research and innovation : Featured Stories

A University of Toronto grad-student project turned market-ready product shows that you don't have to give up your privacy for increased security.

Ignite Toronto captures the best of geek culture in a series of five-minute speed presentations on a wide range on topics and innovations.

Morgan Solar is a family business that plans to revolutionize the solar energy industry. Is 2010 the year they make good on that promise?

The women behind A Couple of Chicks noticed a need for simplified online marketing strategies and created a company that not only targets the tourism industry, but hosts educational seminars to help businesses find the right audience.

Part workshop, part tree house, and part revolutionary lair, the Toronto Hacklab is a home for geeks that mixes the urge to create with the ideals of a venerable movement. Also, there's a laser in the bathroom that plays the theme from Super Mario Brothers.

Vive Nano, a start-up born in a University of Toronto chemistry lab, is part of a new and confident class of innovation-based firms in the city.  But is it possible to save the world with nanotechnology and stay local at the same time? 

Two forward thinking entrepreneurs and their small team at CommunityLend may change the rules of banking with the launch of Canada's first peer-to-peer lending model. Borrowers put their loans up for auction, it's all done online and there is no need to dress up for that formal bank loan interview.

Web-based billing company Freshbooks recovers from a false start with pluck, focus and global aspirations. The online brower-based application helps people manage their client lists and invoices and has 1.25 million users.