Innovation + Job News

About a year ago, Rogers Communications began pilot testing of a mobile payment system, one that would allow customers to pay bills with a tap-and-go smartphone service. Joining the race to get Canadians to make purchases without opening their wallets: PayPal, which launched a pilot of its own last month in Toronto.

PayPal's partner is TouchBistro, an iPad based point-of-sale system used by many food trucks, cafes, and restaurants. Customers who check in with the new service can pay their restaurant bills from their PayPal accounts via an app on their mobile phones.

Jimmy's Coffee is one of the venues that has been participating in the pilot. Manager Penny Vine says that so far the experiment has been going relatively well—right now about $100 a day are processed through the PayPal/TouchBistro system.

PayPal makes money on the system by collecting a small percent of each bill that is processed, which means that the lower price point of cafe sales isn't as lucrative for them as full-fledged restaurants. TouchBistro approached Jimmy's and asked them to participate in the pilot, however, simply because their more frequent sales—nearly 400 transactions a day—gives them a bigger sample size to learn from.

From Jimmy's perspective, explains Vine, the pilot was appealing because the cafe doesn't have the capacity to process credit card transactions, and this gives them an alternative electronic option for customers without cash. The mobile payment system, Vine says, "is great because at the actual point-of-sale it's really fast. It's easy…and it's cheaper than taking credit cards."

This, however, only works if customers check in before they arrive at the counter—if they aren't ready the payment process can take a bit of time. It's mostly a question of visibility, Vine thinks, pointing out that "people don't really know much about it yet." She also notes that the system only works if the technologies that support it do: if the app goes down, or a customer's phone network is on the fritz, mobile payments won't work.

Jimmy's is so far seeing more advantages than downsides: Vine says they would definitely be interested in keeping the system once the pilot is over.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Penny Vine, Manager, Jimmy's Coffee

With the emergence of social enterprise, and the increasing visibility of many social, and especially environmental, issues, many more investors are becoming interested in using private capital to not only generate revenue, but also tackle some of our greatest problems. Helping to match investors with the enterprises that might achieve these goals: Social Venture Connection (SVX), an online platform that's just been launched by MaRS with the help of the Province and several private partners.

Billed by the Ontario government as the first such system in North America, SVX is a registered dealer with the Ontario Securities Commission. At launch, 12 ventures (including both non-profit and for-profit enterprises) were registered, ranging from an organic farm supply company to ZooShare, which is piloting a biogas plant at the Toronto Zoo. Their goal is to attract what are dubbed "impact investors," ones who have "a focus on achieving positive social and/or environmental outcomes and modest to market-rate financial returns," according to SVX's website. 

It's the first step towards a larger goal of creating a full-fledged regulated market, one that functions much like any mainstream exchange but with an explicit focus on social impacts.

Because SVX vets the enterprises that apply to be listed, and also provides some support services to the ones that make the cut, the idea—or at least the hope—is that those enterprises that do get selected will have an easier time attracting investors. SVX is also actively working to identity potential investors, ones who are known to have an interest in the social implications of the ventures they support.

To be eligible for consideration, ventures must have been incorporated in Ontario for at least two years, and have revenues between $50,000 and $25 million a year.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Employment

Toronto's got no shortage of well-intentioned people who care enough about various issues to devote their days to launching non-profits, charities, social enterprises, and businesses with social or environmental missions. Not everyone who starts such a venture knows quite how to make it succeed, however, which is why we're seeing more and more incubators and accelerators targeting this sector in particular.

The latest entrant: Cause School, a project that was just launched by Julia Howell in conjunction with communications firm Corktown Seed Company. The idea is to provide a sort of bootcamp for a new venture, Howell explains—just one to start off with, as all the time and support involved are being donated.

Cause School has recruited 12 "faculty" members with expertise in a variety of fields. The founder(s) of the winning project will spend two hours with each one, learning about everything from funding and networking to community engagement. After that, Corktown will provide branding and marketing support, helping the project polish its identity.

