Small Businesses : Innovation + Job News

Attention digital media innovators: there's a new award that might have your name on it. The first annual Moonshot Awards, organized by the Canadian Digital Media Network, are now open for nominations.

"There are companies out there with great potential and great skill sets," Kevin Tuer, managing director of CDMN, told us this week, "and sometimes we don't celebrate them as much as we should."

The awards were launched in an effort to help rectify that reticence and shine a light on homegrown innovations in digital media. Awards will be distributed in four categories: dynamic company (for demonstrating "the greatest increase in productivity through the adoption of digital media"), globalizer (for increasing international interest in and support for Canadian digital media), innovator, and overall company of the year (chosen from nominees for the first three categories).

Tuer says CDMN hopes to see applications from companies of all kinds. The goal is to acknowledge companies that are making the most of the opportunities digital media offers, or creating new opportunities entirely. "Small companies can make a great impact as well," he points out.

Nominations close on April 12, 2013.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Kevin Tuer, Managing Director, Canadian Digital Media Network

Though we're often told that it doesn't take much technology to create and run a business--even ordinary laptops can be very powerful tools--there are some ideas that require very robust computing to get off the ground.

High performance computing (HPC), as it's called, relies on the most powerful computers yet devised to process information that run-of-the-mill machines cannot. There's a real barrier for entrepreneurs who have ideas that rely on HPC, however, since the computers aren't the kind you can find at the local Apple store or Best Buy, nor are the costs the kind you can cover with a small business line of credit.

Enter the Ontario Centres for Excellence, a non-profit that helps academics and industry partners collaborate on commercialization projects, acting as a facilitator and co-investor. OCE runs a high performance computing program that makes researchers and supercomputers available to participating entrepreneurs and is currently accepting applications. Interested small- and medium-sized businesses can submit their research proposals by April 30.

"I'm looking for companies that are already exceptionally savvy," says Ron Van Holst, director of research development for the program, "but are looking to be able to do something…that can't be done right now."

Currently, he explains, there's a real deficit in the availability of HPC outside of academia. Many entrepreneurs, as a result, simply aren't familiar with the technology and what it can do. For that reason, Van Holst says OCE has found, "our best success with companies that have been launched out of universities," as the entrepreneurs are more likely to have been exposed to HPC already. That's also why OCE is speaking with some Toronto-area incubators, and hoping to expand the reach of high powered computing further in the coming years.

OCE is looking specifically for companies that want to work on agile computing (which speeds up the pace at which computer programs can run), medical applications, and improving infrastructure (like local transit systems).

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Ron Van Holst, Director, Research Development,High Performance Computing, Ontario Centres of Excellence

Lots of interesting opportunities have cropped up lately. Here are a few of the most promising:

Grocery giant Loblaw is currently looking for a senior developer and a more junior developer to work within its new eCommerce group. Both hires will work on the company's new product platform, set to launch later in 2013.

The Pembina Institute is Canada's best-known clean energy think tank. The non-profit is seeking a communications lead with at least two years of professional experience.

Ecommerce start-up Shopcastr, who we last wrote about in the summer, is hiring a UI/UX designer, to spearhead their design projects. Unusual skil required: "Can make a bitchin’ button."

For those with a good appetite, Postmedia is looking for someone to do front- and back-end development of their new experiment in food publishing called Gastropost.

Also on the hunt for a developer is TalentEgg, the innovative job board that matches up employers and students. They are looking especially for someone with PHP skills.

If the outdoors is more your speed, Evergreen is looking for an assistant camp director. Their camp is called Green City Adventure Camp and it focuses on the intersection of the environment with the city.

Finally--and also good for the nature lovers--the Riverdale Food Working Group is hoping to find someone with just the right energy to serve as a community animator and raise local awareness of food and food security issues.

Are you hiring or do you know of an innovative job opportunity in Toronto? Email Yonge Street's innovation and jobs editor Hamutal Dotan to let her know. 

Recently the federal government announced that it will be supporting two dozen innovation projects in and around Toronto, via the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.

"This investment will boost business innovation, skills and product development in the Toronto area," said Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear when announcing the investment, "creating new full-time jobs and greater economic diversity within the region."

FedDev's contribution to the projects comes via a variety of the agency's funds, and will total approximately $18 million, roughly $13 million of the total investment is in the form of repayable contributions. The recipient projects have leveraged this government money to generate up to $55 million more from private sector investors. According to FedDev estimates, the projects are expected to lead to the creation of more than 800 local jobs.

A sampling of investment recipients: 

• Education software company Top Hat Monocle, which also closed an $8 million round of funding in the summer, and anticipates creating 30 jobs over the next two years.


• Medical diagnostic start-up Xagenic, which is working on a lab-free platform that will enable rapid testing for infectious diseases.


• The Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow's ICT (Information Communication Technology) Skills, which will use the funds to reach out to youth and encourage interest in science and technology careers. This investment will enable them to reach nearly 30,000 more students.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Office of Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology

Welcome to Yonge Street's first ever job round-up, where we highlight a few of the most interesting job opportunities available in Toronto right now.

Community-oriented food organization Not Far From the Tree helps homeowners collect fruit from the trees in their yards, and sends much of the harvest to local agencies like food banks and shelters. NFFTT is looking for a project director to start this spring. It is the organization's primary leadership position.

Also for those with a green thumb, the Toronto Botanical Garden is looking for a new executive director to oversee all programs and fundraising. Candidates should have a background in horticulture as well as organizational leadership.

FreshBooks makes easy invoicing and accounting tools for small businesses and freelancers. The company is seeking an Android developer who will "make FreshBooks a world-class Android development centre."

Another organization on the hunt for a mobile developer: the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants. The company needs someone to develop an Android and potentially also an iOS educational app. The app(s) will explain the benefits of citizenship to youth ages 16-24.

MaRS Discovery District, Toronto's best-known innovation centre, is hiring an investment manager for the Investment Accelerator Fund, which puts funds into early-stage technology companies. This business development opportunity is a mid-level position.

Major design firm DIALOG (550+ staff) does work in urban design, interior design, architecture, and engineering. They are seeking a graphic designer to work in their Communications and Creative Services departments.

The Ontario Power Authority is looking for specialist to help support their Conservation Fund, which is OPA's "vehicle for the incubation of innovative approaches to energy conservation and demand side technologies."

Finally, ebook and ereader company Kobo is looking for a front-end web developer to work on merchandising and marketing materials.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan

Ontario's new premier Kathleen Wynne gave residents a sense of her vision for the province via the Speech from the Throne, delivered last week at Queen's Park by Lieutenant Governor David Onley. As is typical for such speeches, it mostly focused on the broad strokes and big picture, but a few specific policies were included. Among them: an announcement that Ontario will be getting a new, $300 million venture capital fund.

The fund will aggregate money from several sources, starting with $50 million that will be coming from the province. The new Liberal minority government, Wynne wrote in her speech, is eager to "work with financial institutions and government agencies to ensure that small- and medium-sized enterprises have access to the capital they need to expand." The federal government will contribute an as-yet unspecified amount of money via its Venture Capital Action Plan (which has a total of $400 million available for dispersement nationally), and the remaining funds will come from private sector partners.

The new fund will be based on an earlier one, the Ontario Venture Capital Fund (OVCF), which dates back to the 2006 provincial budget. It is a "fund of funds" model--that is, a fund that is itself composed of several different venture capital funds. Full details are still being worked out, but the government anticipates that this venture capital fund will in turn attract more than $4 billion in investment.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Ministry of Research and Innovation

In the years since compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) and light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs started appearing on hardware store shelves, we've all gotten used to the idea of switching to more energy efficient lightbulbs in our homes. Now, in several jurisdictions around the world, the old incandescent bulbs are being phased out by law. In Canada this process will culminate during 2014, as bulbs become subject to new energy efficiency regulations.

Hoping to help consumers become even more efficient, three University of Toronto alumni are preparing to launch a new bulb called NanoLight. It's a new form of LED bulb devised by applied science and engineering grads Gimmy Chu, Christian Yan, and Tom Rodinger.

It took the three entrepreneurs "probably about two or three years" to settle on the NanoLight's design, Chu told us over the phone from California. It uses 12 watts of energy to create the same light as a traditional 100 watt light bulb. A NanoLight will, he says, provide 30,000 hours of illumination. (You can learn a bit more about the technical details in this video.)

The three founders are in the last days of a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to help them launch the product--a campaign which has already raised more than 10 times the $20,000 they were aiming for. "The last thing you want to do is give up equity," Chu says when asked about choosing to crowdsource their start-up funding rather than pursue more established investment routes. With investors potentially calling the shots, Chu and his co-founders were worried, the entrepreneurs might "end up doing work you don't believe in."

The first NanoLights are expected to ship in May, and the trio's next goal is to build up momentum and generate orders. After that, Chu says, they hope to expand the product line to include dimmable bulbs, as well as bulbs in a range of colours and to fit different sockets. There is also "a solar product" already in the works, though Chu is saving the details of that for now.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Gimmy Chu, co-founder, NanoLight

Last year, after concluding that "Canada is weak at business innovation," the Conference Board of Canada announced that it was establishing a Centre for Business Innovation (CBI). The new centre's goal: "To learn why Canada is not a leader in business innovation…and to formulate public policies that will successfully stimulate business innovation." The CBI is hosting an innovation summit in Toronto later this month, at which they'll unveil the results of their first major study examining how Canada fares when it comes to financing innovation.

That report's key message: Canada has a large and strong public equity market, but unfortunately also "has a serious issue with innovation commercialization." As a nation we aren't particularly strong when it comes to riskier investments, in particular when it comes to financing research and development in a business context: "Canadian-based businesses would need to more than double their annual spending on R&D…to equal the business R&D intensity of the United States," the report finds.

In order to make progress, the report goes on, Canadian innovators "need practice tools to help them explain to investors both their innovative activity (e.g. innovation metrics) and the way it makes money (e.g. the business model and financial projections)." In short, we need to smooth the path to commercialization, and in order to do that we need to both provide new financial tools for innovation and develop a more sophisticated marketing culture around innovation. It's not that we lack the capacity for this--as the report points out, "Canada successfully funds risky ventures in mining and oil and gas development."--But we need a broader culture of business innovation, and Canadian innovators need to improve their capacity to sell innovation to potential investors. The CBI will turn to the practicalities of accomplishing that in future reports.

"Financing Innovation by Established Businesses in Canada" is available online [PDF] (free, but registration required).

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Conference Board of Canada

The municipal government unveiled a new economic development plan at City Hall last week. It hopes the plan will improve conditions for businesses that are thinking of setting up shop in Toronto as well as businesses that are already here, but face bureaucratic hurdles to success. Titled Collaborating for Competitiveness: A Strategic Plan for Accelerating Growth and Job Creation in Toronto, the plan is very much interested in sweating the small stuff: its focus is on streamlining zoning processes, maintaining infrastructure, and raising our city's profile--the nitty-gritty, daily details.

Among the report's key recommendations: 

- Reduce the time it takes to review development applications for employment uses.
- Maintain the current commitment to reducing the ratio of residential to non-residential property tax rates.
- Request the Province to conduct property tax assessments based on current (employment) use rather than highest market value use. Effectively, this would stop the assessment process from penalizing developers who want to retain property for employment uses rather than building lucrative condos.
- Conduct outreach "to identify and assist Toronto-based manufacturers seeking global product mandates."
- Establish a wider network of incubators and accelerators.

The ideas contained in this report are smaller-scale than ones found in some other recent economic development strategies. In 2010, the Toronto Board of Trade issued a sweeping report that was much broader in scope, for instance, including recommendations on everything from environmental policy to attracting immigrants. The emphasis on employment land use in the City report is well-timed, as Toronto is also in the middle of an Official Plan review, and a consideration of how to preserve employment lands in the face of increasing development.

Collaborating for Competitiveness will be debated at the next city council meeting, on February 20 and 21. The full text of the report is available online [PDF].

Writer: Hamutal Dotan

The Business Development Bank of Canada wants to give you money--one of you, at least. The BDC has just opened applications for its 2013 Young Entrepreneur Award.

Canadian entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 35 are eligible to enter. Eleven finalists will be selected, one from each province plus one from the territories, by a panel of judges in each jurisdiction. Those finalists will move on to compete for the grand prize of $100,000, and a second prize of $25,000 in consulting services, with the winners chosen by the public, who will vote on BDC's website.

The BDC Young Entrepreneur Awards are meant specifically for businesses at a critical juncture; judges are looking for "turning point projects that will propel small- and medium-sized businesses to new growth," BDC explains in a video guide to the awards.

To apply, you must create a short original video (just one to two minutes, no fancy camera work expected) explaining your turning point, and your approach to tackling it effectively. There's no specific constraint on what counts: it could be a new marketing strategy, an equipment purchase, or some advice that will help set up export operations. The key is that it's something that you haven't been able to do yet, but that the judges are convinced could mark a fundamental moment of growth for your company.

All applications must be received by noon on April 2.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Business Development Bank of Canada

Innovation requires, first of all, innovators: people with the creativity and talent to come up with plans and projects, products and services, that hadn't quite occured to anyone else before. And innovation in the globalizing world requires increased flexibility, knowledge of foreign markets, and the capacity to adapt to changing technologies and circumstances.

Enter a new immigration initiative from the federal government. Announced last week, the Start-Up Visa Program is a pilot project that will run for five years, with 2,750 visas available each year for immigrant entrepreneurs and their family members.  The goal is to attract entrepreneurs and entice them to start new businesses -- and by extension creating new jobs -- here in Canada. To be eligible, applicants must have some funding from Canadian backers lined up: a minimum of $75,000 from an angel investor or $200,000 from a venture capital firm. If accepted, applicants will become permanent residents. The Start-Up Visa Program is the successor to the defunct Federal Entrepreneur Program, a previous immigration stream that the government halted in 2011.

"Recruiting dynamic entrepreneurs from around the world will help Canada remain competitive in the global economy," said Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney when announcing the program. In order to help support the program, the government will be working with Canada’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) and the National Angel Capital Organization (NACO), who will help line up potential investors.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Ministry of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism

Entrepreneurs are, by definition, people with new ideas they want to bring forward in the marketplace. Knowing what you want to create and sell, however, doesn't necessarily mean you know how to go about selling it.

Enter a new partnership between MaRS Discovery District’s information technology, communications and entertainment practice (ICE) and e-commerce agency Demac Media. Last month, they launched a new advisory service to help startups handle e-commerce effectively.

The goal, says ICE's go-to-market lead Nathan Monk, is "to close the gap between what we're seeing developed and what is coming to market." That is, right now e-commerce's capacities often outstrip the uses to which new companies put it. "A lot of the time," he explains, no matter how great their products or ideas are, startups "haven't actually done the customer development. They need the methodology to reduce the risk of failure."

"Canadians will almost double their mobile spent…by the end of this year," Monk says, but many startups aren't well positioned to offer their customers an optimal e-commerce experience.

