entrepreneurship and a special interest on the funding side.

MaRS Blogs ranked 100 in the Top 150 Blogs for Entrepreneurs. The top 150 blogs contain relevant information for entrepreneurs in general, with a bias for high tech and social entrepreneurship and a special interest on the funding side.

Note that the above are all free!

Looking for software appropriate for your non-profit business? Here are 100 - covering ground from project tracking to collaboration to building your website.

Consider the two faces of the global innovation movement. Company A, having grown through acquisition, produces multiple brands for multiple markets and operates a worldwide network of research and product development centers. Each of its R&D sites was initially responsible for its own brands and local market, but with globalization these distinctions have lost their importance. Company B, on the other hand, was built largely through internal growth and has two global brands. It operates one primary R&D center supported by a handful of special-purpose sites around the world. This comparatively sparse network has helped Company B win wide admiration for the efficiency of its engineering. Because expanding the number of nodes in a network exponentially increases its complexity, it is not surprising that Company A's R&D structure is more expensive to operate. Company A has considered closing some sites, but has resisted doing so because it fears losing capabilities and insights, and roiling local markets. Meanwhile, incremental budget cuts have chipped away at engineer and supplier morale. Having built its network to maximize the value associated with market access, it is now forced to manage the network for cost. Most global innovation networks look like Company A's - and suffer the same problems. Company B's R&D structure is clearly more productive, but it is not necessarily ideal either. Its network might be too compact, limiting access to knowledge that could maximize performance. Thus, to identify principles and practices for creating a truly well-designed innovation network, Booz Allen Hamilton and INSEAD, the international business school, surveyed R&D leaders in 186 companies from 17 industry sectors in 19 nations in 2005. The survey results, and our own experience, suggest one central truth: Organizations benefit when they configure their innovation networks for cost and manage them for value.

Advertisers are criticized as people who look for the creative and edgy, not the obvious. They will not be happy.Marketing people are criticized for getting hopelessly entangled in corporate egos and complicated projects. They will not be happy.Research people are criticized for generating more confusion than clarity. They will not be happy. Some big companies are criticized for their ill-fated marketing programs or lack of proper strategy. They will not be happy.Wall Street is criticized for putting too much emphasis on growth that is unnecessary and can be destructive to a brand. They will just ignore this criticism and continue trying to make as much money as they can. But this is a book not written to make people happy but to explain to marketers what their real problem is. Only then will they begin to look for the obvious solutions that will separate their products from their competitors -- in a way that is equally obvious to customers. All this comes with no jargon, no numbers, no complexity, and a great deal of common sense.

Calvin Stiller, chairman of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, won the Canada Gairdner Wightman Award for his work on the use of cyclosporine as a treatment for organ transplant rejection, but also for his role as a scientific entrepreneur, and a rainmaker for major scientific projects. Dr. Calvin Stiller is the Chair of Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Co-Founder and Board Member of MaRS Discovery District and past chair of Genome Canada.

John Evans spearheads the MaRS project which will help to accelerate commercialization for scientific research. The official launch of the MaRS plan will happen on May 12, 2003.

This article talks about how the recession's economic tightening is actually good for social enterprises as it forces the industry to be more innovative in order to survive. The author talks about asking for partnerships that are even more valuable than charitable donations. He also talks about why it's important for all companies to incorporate ethical business practices in order to stay viable in a generation of people who care deeply about where products come from. Times are better than ever for social entrepreneurs.

A look at Canadian immigrants who started a business and are incubating at the MaRS Centre. KCT and Clera, MaRS Tenants tell their stories. Jan/Feb 2009

A look at Canadian immigrants who started a business and are incubating at the MaRS Centre. KCT and Clera, MaRS Tenants tell their stories.

The Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics (SBMT) announced today that the organization will hold its 9th Annual World Congress on Brain, Spinal Cord Mapping, and Image Guided Therapy from June 2-4, 2012 in Toronto, Canada. Parimal Nathwani, Vice President of MaRS Innovation, says"Forums like this represent an excellent opportunity for reviewing technologies and supporting collaboration across different institutions for more effective translation and commercialization opportunity."

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.