What's most important is that applicants demonstrate that they have an initiative that's ready to go, Howell says. It could be a new venture or a project launched by an existing group, and that group can take any form (social enterprise, registered charity, etc.).

Cause School is looking for something "that isn't already being done," she goes on, and "it could be anything: it could be a cultural initiative, it could be an environmental project, it could be in social justice."

What will matter in selecting the winning project is that the applicants have "the basic framework to make [their project] happen"—that they have reliable people involved, perhaps have completed some market testing, and have other fundamentals already in place. It's a crash course for those needing to fine-tune, in other words, rather than a place for people who aren't sure how to begin.

If you're interested you can apply via a simple online form; the deadline is October 14. A shortlisted group will then be invited to make more detailed pitches in person.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Julia Howell, Founder, Cause School

The most interesting of the opportunities we've seen this week:

The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, based out of MaRS, is looking for an application support specialist to help them manage their MS SQL database, which is shared with hospitals across the province. The position requires project management experience as well as development skills. Also hiring developers is e-reading company Wattpad, which has openings for several engineers and platform developers.

In the cultural sector, the Toronto Media Arts Cluster, whose facility includes workspace, production studios, and galleries, is seeking a development coordinator to manage their new capital campaign, raising funds for a new facility. Non-profit Scarborough Arts, which supports arts programming in that part of the city, is als looking for a development coordinator—in this case a year-long, part-time contract.

Continuing in this realm, the Luminato Festival is hiring a marketing coordinator, and TIFF is hiring a web producer to oversee their web sites year-round. Finally, the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition needs a new executive director to oversee their strategy, programming, and finances.

Meanwhile, for those with an interest in national history, Historica Canada is hiring a senior subject editor for the Canadian Encyclopedia. This editor will focus specifically on articles pertaining to the country's various demographic groups.

Know of an innovative job opportunity? Let us know!

In a city with an ever-increasing number of incubators, accelerators, and other support programs, it can be surprising to realize how many unmet needs our aspiring entrepreneurs actually have. It's still a developing community though, and there are many gaps to be filled in. Addressing one very specific gap is SheEO (pronounced SHE-E-O), a program for women entrepreneurs in the social sector, which has just graduated its first cohort of program participants.

"I've been a mentor to young entrepreneurs for almost 20 years, and one of the things that I'd noticed the women mentees were asking very different questions…around boldness, and confidence, and buildings networks," explains the program's co-founder, Vicki Saunders.

Anyone can pick up the hard skills of running a business, she went on: you can learn basic bookkeeping and how to build a pitch deck online quite easily. It's the soft skills—communication and management and wooing investors—that are trickier to develop, and "which we're now realizing are the most important." In our current business environment, Saunders says, women in particular can face challenges because their sense of what leadership looks like can differ from the prevailing models.

One thing in particular that Saunders points to is the need for any entrepreneur to be self-aware, to understand how she is most naturally comfortable acting as a leader. This isn't just a nice form of self-development, she maintains, but essential to the business itself: "You can't be a leader and not be yourself. You can't fake it and have people follow you. To really be a leader you need to understand who you are and what motivates you." That's why the opening days of SheEO's month-long program are devoted helping participants flesh out an individualized concept of leadership.

After that, the question is: leadership for what? Like a growing number of entrepreneurs, Saunders isn't interested in launching businesses just to capitalize on money-making opportunities. That's why SheEO is aimed not just at women, but at women who want to create ventures with social or environmental benefits.

Plans are already underway for future cohorts, and Saunders says that the program will continue "…as long as there are people out there who think that they need this, but the goal is that we never need to run any kind of program."

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Vicki Saunders, co-founder, SheEO

The most interesting of the opportunities that we've seen recently:

In social services, the Canadian Women's Foundation, which helps support women grappling with violence and poverty, is looking to fill two positions right now: a social media and public relations coordinator, a new junior position for someone with 1-2 years of experience, and a writer, whose focus will be on writing presentations and impact reports for the foundation's community of donors.

For those with an interest in city-building, the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation—focused on walking, cycling, and other human-powered ways of getting around—is looking for an active neighbourhoods project manager, who will be charged with developing an engagement process for four Ontario communities. Also, the Canadian Urban Institute, a national think tank for urban policy, is seeking a communications director to manage both internal and external communications.

Two major innovation organizations are looking for new staffers, as well. The Next 36, a program that provides intensive mentorship and support to 36 entrepreneurial undergraduates and recent graduates, is hiring a director of development—a senior position for somene with at least seven years of relevant experience.

Meanwhile, MaRS is hiring for three positions in two different programs. EXCITE, which helps medical technology companies develop products for market, is hiring a program director with at least five years of management experience as well as graduate work in the life sciences. And Studio Y, a youth leadership program, needs both a new manager as well as an associate to support the program's development. Both positions are for initial one-year terms with potential extentions to 2018.

Finally, documentary festival Hot Docs (which also operates the Bloor Cinema) has two posts to fill: one for a freelance illustrator to help them develop their creative going into the 2014 festival, and one for a development coordinator to help with year-round fundraising efforts.

Do you know of an innovative open job opportunity? Let us know!

Founded in 2011, MaRS's Data Catalyst gathers data from partners in several sectors—healthcare, entrepreneurship, and energy—and analyses it to help support the development of the province's innovation economy. This past weekend, Data Catalyst organized the city's first ever Green Energy Hackathon, to give local app and product developers a chance to work with some of that data as well.

Data from many of the province's smart metres—from 2.7 million households, to be more precise—is currently being gathered in what's called the Green Button initiative. It's the Green Button open API that was made available to participants at the Hackathon—data that enables users to better understand how Ontarians are actually using their energy. Using that data, participants at the hackathon came up apps that do everything from help individuals know the best time to use certain appliances to warning small businesses about impending weather disruptions.

"There's a big hairy problem about how to engage people in their use of energy," says Joe Greenwood, program director of Data Catalyst. That problem, he goes on, has a lot to do with behavioural economics: even though we could save money by changing our energy consumption habits, it turns out people aren't entirely rational in how they handle such choices—which leads to the thorny question of how exactly to induce them to alter those choices.

On the bright side, Greenwood explains, Ontario has also made one of the biggest investments in smart metres, which creates a big opportunity for smart developers to give people the capacity to manage their energy use more effectively. Because we're starting to learn more about how we currently consume energy, we can start experimenting with tools that will motivate people to consume it better.

One key theme Greenwood noticed in the apps that were started at the Hackathon—some of which will be getting support for further development—is simplification. Though energy companies and large corporations may look at charts and graphs to help them determine their choices, individuals work differently; many of the developers started looking at giving rewards—badges or air miles, or using humour—as tools to help people change.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Joe Greenwood, program director, MaRS Data Catalyst

Kathleen Wynne has announced the details of a new program that aims to attract new investment to Ontario, and specifically, to highlight development opportunities in municipalities across the province.

Called the Investment Ready: Certified Site Program, the goal is effectively to create a roster of pre-screened sites in each municipality that are available for development, to help potential investors hone in on venues that might make good homes for their ventures.

"We want to cut red tape to attract investment across the province," the premier said in a speech to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario earlier this month, when introducing the program. "It shows companies around the world the places in your municipalities that are ready to be developed, giving them increased certainty about environmental concerns, utility lines and servicing access. In practical terms, it means businesses can quickly make more informed decisions, and help expansion projects get underway sooner. "

Candidate sites will go through a certification process—applications should be available by the end of the calendar year—and if they are successfully certified will be entered into several databases that the provincial government will be promoting. (The government will also help defray some of the costs of participating, though the particulars of that aspect of the program haven't yet been released.)

The eligible properties must be of a certain minimum size (four hectares), zoned for industrial use, and meet other criteria with respect to the utilities and services that are in place on site.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Office of the Premier

"In a market economy, if you solve a big problem you get a big reward," says Tom Rand, managing partner of the MaRS Cleantech Fund.

