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Martin has transformed the Rotman School from a mediocre Canadian business school to a world-class institution. It’s one of the few business schools around with an innovative curriculum built around the fundamentals of design thinking. Martin believes designers approaches to thinking and problem-solving can and should be applied to all components of business (He calls it integrative thinking and business design.) Most of our own processes here at the Business Innovation Factory are firmly rooted in design thinking principles.

Martin also managed to lure Richard Florida to Toronto in 2007 to direct the Rotman School's new $120-million Martin Prosperity Institute. Spinning off from much of Florida's research, the institute's goal is to build a leading think-tank on the role of sub-national factors – location, place and city-regions – in global economic prosperity. By taking an integrated view of prosperity, the institute will look beyond economic measures to include the importance of quality of place and the development of people’s creative potential. I'm looking forward to ongoing conversations with our new friends at the Rotman school. I suspect there might even be a collaboration or two about to happen as well. Bottom line: if you want to learn about innovation, Toronto is the place to be.

the country's most significant collection of scientific and medical researchers.

This week, a program called MaRS Innovation announced the appointment of its first full-time president, Raphael (Rafi) Hofstein, a Harvard-trained, Israeli biomedical wizard who wants to bring together companies, scientists and funding under one roof to create a special alchemy of science and shekels.

Since its inception, MaRS has focused on turning big ideas into commercial projects. The difference between the two entities is that pretty much anyone with an idea or discovery could come to MaRS for support, regardless of whether they had their “eureka” moment in a state-of-the-art research lab or in their garage. MaRS Innovation, a separate endeavour with its own board of directors, only works with researchers from its 14 partner institutions, which include some of the most prestigious universities and hospitals in Canada. The goal of that project is to do the kind of work those institutions would normally try to do in-house, but on a bigger scale and, the project's backers hope, with better results.

MaRS Innovation is very much in its infancy. Officially launched last June, the project is barely a year old, and the board of directors was only announced this February. It has secured about $25-million in funding over five years to be used for commercialization of projects.

Dr. Hofstein is giving himself two to three years to roll out a success story – be it the creation of a new small company founded on the back of a researcher's drug discovery and funded by a big pharmaceutical firm, or a new discovery that, packaged properly, attracts serious venture-capital money.

The federal government has also taken notice, naming MaRS Innovation as one of 11 new “Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research,” a designation that came with almost $15-million in funding.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks at MaRs with Premier Dalton McGuinty after a tour of the building in 2007.

Indeed, the MaRS Innovation model of pushing for commercial applications of research seems to be directly in line with the philosophy of the Conservative government, which clearly favours practical results when it comes to funding for scientific research.

But those tasks involve two separate skill sets, Mr. Tabrizi suggests, and may be much better suited to a place such as MaRS, where academic and industry heavyweights converge.

Many of MaRS's biggest partners are in health care, and Dr. Hofstein is jumping in with a list of priorities that includes focusing on stem-cell research and oncology.

MaRS itself has always been good at bringing people from various sectors together, but there's no guarantee that Dr. Hofstein's plan will work, especially in the two-to-three-year timeline he mentions when talking about a rollout date for the first MaRS Innovation projects.

Indeed, Mr. Tabrizi says some Silicon Valley insiders marvel at what MaRS Innovation is trying to do. “I think there's something innovative there,” he says. “Something different is being done.”

But here is the good news. Myers also cited a whole listfull of business opportunities created by the current downturn. Not every company is in a position to seize these opportunities, but those who can should definitely be looking at this list as a recipe for action.Opportunities in the Current Recession:· For companies with cash and investment strength· Replace competitors (who falter or struggle in this economy)· Acquisitions· Respond to new and emerging customer demand· New product and market development· Infrastructure and Innovation (including the smart grid, green energy, health care, logistics and security, and energy – all areas where Canadian companies have some advantages)· Product specialization, services, new processes, new skills

But this year the money has stopped flowing after investment losses reached $1.5-billion for 2008 and the university was forced to cancel a planned $62-million endowment payout, representing about 5 per cent of its operating budget.

Canada's most innovative investment funds is in question by the university that is bearing the brunt of its losses.

Settling into a boardroom chair in the restored heritage building of Toronto's MaRS research centre, Mr. Moriarty remains unshaken by the crisis. He stands committed to UTAM's sophisticated investing approach, reciting phrases like "portable alpha" and "risk budgets" to explain portfolio decisions.