The new advisory services (many of which are exclusive to MaRS clients) include office hours for clients to discuss potential strategies with Demac Media experts, workshops for tackling topics such as e-commerce interfaces, and public discussions on broader subjects like email and seasonal marketing. A meet-up group is now online for those interested in the latter.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Nathan Monk, Go-to-Market Lead, ICE practice, MaRS Discovery District

Globalive founder Anthony Lacavera announed recently that he'll be stepping down as chairman and CEO of WIND Mobile, one of that company's key holdings, and will focus his energy on a new venture capital project, Globalive Capital.

WIND Mobile was launched by Globalive in 2008, with financial backing from Orascom Telecom, and reports that it currently has more than 600,000 subscribers across Canada, making it the fourth-largest mobile provider in Canada after "big three," Rogers, Telus, and Bell.

“As an entrepreneur, my vision was to ignite change across the wireless landscape in Canada, bringing more competition, better prices and superior service to Canadians...[a]nd that is exactly what we did,” Lacavera said in a press statement, explaining his reasons for leaving now.

The financial details haven't been made public, but Orascom will purchase Lacavela's shares from him, pending regulatory approval. Orascom is an Egyptian company, but recent changes to legislation allow foreign ownership of telecoms with less than 10 per cent of the market.

A timeline hasn't been announced yet, but Globalive Capital will launch in "early 2013," the company says. It will focus specifically on "entrepreneurs developing early-stage technology, media, and telecom companies." Further details are so far scarce, but more are promised soon.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Globalive

The Conference Board of Canada has announced it will host an innovation summit in Toronto in February. The summit is part of the board's plan to support businesses in their efforts to become more innovative. The Innovation for the Corporation summit is a two-day event that will seek to better understand why Canada isn't as strong a leader in innovation as many think we could and should be.

"We've seen the report cards that put us in a declining space...our innovation performance is ranked 21st," explained Bruce Good, executive director of CBC's Centre for Business Innovation, in a video announcing the summit. As several indices all show that same slip in our comparative success in innovation, Good goes on, "the time for change is now."

He believes infrastructure, stable government, sound fiscal management capabilities, and a lot of latent energy and enthusiasm are raw resources ready to be tapped. The summit will focus on four key areas to help the business community make the most of those strengths, and understand specific areas where we're falling behind: funding mechanisms, people and skills, business strategies, and what has to change for us to do better. Speakers range from the presidents of several major corporations -- IBM, Cisco, and GE, for instance --to researchers and the leads at young startups who are finding success in their own innovative smaller businesses.

The Innovation for the Corporation summit takes place on February 19-20 at the Fairmont Royal York. Online registration is now open and early bird fees available until January 18.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Conference Board of Canada

The Ontario government created a non-partisan advisory body called the Jobs and Prosperity Council in early 2012 to help develop strategies for long-term productivity and growth. In December, that 14-member council issued its report [PDF], which included a series of recommendations for supporting and enhancing Ontario's productivity. Of particular interest was recommendation number six: that the government "accelerate the commercialization of new products, ideas and services in Ontario that can compete globally."

To that end, and following a specific action proposed by the council, Ontario recently announed that it will be testing out a Commercialization and Innovation Voucher system. The voucher will, according to a press statement issued by Minister of Economic Development and Innovation Brad Duguid, "provide eligible small and medium-sized enterprises with resources to work with research institutions to address challenges and improve their productivity, performance and competitiveness."

Though details aren't yet available, the pilot project is meant to facilitate collaboration between academics and smaller companies through the creation of a marketplace of sorts, a mechanism by which those smaller companies can "access [the] innovation, productivity and commercialization services" that a growing number of research institutions are developing.

The minister's office was unable to provide us with information about the program's specifics, but existing voucher programs in Nova Scotia and Alberta may provide some insight into what the Ontario government has in mind. In those provinces, vouchers range in value from $15,000 to $50,000 each, and businesses with fewer than 51 employees in Alberta, or 100 in Nova Scotia, are eligible to apply.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Office of Brad Duguid, Minister of Economic Development and Innovation