Innovation + Job News

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

Several notable positions are open in the environmental sector. Greenpeace Canada is looking for a bilingual communications coordinator; a mid-level post that involves supervising four other communications officers. They are hoping to raise their profile in the media in particular.

Also looking for help is the Toronto Botanical Garden, which is seeking an adult education coordinator to oversee more than 100 programs, events, and courses. The position requires a combination of administrative experience with a degree in either education or horticulture.

Finally in this area, the High Park Nature Centre is in need of a new executive director to oversee everything from programming to fundraising.

Those with an interest in city-building may be familiar with Urbanspace Property Group, a developer that focuses on historical preservation. (Their flagship building is 401 Richmond.) They are looking for an executive assistant to help the president and serve as a liason for special projects.

Meanwhile, innovation centre MaRS has an opening for a manager of entrepreneurship and innovation to develop programming in those areas; it's a one-year maternity leave contract position.

In the cultural sector, PEN Canada, which works to support free expression for writers and readers, is offering a 12 month communications fellowship. The post is for 30 hours a week, and the selected candidate will have a role in shaping the projects they work on over the year.

The Canadian Centre for Advanced Research, a non-profit which marshals researchers across a variety of disciplines working internationally, has several positions available. Among them are a manager of research programs, a managing editor to provide communications support, and an IT manager.

Finally, strategic innovation firm Idea Couture also has several openings, including a graphic designer, an interactive strategist, a UX specialist, and a digital project manager.

Know of an innovative job opportunity? Let us know!

When the question of how to ensure workers are compensated reasonably for their work arises, one standard that is often invoked is the minimum wage: the notion that governments should protect workers from exploitation by ensuring they are paid a rate than covers their basic needs. (Whether or not current minimum wages accomplish that goal is a separate question.)

More recently though, a new kind of question has emerged, namely one about equity within a company--not just establishing a minimum threshold for every worker, but assessing the difference between how much the lowest and highest earners within a company make. Especially in the wake of movements like Occupy, the idea that senior executives make twenty or thirty or a hundred times more than their junior employees strikes many as unfair, unhealthy for corporate cultures, and damaging to the well-being of the economy overall.

Enter Wagemark, a new international standard for this metric. The Wagemark Foundation just launched specifically to promote this standard, one which it suggests should be an 8:1 ratio:  that is, in any company, the top earner should make no more than eight times as much as the lowest earner.

Peter MacLeod, executive director of the Wagemark Foundation, is also the co-founder of MASS LBP, a consultation firm that focuses on increasing public engagement. Explaining the relationship he sees between these projects, MacLeod told us that "at MASS, we're really interested and concerned in issues like trust and confidence in public institution and well being of members of society... how people can be better involved in policy-making, and work with institutions that they will then hopefully be more inclined to trust." However, he goes on, "this only gets you so far if the economic picture is concerning. Inequality is just unhealthy...it affects everything from crime rates to maternal health to mental health.'

Though the greatest wage disparities are found in the largest corporations, Wagemark is in its first stages aimed at small- and medium-sized businesses. MacLeod says that it's important to note that it isn't just a company's size that helps determine the disparities among the wages its workers earn--geography and culture matter as well.

In countries with the lowest overall wage disparities, such as Japan or Scandinavian nations, there are cultural influences (such as an emphasis on the values of modesty or the common good) that "have influenced contemporary compensation structures."

Wagemark's goal in beginning with smaller companies is "to begin to create that as a cultural norm in North America and [western] Europe"--to start shifting our expectations, and then have those expectations begin to percolate up into larger corporate structures.

We asked MacLeod whether it was mere coincidence that a new standard like Wagemark would emerge here. "If there is fertile ground in this country," he replied, "it's because we have a huge middle class that hasn't recovered…and has huge anxiety that we're being sorted out into different groups and income brackets...and I think that's out of step with Canadian values. I hope that Wagemark speaks to Canadian values."

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Peter MacLeod, Executive Director, Wagemark Foundation

Toronto is stocked with an increasing array of incubators, accelerators, mentorship programs, and commercialization programs. But how do you know if you're ready to apply and participate in those full-fledged programs? One way to find out: try out an idea in a low-risk environment, and garner reaction before you get too far along.