Donors are placing nonprofits on the hot seat to measure social performance. Problem is, there is little agreement on what those metrics should be. Professor Alnoor Ebrahim on how nonprofit managers should respond. Key concepts include: * Rather than simply complying with the demands of the most powerful actors, nonprofit leaders need to focus their attention on accountabilities that really matter for achieving their missions. * Measuring results is valuable as a discipline for nonprofit managers, even if they don't find universal metrics for social impact. * We might not see agreement on a common set of metrics in the social sector for a while, but could see a convergence on what constitutes critical reflective learning processes within the organization.

MaRS Innovation and the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital are announce that they have entered into an agreement to collaboratively initiate commercialization of an umbilical cord stem cell technology for potential treatment in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and neurological disorders.

An interesting Toronto-based social-purpose business. PUBLIC is a for-profit, social-purpose business focused exclusively on advancing the public good. We are an innovation company, generating positive social impact through the creation of scalable programs, products and campaigns that: * raise money for charitable purposes * increase civic and community engagement * advance social causes and issues * create new social norms We bring an integrated, impact- driven approach to mobilizing and advancing the public good by aligning brand awareness, policy influence and fundraising. For us, "advancing the public good" is about motivating people (and organizations) to behave in ways that benefit society while recognizing and appealing to their self-interest.

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

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.

"The Centre for Social Innovation is a place-based hub of ideas, people, services and strategies. In partnership with Urbanspace Property Group, they provide 18,000 square feet of shared workspace in downtown Toronto. The Centre for Social Innovation is home to a community of nonprofits, charities, social enterprises, artists, green businesses, and individual innovators. Working together, they lower costs, create synergies, and spark new ideas for advancing their shared interests. The Centre for Social Innovation explores new ideas in collaboration, social entrepreneurship and systems change. These interests guide their work. Their website only offers a subscription to their email newsletter, Social Innovator's Update. Join to receive information on news and events in this space."

The Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics (SBMT) announced today that the organization will hold its 9th Annual World Congress on Brain, Spinal Cord Mapping, and Image Guided Therapy from June 2-4, 2012 in Toronto, Canada. MaRS Innovation is one of the supporters for the conference.

The Ivey Centre for Health Innovation and Leadership was launched in 2009. The goal of this initiative is to bring students together together with experts from the science and business sectors, with the ultimate goal of better identifying and commercializing health technologies.Dr. Kellie Leitch, a Hospital for Sick Children orthopedic surgeon, is the first executive director of the centre, which is based at Western. Sept 10, 2009

As a site of the Kauffman Foundation, this portal provides links to entrepreneurship and technology commercialization publications including 742 journals, 197 books, 70 reports, 73 conferences, and 116 working-papers. All publications are summarized via free access to their abstract, however access to their full-text depends entirely on their publisher/vendor: some are free, some are pay per view, and some require paid subscription. The portal provides direct linking to full-text if available. Since the portal operates on strict headings, it provides excellent access to publications. Since it links to several citation softwares, it is an excellent resource for those looking to compile lists of references. Otherwise, it is an excellent resource for entrepreneurs wanting to keep up with entrepreneurial research and findings, as well as for those wanting to publish entrepreneurial written work. For an example of what can be found on the portal, download the full text version of "The Entrepreneurial Spawing of Scientists and Engineers: Stars, Slugs, and the Small Firm Effect".

From Booklist: Joachimsthaler offers another book that promotes use of reinvented basic marketing principles to assist highly innovative companies. The author describes his DIG model (Demand-First Innovation & Growth), which consists of three interlinked parts: explore the demand for their products and services through an in-depth understanding of how people behave and live their lives and how they consume; apply an innovative routine of structured thinking to identify opportunities that customers cannot articulate; and formulate a strategy for effectively pursuing new opportunities. We learn that although most companies conduct some type of market research, they may fail to look for real opportunities and quantify them or fail to develop viable action plans that lead to results. This model illustrates how to become an unbiased observer of people's consumption and usage behaviors and offers a new approach to identifying and executing a company's growth strategy. Joachimsthaler, a consultant, reports that "successful opportunities for innovation and growth are right here, in front of us, and we often can't see them or don't act on them." Mary Whaley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved