In The News

As TIFF articles continue to pop up, this account of one reporter's experience with vegetarian cuisine in Toronto caught our eye.

 

Namrata Joshi, a reporter for Outlook India, was in town reviewing Bollywood films, but it was the city's vast vegetarian options that left a lasting impression.

 

"Every city lives in one’s memory through the first impressions. But, for a person who tries to be eclectic within the confines of vegetarianism, I have committed Toronto to memory as a foodie paradise," she writes. And it looks like she had the opportunity to explore several of our city's neighbourhoods as well. 

 

"I don’t think I’ve eaten such appetising variety in a matter of 15 days: tofu-filled, non-fried, rice-paper-wrapped spring rolls in the famed Vietnamese eatery, Pho Hung; the unprocessed, green wrap of Cruda’s Cafe; sweet potato fries and protein burgers at Fresh; soy Burrito from the Burrito Boyz; spinach and mushroom crepes at Crepe Cafe; pumpkin pie from Wanda’s Pie In The Sky and veggie hotdogs straight off the many carts. In the war of better coffee, I opted for the all-Canadian Tim Horton’s French Vanilla. Preferably with a snack of cream cheese bagel," she continues. 

 

"The most unusual food outing was at the West Indian Blue Water Curry and Roti. Mixing in the tastes of the immigrant Bihari population, this Caribbean dhaba has vada-like Polourie (remember the song Fulauri bina chatni kaise bani?) and dhall-roti on the menu. With chhole and pumpkin sabzi to complete the meal."

 

And the best? "The most delicious meal, of summer truffle pasta with grana padano cheese, was hosted by Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) at the Spoke Club. In late summer, fresh and organic fruits and veggies—from plums and peaches to delicious purple potatoes—could be spotted in the many farmers’ markets. TIFF decided to not move the one held every Thursday outside their prime venue—Roy Thomson hall."

 

Read Joshi's full "Toronto Diary" here. 

Original Source: Outlook India

A group of Canadian architects and not-profits have teamed up to tackle the issue of the city's aging postwar highrises. "The effort dubbed Tower Renewal that is taking root in Toronto proposes fixes on many fronts, from energy efficiency to economic development. If that renewal works, much of our biggest city, and the lives of more than a million Canadians, will be transformed for the better," an article in the Globe and Mail reports.

 

This fall, the City of Toronto launches "a new program to finance green renovations and repairs in these buildings," which coincides with a recent symposium hosted by he Toronto and Dutch consulate called "Enabling Cities to Grow Green." The symposium looked at new zoning changes designed to improve neighbourhoods, "many of them needy."

 

But there are a number of challenges. For one, says Graeme Stewart of ERA Architects in Toronto, Canadians need to realize the significance of our towers. Toronto has the second largest number of apartment towers in North America housing some one million people. They're not beautiful, modeled after European-style regional planning.

 

Today, these buildings are 50 years old and in need of maintenance. The maintenance isn't the problem, the locations are. "The issue is how they were placed in the city and in the landscape. Modernist planning deliberately kept them away from sources of employment, retail hubs and decent transit, and they were surrounded by vaguely defined spaces which created an unpleasant no-man’s-land condition," the article reports.

 

Tower Renewal will look to how European cities have rebuilt and renovated their apartment towers.

 

"To renew a neighbourhood of towers… it is important to activate the street with pedestrian-friendly retail and community uses – to make these car-oriented neighbourhoods more walkable and mixed." A similar sentiment was echoed in this week's Vital Signs report. 

 

Read the full story here. 

Original source: The Globe and Mail

Have you seen the Lovebots? These child-sized concrete robots have been popping up around the city in areas where people and companies have done good deeds. You can see them at Nadège Patisserie, Atomic Toybot, and various other locations. By the time the invasion is complete, 100 Lovebots will be spread around the city and surrounding area.

 

“The whole idea was that we’re not just faceless robots who don’t talk to each other on the bus. We all have big hearts. I wanted to make a symbol that represented the people in this city," creator Matthew Del Degan told Samaritan Magazine. 

 

Del Degan is in his fifth and final year of industrial design studies at OCAD and originally created a toy version of the Lovebot for a class project. He loved it so much, and the response was so positive, he decided to make it something bigger.

 

People submit "love letters" via Lovebot.com, an interactive map-based platform that not only displays the locations of current Lovebots, but also encourages others to do good deeds in the name of kindness and love. These love letters are used to decide where to place the Lovebots, in places where people have done charitable deeds or simply been good people. 

 

Del Degan has big plans. In another article, he talks about wanting to take the Lovebot invasion global, but in Samaritan Magazine he discusses his desire to make the Lovebots more of a permanent fixture in Toronto.