Would-be entrepreneurs will have the chance to do just that at Startup Weekend, coming to Toronto August 9-11. Startup Weekends run in cities across the world, organized by a non-profit of the same name, and the goal is simple: help someone launch a startup in just 54 hours.

This upcoming Toronto installment has a theme: education.

"The startup weekends are a movement of entrepreneurs across the world who want to get together and practice the startup process in a really compressed timeframe," explains MaRS education specialist Joseph Wilson, one of the event's co-organizers. "The EDU angle on it is that there's so much interest in the education entrepreneurship space that specific verticals of startup weekends [became appealing]."

Startup Weekend EDU will be the first sector-specific weekend in Toronto, and the first education-themed weekend in Canada. "Toronto and Ontario are very good relatively speaking in education," Wilson continues, "and this has informed the entrepreneurship scene in the city. In the last few years we've seen an explosion of ed tech companies...and there are even more in the water, which we're hoping to draw out with something like this."

The weekend is open to people with a wide variety of skill sets, ranging from developers to designers to educators. The weekend is structured progressively: at the outset anyone can pitch an idea, and then based on the strength of various pitches, teams form around the most promising and work through them throughout the weekend.

"You can't build a product" in a weekend, of course, Wilson concedes. But what you can do, "is push yourself to push out a prototype or a quick beta, to test the concept, to quickly test the idea in the most practical way possible." It's a form of crowdsourcing, in a way, except not to raise money but to establish an idea's viability.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Joseph Wilson, co-organizer, Startup Weekend EDU

"Creative destruction." It's an economics term that captures the dynamic cycle in which economies make progress--develop and integrate innovations and create new sectors and industries--by destroying the previous systems.

It's also the name of a new lab based out of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. That lab has just seen its first cohort of participants complete and eight-month boot camp, designed to give participants the pragmatic knowledge and real-world connections they need to make their ventures flourish.

One distinctive feature of the program is that acceptance in no way guarantees completion: in fact, nearly half of the original group doesn't make it through to the end. Participating ventures, each of which have between one and five members, meet periodically with mentors over the course of the program to establish milestones for their companies' development, and track progress along the way. After each round of meetings, those that are weakest get dropped from the program--of the 18 original participating ventures, only eight completed the program.

Worth noting: those eight now have an equity value estimated at $65 million in total.

Creative Destruction Lab came about, explains its director, Jesse Rodgers, after "looking at the gap that exists in education and research….there's certainly a failure in terms of connecting with [the] right people. The biggest thing that's messing with early stage entrepreneurs is the judgment in how to get where they want to go, and get there faster. They can't get the right mentors, they can't get the right coaches - that's a scarce resource."

As for what distinguished the ventures that successfully completed the program from those that did not, Rodgers says, it came down to one simple element: "Team dynamic. All the ones that didn't make the cut had team issues." It was surprising, he said, just how powerful this factor was, and how universal its influence. "Regardless of industry, the common thing is just the people, and how they work."

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Jesse Rodgers, Director, Creative Destruction Lab

Many of Toronto's growing roster of accelerators, incubation labs, and other innovation centres are based in the downtown core--close to research facilities, universities, hospitals, and other amenities. But we need innovation across the city, and it's with just that goal in mind that a brand new accelerator, the York Entrepreneurship Development Institute, has been launched. The first cohort will begin the program this September.

One thing that organizers are emphasizing with this program in particular is the social and cultural value entrepreneurship can contribute to a community. Accepted fellows will fall into two groups: 10 entrepreneurs will be on a for-profit track, and another 10 on a not-for-profit track. YEDInstitute is hoping to support growth in traditional businesses and in non-profits equally, and is accepting applicants with an a wide range of sectors, from health and wellness to agriculture to real estate.

The goal, explains program director Dana Ayrapetyan, is to help the non-profit sector become more self-sufficient. "It is not as efficient as it could be," she says, and developing a stronger entrepreneurial culture around socially-motivated ventures is important for that reason.

More broadly, the 12-week program was created because the founders saw that "so many of the projects coming out of the current start-up ecosystem…had received seed funding but not necessarily long term business plan preparation, [and] couldn't establish long-term success. Those gems weren't really emerging."

YEDInstitute will combine both academic training with applied skills. Another contrast with other accelerators: selected participants won't receive funding up front, as part of their acceptance, but upon completion of the program they'll pitch the institute's own venture capital fund, for a chance to secure up to $500,000.

Applications are now open, and available online.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Dana Ayrapetyan, Program Director, York Entrepreneurship Development Institute

Correction notice: We originally misdescribed the program as being a project of York University directly. In fact, it is based out of the Schulich Executive Education Centre, but does not belong to York University or the Schulich School of Business.

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

The Ontario Brain Institute, a major hub for research and medical commercialization, has two key positions open. They are looking for a knowledge translation lead and a communications lead; both for their outreach program.

Also looking for communications help is TechSoup Canada, which helps organizations with a social mission--non-profits, charities, social enterprises, and the like--make better use of technology. It's an entry level position, and those with compentence in French are particularly encouraged to apply.

In the environmental sector, the University of Toronto's sustainability office, which is charged with improving that institution's sustainability, is hiring a campaign coordinator to support and supervise a team of 10 students. It's a five month contract, but there may be opportunities to extend.

In senior hires, the Royal Ontario Museum is looking for a new managing director of ROM Contemporary Culture (formerly known as the Institute for Contemporary Culture) to take charge of positioning the centre as it evolves.

And in city-building organizations, non-profit 8-80 Cities, which works to make streets, transportation, and public space vibrant and available to all a city's residents, has two positions open: a director to lead some specific projects, and a more junior project coordinator, to support the organization's work.

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

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

The Walrus Foundation--the non-profit educational organization that underwrites the magazine of the same name--is looking for a development coordinator to work with their fundraising team. Duties range from donor relations to grant writing, and there's an emphasis on communication skills. In a similar vein, the Toronto Public Library Foundation, which raises funds to support the city's library system, is looking for a marketing and communications manager. It's a mid-level position: they're hoping to find someone with at least 3-5 years of experience.

Also looking for communications help is Earth Day Canada, the environmental charity that runs that event, along with other awareness-raising efforts. And if front-line environmental work is of greater interest, the non-partisan group Toronto Environmental Alliance is seeking campaigners to knock on doors; both part-time and full-time hours are available.

Two social service organizations are also looking for some front-line help. The National Reading Campaign is on the hunt for a community manager to develop and implement online outreach efforts. And Operation Springboard, a charity devoted to skills development, is looking for a financial literacy officer to work out of their Scarborough office.

For those with business or finance skills and an interest in medical science, there are two opportunities especially worth noting this week. One is at the Ontario Genomics Institute, which is looking for a director of finance who has at least five years of relevant experience as well as accounting certification. The other is University Health Network, which is searching for a business development officer to work specifically on promoting medical devices that come out of the network's research efforts.

Finally, two tech opportunities to tell you about. One is at the Centre for Social Innovation: they are looking for a technology lead to manage both the organization's intranet and their public websites. The other is design studio Nascent, which is on the lookout for a PHP developer for a short contract position.

Know of an innovative job opportunity? Let us know!

Entrepreneurship can come at any age--and often it can come very early in a person's working life. Hoping to give a leg up to some of the country's youngest and most promising entrepreneurs is The Next 36, a nine-month program that provides intensive mentorship and support to 36 undergraduates and recent graduates. They've just opened up applications for their 2014 cohort.

Program participants work in teams of three, each of which will develop a business aimed at the mobile technology market.

That doesn't mean that only developers and the technologically-oriented should apply though: participants come from all disciplines. The key quality applicants should demonstrate is leadership, explains marketing and events director Jon French.

It's not the sector that matters so much as the characteristic, someone with the ability to "look at an opportunity or challenge and turn it into a positive," he says. To that end, "a track record of excelling at at least one thing" is the single most important factor Next 36 looks for when selecting its finalists, which have included top athletes and musicians as well as coders and engineers. (In previous years participants have been split into roughly one-third technology majors, one-third business and commerce majors, and one-third students with a background in the humanities.)