Generating substantial amounts of environmentally sustainable energy is certainly a big problem, and the Cleantech Fund's goal is to try and find the emerging companies who will help solve it. The $30 million private venture capital fund, located at MaRS, has just landed a new $500,000 investment courtesy of RBC Generator, the bank's investment arm that looks specifically for opportunities in companies that address social and environmental issues. It's the first investment deal RBC has announced as part of that initiative.

Green energy is obviously a huge sector; the MaRS Cleantech Fund focuses primarily on "early stage, disruptive, low carbon energy infrastructure," Rand explains. (More concretely, this means innovations like smart grids that better distribute energy.) The Fund has already invested in eight companies, and is aiming for 10 to 12 in total.

Though the fund is entirely privately financed, Rand also emphasizes the importance of being located at MaRS, which he calls "the most serious clean-tech innovation machine in Canada by far."

MaRS assists the fund with deal flow—the most promising new companies can be found there, so for investors it provides fertile ground for sniffing out the best opportunities—and their ongoing support with essential processes like preparation for the market make it, Rand adds, "the most high powered, high octane help you can get."

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Tom Rand, Managing Partner, MaRS Cleantech Fund

The most interesting of the opportunities we've seen this week:

If you have a keen eye for aesthetics alt weekly NOW Magazine is hiring a fashion and design writer, and specifically someone with knowledge of the local retail scene, and of sustainable design. You'd be writing for both their print and online editions. Also in media, CIUT—the community radio station based on UofT's downtown campus—is looking for a part-time digital media coordinator to do everything from update their website to photograph events.

On the communications side of things, the Luminato Festival is looking for an interactive marketing coordinator to tackle some web content, social media engagement, analytics, and other related duties. The position is a 10-month contract running from October through next July. OCAD University, meanwhile, is seeking a media relations and communications officer to serve as their primary point of contact with the press.

Also in cultural organizations, the Art Gallery of Ontario is hiring an assistant media producer who will help with audio and video production.

A Toronto start-up called CrowdLinker, which provides its clients with a variety of networking tools, has several openings, including opportunities for a community manager, a business development manager, and a couple of UI/UX developers.

Finally, a major city-building organization is looking for some help. Artscape has a position for a program coordinator, based out of their Youngplace site (also known as the Shaw Street school), to manage the operations of the studio and gallery programs at that location.

Know of an innovative job opportunity? Email our Jobs Editor Hamutal Dotan to let us know.

The York Region Small Business Enterprise Centre (YSBEC) has launched a new ambassador program, which its organizers believe to be the first of its kind in the province.

The provincial government established a network of these Small Business Enterprise Centres in conjunction with municipalities across Ontario about 20 years ago. That network now numbers 57 centres, which provide a range of services including free business development assistance, help with licensing and registration, and networking events.

The YSBEC serves the six northern and smaller municipalities in York Region: Aurora, East Gwillimbury, Georgina, King, Newmarket, and Whitchurch-Stouffville. (The larger, southern York Region municipalities--Markham, Richmond Hill, and Vaughan--each have their own separate centres.)

"Each one of the centres is there to help people get started in business, and help early growth stage business," explains Dan Ruby, a small business consultant with the YSBEC. They provide free consulting services that "can help you with your business planning, access to financing, sales, and marketing" and other start-up issues small business face.

"If you think of us as if we were a general practitioner," Ruby goes on, "if we were to diagnose an issue of concern that is beyond the scope of a general practitioner, we would send you to a specialist. The ambassadors are like our specialists."

Essentially, the consultants that are routinely available at the centre are able to provide business development support, but sometimes a client needs expertise in a particular field: accounting or digital media or branding or the like. The new ambassadors—the centre has about a dozen—are specialists in these and other areas, and the centre's clients can come to them for free sector-specific advice when they need it.

