IP & Open Innovation: according to IBM, both will advance smart grid technology. Blog by Doug Park of IBM's Strategy x Law Blog

Impact fosters young entrepreneurs, giving them the tools/advice they need to succeed. They run an internship program and events.

Facebook for entrepreneurs. Connect with other innovators to network, share ideas and collaborate. Solicit real-time feedback and benefit from previous discussions. Events - Discover and post relevant events in your local area. Answer : "What are you working on?"

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.

CNet profiles MaRS client, Aeryon's flying robot technology, describing their potential markets. Aeryon presented at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit last week.

Hi All,

We're formalizing our tagging structure to make it easier to integrate all of our online resources. I've put together a good list of these tags in the Group Dictionary. If you have problems with these tags, think something doesn't work, for example, or have suggestions for other tags that you'd use quite frequently, please let's discuss it here!

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.

This article profiles DJ Max Graef of London, England. This social innovator helps communities worldwide with next to zero resources start up a community radio station.

The review: a must-read for product engineers. "A perfect addendum to the works of Donald Norman, The Human Factor explores a number of examples in which major engineering problems and disasters initially attributed to user error were approached from a humanist perspective, and simple enhancements with the user in mind have helped prevent future catastrophes from airplane malfunction to nuclear power plant explosions. Vicente does a wonderful job of explaining with the phrase "user error" is often used erroneously, and attention given to the way a product is used, not just the way it is intended to be used by engineers, will continue to produce safer, more efficient products and avoid unnecessary accidents."

Their mission: to contribute to the world's economic and social development by promoting innovation, technology transfer and the establishment of technology- and innovation-based companies. Sounds a lot like MaRS...

The Wellesley Institute brings us a report on how the "third sector" (the sector of non-profit, charitable and voluntary organizations with programs and services) is doing in these economic and regulatory times. Chris Evans writes a blog on this report at http://blog.marsdd.com

Young entrepreneurs and wanna-be young entrepreneurs need to watch this. From Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup, the event is "Totally Wired Youth Entrepreneurs." Moderated by Guy Kawasaki, the panelists are really young and really smart/successful. Inspirational. Making me wish I'd worked on my cool idea when I was 16...

Canada has joined Australia, Finland, Ireland, India, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom in providing nationwide access to the Cochrane Library, a collection of evidence-based medicine reviews and a critical health sciences resource. The current pilot project, which runs through the end of 2009, allows all Canadian users to access the complete Cochrane collection from any computer in the country. The Canadian Health Libraries Association reports that almost 40,000 Canadians were denied access to a Cochrane systematic review in 2007.

Check out this podcast from Rabble.ca which covers a screening of the documentary, Us Now. The film talks about how technology enables community participation and MaRS Advisor Allyson Hewitt (and Director of the Social Innovation Generation program at MaRS) puts in her her two cents about the opportunities here for social change organizations as well as her encouragement to turn ideas and hype on this into actual practical change.

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.

New government funding announced today includes $100 million to establish the Operating Line of Credit Guarantee and $350 million over three years to help drive venture capital investment in promising Canadian technology businesses.

Looking for more online entrepreneurship education options? Check out this list of where you can get it (at least in the States). Finance, accounting, management... the list of free online courses goes on and on. Take advantage and learn how to better grow your business.

Maybe if you'd started earlier, you'd already have that first killer idea taking off in the market place!? The Digital Open is an online technology community and competition for youth around the world, age 17 and under. Right now they have a competition open for their users launched by the Institute for the Future (iftf.org), a non-profit research organization based in Palo Alto

Interesting research on the difference between twitter and other online social media. Men and women act differently here. Bottom line: (online) relationships are complicated!?

Tomorrow, MaRS hosts our 2nd extended citizenship ceremony. Sixty New Canadians along with their family and friends will take their oath right here in the MaRS Auditorium. Interesting to hear from one of our own community, Dr. Rosalind Silverman, a postdoctoral fellow with TGH and UofT Medicine, who won first-ever Top 25 Canadian Immigrants awards. Read her (and her sister, a a postdoc at UofT Medicine) story. This is why MaRS is involved in stuff like this: culturally diverse cities are also the most innovative (or so says Richard Florida). If we want to excel in the knowledge economy, we should all celebrate our cultural diversity!