While program participants spend their time with Next 36 developing a new business, immediate impact matters less than establishing the skills for long-term success, French says. Their main goal is that in 10 or 15 years, some of Canada's leading entrepreneurs will have come through the program, having learned the hard and soft skills they need to build viable businesses throughout a long entrepreneurial career.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Jon French, Director of Marketing and Events, The Next 36

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

The multi-site Centre for Social Innovation, Toronto's organization built around shared workspaces and social change, is hiring for a director of shared spaces. It's a senior management position (five years experience minimum), and they are looking for an eclectic "human Swiss army knife."

Another leading Toronto innovator, MaRS Discovery District, is seeking a manager for their Youth Social Impact Academy. The program aims to provide promising participants with the skills, knowledge, and support they need to flourish in Ontario's new economy, and the manager will lead the design, development, and execution of that program. For those with a bit less experience, the Academy is also seeking a full-time associate to support the program.

And finally in senior positions, the Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement (CERIS)--an academic research centre which facilitates collaboration on immigration-related research across all of Toronto's universities and several major organizations--needs a new director. It's a part-time post and candidates should have a graduate degree in the social sciences (though not necessarily a PhD).

In the cultural sector, the Canadian Independent Music Association (CIMA) is looking for a research and communications coordinator to manage work surrounding the changing policies and legislation that affects the music industry. And PEN Canada, the writers' organization dedicated to free expression and helping persecuted authors, is seeking an office manager to oversee day-to-day operations.

If you have an interest in nature, the Toronto Wildlife Centre, which helps sick and injured animals locally, has a six-month contract to fill for general support staff. And the GreenLearning Canada Foundation, which develops web-based education tools for students around energy sustainability, is on the hunt for a new executive director to spearhead an engagement driver with teachers across the country.

And the neatest volunteer gig we've seen lately: Artscape is looking for a researcher to help them flesh out the community history of their latest revitalization project, at 180 Shaw Street.

If you know of an innovative job opportunity, let us know!

Publishing technology company ScribbleLive recently announced that it has secured $8 million in new funding, via a group of several venture capitalists. (Their last major financing announcement came in November, 2011, when they landed $4 million in venture capital funds.)

Though you might not be familiar with the company's name, you've almost certainly encountered their products--the digital publishing tools they offer are used by many major media outlets, ranging from Reuters to ESPN. ScribbleLive focuses on real-time event coverage and on engagement tools; more recently they've expanded into syndication, giving outlets opportunities to distribute their stories to other publishers and bring in additional revenue.

The Toronto-based company currently has 43 employees locally and seven elsewhere. Expanding that team is at the top of their priority list, says CEO Michael De Monte. The new funding will enable ScribbleLive to pursue growth in two main areas: expansion into other regions (there are plants for New York and the American west coast) and expanding Scribble Marketplace (its new syndication tool). By year's end, De Monte estimates the company will have grown to about 65 positions. He anticipates they will hit 100 by the end of 2014.

ScribbleLive recently celebrated its fifth birthday, and we asked De Monte what changes he's seen in Toronto's innovation sector over that time.

"There is a community here that is supportive of new startups," he says, "but it was hard to find five years ago. There's more of it now."

More community, but perhaps not quite enough support for it. "There are a lot of other cities that are doing a lot more for their startup communities, " he goes on, "that have really embraced the innovation spirit."

In Toronto, by contrast, "we do a lot of talking about it," but don't take enough action, he says. De Monte cites the digital pockets he's seen in other cities--communities within cities that are wired, and offer supports, amenities, and professional development support for young workers--as something Toronto should aspire to.

"We do have pockets here," he concludes, "but it's always felt a little disconnected."

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Michael De Monte, CEO, ScribbleLive

Though Toronto prides itself on being a welcoming place for immigrants--half of us come from elsewhere, after all--a new study shows that the long-term employment prospects for immigrants are often bleaker than for those born here.

The study, An Immigrant All Over Again? Recession, Plant Closures and (Older) Racialized Immigrant Workers, comes out of the Centre for Labour Management Relations at Ryerson University, and examined what happened when more than 2,000 Toronto-area workers--a large majority of whom were racialized immigrants--suddenly lost their jobs when auto-parts manufacturer Progressive Moulded Products shut down a local factory in 2008.

