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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.

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."

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.

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.

MobileBiz BootCamp (http://mobilebiz.ca) September 16, 2009 From garage start-up to corporate start-up, at the MobileBiz BootCamp you will earn your stripes by learning from the best in the business. An intensive full day of key insights and fast-track tips delivered by experienced mobile industry leaders, vendors and supporting organizations focused on creating exponential value for all delegates to accelerate profitable growth in their mobile business. Featured speakers from Wind Mobile, Summerhill Capital, Polar Mobile, MaRS, Ontario Centres of Excellence and more. Additional MOBILEINNOVATIONWEEK activities are the ilovemobileweb party - the ultimate mobile industry networking event of the year - and the Mobile ThinkTank where industry experts come together to envision the future of mobile in the global economy. Evening receptions are sponsored by the CWTA, the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre (MEIC) and the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF).

MOBILEINNOVATIONWEEK from September 12-16, 2009 in Toronto.

Five cleantech companies receive support at the Cleantech Forum in Boston from Canadian incubation and innovation center MaRS.

Alternative Fuels was just one of a lineup of early-stage startups being supported by MaRS, a nonprofit innovation center in Toronto’s downtown Discovery District that connects entrepreneurs with business skills, networks and capital to stimulate innovation and grow Canadian companies.

This week’s forum marked the organization’s first foray into the cleantech sector, said MaRS Venture Group Associate Kevin Downing. Downing said he wanted to connect cleantech-related companies in the MaRS portfolio that were “investment ready” with the forum’s audience. “I don’t have a motive to push any one client over any other because they’re not paying me,” Downing said. Of the 1,300 MaRS portfolio companies, he said the cleantech sector has been its fastest growing segment and an expanding sector in country as well (see Canadian cleantech looks to the future and IPO drought? Cleantech companies flood Canadian markets). Since 2006, cleantech and environmental technology companies have made up 9 percent of MaRS' portfolio. MaRS currently has 350 active clients. The center isn’t government funded, but does receive some government support, he said. It has been funded through donations from the public and private sector. MaRS has the ability to provide some funding, around $40,000, to startups on a competitive basis. Other companies showcased at the forum through MaRS included NIMtech, Real Tech, Vicicog and Skymeter.

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.

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.

100 different applications to help you out with a variety of tasks from project tracking and collaboration to donor and membership management, and from building your non-profit website to tracking its effectiveness.

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.

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.

Social change and Internet ideals have gotten hitched, and the results are going to change the way Torontonians live.

That prevalence of social networks is starting to have unexpected real-world results.

ools like Twitter, which encourage people to exchange small thoughts with each other in public, have helped knock Toronto's open-culture scene into high gear.

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

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.”

MobileMonday Toronto and MaRS are delighted to announce a partnership to develop and host a range of dynamic events for the city’s mobile industry professionals. MobileMonday at MaRS will offer thought leadership and critical industry perspectives – most recently from a senior manager at Research in Motion – while connecting top-tier professionals and boosting the profile of one of the fastest-growing sectors of communications technology.

“MaRS is a fantastic environment for sharing ideas and industry knowledge, two key building blocks of the MobileMonday community,” said Jim Brown and Alexander S. Bosika, co-founders of the MobileMonday Toronto chapter. “MaRS and its network of business advisors and capital providers are also of great benefit to many of our members who are developing business plans and seeking capital.”

For MaRS, the partnership is a natural fit with great potential to benefit the hundreds of start-up clients from across Ontario who are working hard to turn their innovative concepts into viable, thriving businesses, and come to MaRS for advice and connections to potential customers and investors. 

nd development of new ideas. It provides not only office and lab space but also free mentoring assistance to new businesses in science, technology and social innovation. While there are probably no chickens hatching at MaRS, it wouldn't be at all surprising to find a company working on, say, a vaccine for bird flu. Approximately 20 incubator companies are currently housed at MaRS, including Clera Inc. - which is developing treatments for schizophrenia and depression; AXS Biomedical Animations Studio - a company that creates 3D medical animation for biomedical research and other applications; and Kanata Chemical Technologies (KCT), which has had great success developing catalysts for the chemical industry (catalysts speed up chemical reactions without being changed or consumed in those reactions

All of the above definitions could apply to the wider innovation community connected with the MaRS Centre. Located in the heart of Toronto's Discovery District - a 2.5 sq. kilometre downtown research district, MaRS is a non-profit environment for the birt

KCT founder and president Kamal Abdur-Rashid came to Canada in 1997 with a degree from the University of the West Indies