To provide maximum flexibility, clients can now access ambassadors via three different channels: at quarterly events, where "expert corner" roundtables are set up, through a direct referral from the centre, and online, via a new system called MENTORup, which is "kind of like eHarmony for mentors and small businesses," says Ruby.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Dan Ruby, Small Business Consultant, York Region Small Business Enterprise Centre (Newmarket Region)

The most interesting of the opportunities we've seen this week:

If you liked gawking at the Royal Ontario Museum's dinosaurs as a kid, this will be especially fun: the museum is hiring an assistant vice-president of public relations and publications. It's a senior communications post, and applicants should have at least five years of relevant experience. Also hiring for a senior vacancy: the Ontario Trillium Foundation, which needs a new director of communications and public affairs. The government agency provides support to non-profits and charities in the province, and as with all government positions, applicants must be fluent in both English and French.

Another major local institution, The Stop, which tackles food security issues via everything from community gardens to healthy cooking classes, is hiring a fundraising and events coordinator to help them manage multiple functions. Meanwhile, charitable organization Operation Springboard, which helps its clients develop key life skills, is looking for a multi-media designer to develop presentations used in their programming.

Canadian Journalists for Free Expression is looking for a digital communications coordinator. The position is specific to IFEX, a network of nearly 90 organizations who advocate for free expression, and the key goal is to develop that network's digital capacity.

Helping with another kind of communication: the Canadian Urban Libraries Council, which is working on a project to improve library access for people with challenges reading print, in conjunction with the CNIB. Services will be run by a new non-profit, and that non-profit needs a senior executive to do everything from help come up with its name to establish its protocols and procedures.

If you're both tech savvy and have an appreciation of the outdoors, Mountain Equipment Co-op is looking for an ecommerce quality assurance analyst with 5-7 years experience to shelp support their online operations.

And finally Bitmaker Labs, a startup that offers a nine-week programming bootcamp for those who want to become tech savvy, has two openings: one for an executive assistant to provide administrative support, and one for a web development instructor with particular expertise in Ruby on Rails.

If you know of a great job opportunity and would like to see it listed, please contact our Innovation and Job News editor Hamutal Dotan. 

We know, broadly speaking, the key factors that help create the conditions for success for would-be entrepreneurs. They include access to capital, mentorship, and a very practical knowledge of day-to-day business operations. However, though Canada--and especially Toronto--have very high rates of immigration, we tend to spend less time thinking and talking about the challenges that are specific to immigrant entrepreneurs, and the conditions for success that are particularly pertinent to newer Canadians.

Stepping in to the breach is North York Community House, which recently released a study (conducted with the help of Public Interest) examining precisely those issues.

The report, DIY: Immigrant Entrepreneurs are Doing it for Themselves, looks at the specific challenges immigrant entrepreneurs face, and in the process outlines some major opportunities for offering more and better support to this community.

Among the report's key findings: English language skills, and knowledge about the mechanics of opening a business--the rules and regulations and procedures and nitty-gritty details--are two of the biggest determinants of success of failure for immigrant entrepreneurs. Mentorship and entrepreneurial experience (either directly, or within one's family) are also crucial--and all of these can be particular challenges for new immigrants, who may not have ready access to many of these supports in the way that Canadian-born entrepreneurs might.

"There are some really good programs going in Toronto for newcomer entrepreneurs," says Shelley Zuckerman, executive director of North York Community House, "but there aren't a lot."

She goes on to explain that there are some very targeted supports in place, for particular demographics or providing very specific services, but there simply isn't a sufficient number or variety of programs to meet the demand. "There's definitely a need for more mentorship programs," she says, especially for people without a family history of entrepreneurship, and especially aimed at those who are trying to get started with very small businesses.

At the most general level, the report finds that immigrant entrepreneurs fall into two main groups: those who are "pulled" towards entrepreneurship, who are attracted to it and choose it and arrive in Canada with that course of action in mind, and those who are "pushed" towards it, who don't find satisfactory or sufficient employment elsewhere and turn to entrepreneurship to close their income gap, or provide more flexibility in their scheduling and family life.

It's the latter group in particular that needs the most support, since it generally consists of people who have fewer resources (both financially and in terms of a pre-existing knowledge base), and aren't quite ready to hit the ground running. Even simple things like how language classes are structured can make a significant difference, explains Zuckerman.