Researchers tracked the employees in the years that followed, following their experiences in the labour market, with retraining programs, in temp agencies, and elsewhere. They note, especially, that since those workers had been coming out of a long-term stable employment situation, they "might have been considered successfully 'settled' and 'integrated'."

Unfortunately, the report goes on, "participants' struggles to find the appropriate training and stable re-employment in the years after the [plant's] closure suggest that, for many immigrant workers, their immigrant status never disappears."

Among the study's key findings:

• Only one third of the workers studied have found secure full-time employment since the plant shut down.
• Men have had an easier time finding re-employment of any kind.
• While half the study's participants completed career retraining, only one quarter of that group found work in their new field.
• While 42 per cent of the study's participants found new work via temp agencies, many found those agencies to be "exploitative and discriminatory."
• Almost 70 per cent of workers surveyed "believe discrimination has been a barrier…in getting work."

The study has put together a series of detailed recommendations emerging out of its research, ranging from increased regulation of temp agencies to the suggestion that settlement services "should not be restricted solely for newcomers… Services should be extended to all users based on needs instead of being determined by the length of their stay in Canada."

Writer: Hamutal Dotan

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

Not Far From the Tree rescues harvestable fruit from trees in Toronto. Last year, they gathered more than 12,000, a significant portion of which went to local shelters and food service organizations. NFFTT is currently filling two summer student postions: one is a community animator, to help with local engagement efforts, and is a logistics and equipment assistant, which requires some physical labour.

Also in food security and food issues, the North York Harvest Food Bank has several positions open. Among them are a senior manager of agency relations, to oversee engagement with member organizations; a part-time garden coordinator, to organize and run engagement programs; and a food bank assistant, to work with incoming and existing clients.

In the environmental sector, residential solar energy company PURE Energies is on the hunt for a sales team lead. It's a senior post requiring a mimimum of 7-10 years experience; the successful candidate will be supervising a team of at least 15.

The Ontario Nonprofit Network, which was created to strengthen the nonprofit sector in the province, is also hiring for a summer position: an engagement coordinator to work with member organizations and help with event planning and communications.

Among cultural organizations, the National Film Board is hiring a part-time publicity assistant to help with event promotion, media monitoring, and administrative support.

Startup Synaptive Medical works on developing new tools for neurosurgery; they have about ten jobs available as they ramp up operations. Among them are several software development postions, plus opportunities for engineers and one intellectual property coordinator.

Finally in tech jobs, two more openings to tell you about. One is with TELUS Digital Labs, an innovation hub within the broader company. They are looking for a senior web developer with particular expertise in mobile, to take the lead on several projects. And Blue Ant Media, which creates titles ranging from Cottage Life to music magazine Aux, is hiring a development lead with at least five years of experience.

Know of an innovative job opportunity in Toronto? Let us know!

It is the bane of every teacher's existence: grading. Though essential, it's also repetitive and time-consuming. It is also increasingly prone to concerns about inequity: from grade inflation to inconsistent standards across different classrooms, sometimes parents, students, and even teachers themselves have a hard time deciding just what the grades they have assigned actually mean.

Aiming to help with both those problems is Toronto startup Crowdmark. Founded by two University of Toronto mathematics experts--the department's associate chair, James Colliander, and graduate student Martin Muñoz--Crowdmark provides teachers with a suite of tools to facilitate faster grading, and enables teachers to handle large volumes of grading collaboratively.

To use Crowdmark, teachers input the questions for a test into its customized PDF-maker. The result is a full printout of that test, in which each page of the copy received by each student has a customized code printed on it. Students write the test as usual, completing their answers by hand, and then teachers scan those tests into Crowdmark before doing their grading online. Because each page of each test has a unique identifier, Crowdmark's cloud-based tools can then sort the tests on a number of axes--by student, or by page of the test.

A group of grade three teachers could, for instance, collaborate on writing a test, and then split up the grading so that one teacher grades all the students' answers to question one, a second teacher grades all the answers to question two, and so on. It can be faster than looking at a whole test student by student, and it ensures that every answer to a given question is graded according to the same criteria, rather than changing based on which teacher is doing the grading.

"Teachers are very excited right now about an idea called moderated marking," says Colliander, which is essentially an attempt to strip teacher biases, grade inflation, and other variations out of the grading process, so there is consensus on what, say, an "A" means in any particular set of circumstances. "The shuffling of paper prevents many teachers from engaging in this kind of assessment."  

In addition to the tools that can make initial grading more efficient, Colliander believes, because tests are stored in the cloud in an organized way, teachers will be able to glean more information from them--more easily tracking a particular student over time, for instance, or seeing how test difficulty changes year by year.

"There's a desire for a much more rapid, iterative way of learning," Colliander concludes. His hope is that Crowdmark will give teachers the capacity to keep pace with that.

Started with $200,000 in seed funding from the University of Toronto, Crowdmark has recently seen that boosted to $600,000--some from the university, and some from MaRS Innovation. Crowdmark also recently completed two pilot projects working with teachers in grades 3 and 6. The company is currently meeting with venture capitalists and putting together a Series A round of funding. They plan to launch publicly in time for the 2013/2014 academic year.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: James Colliander, co-founder, Crowdmark

When Extreme Startups launched in early 2012, co-founder Sunil Sharma says it was with a very specific goal in mind: find "high potential, disruptive, early stage tech companies" and give investors a first crack at supporting them.  Formed by a collective of venture capitalists, the tech incubator's goal is to hone in on young companies with the best chances of success, and boost their odds further.

Applications are now open for the fourth cohort of participants in Extreme Startups. Each cohort consists of five companies; each company receives $50,000 up front, mentorship, and streamlined access to more than $150,000 funding (through the Business Development Bank of Canada and the Ontario Centres for Excellence) once they have completed the 12 week program. 

In exchange, Extreme Startups gets a ten per cent stake in each company, distributed across the venture capitalists who make up Extreme's investors (the distribution of equity varies in each case).

We asked Dale Millstein, a visiting associate at Extreme Startups, what advice he had for potential applicants. "Apply!" he said. "It sounds pretty simple, but most people are afraid."

Whether or not an applicant is chosen, he says, going through that process is worthwhile. Extreme's goal is to foster community, and applying helps get new companies' names out, and exposes them to opportunities that may bear fruit later on.

As for who is likely to make the cut, Millstein says, the selection committee will be especially "looking at the quality of the team and technology talent," something he identifies as particularly important for younger companies with little experience in the marketplace.

Extreme Startups is accepting applications for this round of investment until August 9, 2013.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Sources: Dale Millstein, visiting associate, and Funil Sharma co-founder, Extreme Startups

Among the many projects coming out of the the innovators at MaRS Discovery District is a new set of three health technologies: an at-home tool for diagnosing sleep apnea, which is correlated with strokes and heart attacks (from ApneaDx Inc.); a new treatment for hypertension (from Medtronic of Canada Ltd.), and a tool to help determine the efficacy of breast cancer treatments (from Rna Diagnostics Inc.).

What those three companies have in common: they are the first set of participants to pass through MaRS's EXCITE program, which is aimed specifically at helping medical innovations succeed in the marketplace.

EXCITE (Excellence in Clinical Innovation and Technology Evaluation) was born out of a recognition that often the path to licensing a new medical technology isn't clearly correlated with marketplace success. Just because Heath Canada approves something, in other words, doesn't mean hospitals or clinics will find it useful--or buy it.  

Monique Albert, EXCITE's manager, says that companies are often surprised at the level of evidence they need to present in order to land sales of their products. Health Canada, she explains, explores the basic questions of product safety and efficacy, but doesn't consider other questions like the comparative cost or efficacy of a new treatment relative to others that are already available. Health Canada also doesn't examine the real-world implementation questions for new products--the precise questions that can determine whether a new product will be accepted clinically.

EXCITE works to bridge this gap by building those market-based questions into the process earlier on: it helps companies with medical devices in development collect the evidence they need on those matters while they are going through the basic licensing process, rather than only thinking of them after the fact.

"Innovators are often so focused on licensing," Albert says, "that they neglect this side of it."

MaRS is expected to do another "Call for Innovation" later this year. 

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Monique Albert, Manager, MaRS Excellence in Clinical Innovation and Technology Evaluation