"One of the difficulties around language for immigrants is that a lot of the language classes are during the day, or quite intense, so if you're running a business [at the same time] it can be quite challenging to attend," she says.

NYCH convened a roundtable of groups offering services to immigrant entrepreneurs in the course of putting together the study; that group will continue meeting now that the results have been released, to share more information and examine how they might coordinate their services more effectively.

They'll also be discussing the "need for government and funders to look at different ways of supporting small entrepreneurs" and, in particular, try to learn more about how services can be best structured to be of greatest value.

DIY: Immigrant Entrepreneurs are Doing it for Themselves is available online [PDF].

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Shelley Zuckerman, Executive Director, North York Community House

Toronto has theatre festivals, art festivals, music festivals, food festivals, comedy festivals, vegetarian food festivals--festivals for just about every cultural interest, it seems. But we don't have a science festival, or at least we didn't until now. That will change next month, when the University of Toronto launches what it hopes will become an annual event: the Toronto Science Festival.

Just like all the other festivals we're familiar with, the goal in large part is to demystify, to attract curious members of the public who aren't experts or deeply involved in a certain community, but want to learn more.

"The idea," says Michael Reid, public outreach coordinator for UofT's Dunlap Institute, "was to try and engage people in science in a new way. We run a lot of events that attract a sort of standard audiences--public lectures, tours of our observatory--those tend to attract a crowd of people who are already quite scientifically literate."

The intention with the Toronto Science Festival is to help the public engage with science in some nontraditional ways, to offer scientific programming in new formats, and to use those unexpected formats to help people understand some of the latest innovations and research developments coming out of UofT and other key institutions. (Reid describes it as being something like Luminato, but for all kinds of scientific engagement.)

"Very generally, I don't see a lot of science on the broader cultural landscape," Reid goes on. "There isn't to my knowledge any kind of major science knowledge event that's directed at everybody." Which is why, perhaps, TSF's first year will include such unconventional events as a jazz performance by a climate scientist whose lyrics discuss physics, and a biologically-inspired dance performance by a classical Indian company.

The festival is co-sponsored by the Dunlap Institute and by UofT Science Engagement, a new office created in the past year by the university to try to foster public engagement with science and innovation.

The 2013 Toronto Science Festival will run from September 27–29 at locations across the St. George campus.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Michael Reid, Public Outreach Co-ordinator, Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics

The most interesting of the opportunities we've seen recently:

Attention journalists! Local weekly the Grid is hiring for a deputy editor—a rare opportunity in a sector where full-time jobs are increasingly scarce. They're looking for a risk taker, and someone who is in love with the city. And while book publishing is often in the same boat, hope is not lost: the Literary Press Group of Canada (an association of nearly 60 publishers) is looking for an executive director, to advocate for the industry, engage with readers, and manage the services provided to its members. Finally, Green Teacher magazine has a one year paid internship opportunity for an editorial and marketing assistant; if things go well it could lead to permanent employment.

On the communications and web side of things, the non-profit organization that puts on the JUNO Awards is looking for a digital media coordinator to manage all their websites and social media platforms. The job requires considerable technical skills, ranging from CSS to video editing.

For those with an interest in nature LEAF (Local Appreciation and Enhancement of Forests), a non-profit that protects urban trees, needs a new project manager to cover a one year maternity leave. Job duties are split between program development, human resources management, and strategic planning. And for those who like to wander the city streets, Walk T.O. is hiring walking tour guides for the fall season, to lead elementary and high school students in educational walks.

If traveling by bike is more your speed, Transportation Options, a non-profit that tackles sustainable mobility, is hiring a marketing coordinator for their cycling programs. The position involves some development as well: they're hoping the successful candidate will help them generate new revenue streams.

Finally, two positions to tell you about at major incubation hub MaRS. MaRS Innovation, which focuses specifically on commercialization, is looking for a manager to engage with researchers and handle some specific technology transfer activities. And the MaRS Discovery District is looking for a senior manager, digital, to oversee all online communications.

Know of a hot job opportunity? Let our Innovation and Jobs editor Hamutal Dotan know.