 

“There’s this giant robot I want to make. I can make it a monument in Toronto,” he says. “If you had a giant robot in your city, it would be a cool thing to come and see. I want the project at the core to be from Toronto because the cement robots sprung out of the city, the ‘cement jungle."

 

Read the full story here. 

Original source: Samaritan Mag

The fifth annual TEDxToronto conference took place October 26 at the Royal Conservatory of Music. It's one of the largest independently organized TEDx events in the world and, according to a highlight report that ran in BlogTO, approximately 1,000 hand-chosen delegates attended. 

 

Among the highlights listed, a flash mob ukulele performance by the Ukulele Gangsters, which took place at the beginning of the conference.

 

Highlights that would be of particular interest to Yonge Street readers included Darrell Bricker, the former Director of Research for the Prime Ministers office. "Bricker has always tried to use numbers to tell the story behind the scenes. He spoke at length about the manner in which power is shifting from the 416 to the 905, which is redefining both our city and the GTA as a whole," BlogTO wrote. "Another key subject he discussed was the shrinking Canadian birth rate, which is going to make it extremely tough to support the aging population."

 

Also, Joel MacCharles, who has "been helping to foster the farmer's market movement in Toronto. By teaching people the benefits of preserving food and eating locally, Joel has altered kitchens around Toronto with some of his 1,700 articles on food-related topics," the article says. 

 

Also Steve Mann, considered the "father of wearable computers" for his Google Glass-like inventions dating back to the 1970s. "Mann is a believer in wearing personal cameras to ensure his own safety in what he calls sousveillance," BlogTO summarizes. "Mann combined his discussion on safety with the shooting of Sammy Yatim, stating that videos taken by people outside the streetcar were a strong factor leading to the officer being charged. He also believes everyone should be able to record their entire life, because if buildings and businesses are allowed to record us at all times, why aren't we allowed to record them in return?"

 

Not mentioned in the highlight reel was Gabrielle Scrimshaw's talk about how now, more than ever, is the time to pay attention to Aboriginal issues as more than half the Aboriginal population is under 25 and gearing up to enter the workforce. Background on Scrimshaw and her work can be found in this feature Yonge Street ran in Decemebr of last year.

 

The talks will be made available in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the introductory video explaining Toronto's history is a must watch.

 

 

Read the full story here. 

Source: BlogTO

Speaker applications are now open for women interested in channeling "the bootstrap spirit of Silicon Valley to celebrate invention in all its forms." The event is the first of its kind, designed to "provide a platform or women to share ideas, inspired new modes of understanding and be a catalyst of change," the website says.

 

The conference will focus not just on technology and objects, but "also solutions to poverty; approaches to peacemaking; expressions of art, and, at times, our own lives." More then 150 independently organized TEDx events will take place simultaneously exploring the theme of "Invented Here." 

 

"The result: A truly global conversation—from San Francisco to São Paulo to Toronto's Distillery District—celebrating inventors and designers; thinkers and makers; local problem-solvers and global leaders."

 

The event will be held on December 5th, 2013 and the deadline to apply to be a speakers is October 15th, 2013.

 

For more information, click here. 

Source: TEDxDistilleryDistrictWomen

 

The latest tour guide we've come across advocating Toronto mentions some fresh reasons tourists should visit the city. The National, a publication based out of Abu Dhabi, notes that Toronto "regularly appears near the top of global indexes for livable and competitive cities" and mentions how we ranked eight "out of 20 entrepreneurial hotspots worldwide, according to Startup Genome's Startup Ecosystems Report 2012."

 

The National mentions traditional attractions such as the Toronto International Film Fest, but what caught our eye was its attention to details and emphasis on nature and culture. 
 

"This week is Canada’s National Forestry Week so go for a stroll," the article says. "Rouge Park has nature, farms and trails. Set to become Canada’s first national urban park, Rouge Park lies within an hour’s drive for 7 million people. Alternatively visit the Hockey Hall of Fame (hockey and lacrosse are the national sports of Canada) and follow that up with a visit to Tim Hortons, a coffee and doughnut chain founded by a Toronto Maple Leaf hockey player of the same name."
 

It also draws attention to our key industries. "The region is the No 3 financial services centre in North America, after New York and Chicago. The World Economic Forum has ranked Canada's banking system as the most sound in the world, six years in a row. The food and beverage industry also does well with the sector having $17 billion of sales in 2010. Designers, retailers and cost-efficient manufacturers in Toronto’s fast-moving fashion hub have helped increase Canadian apparel exports to the US more than fivefold since 1994."

 

Now, how about a game of ball? "Baseball fans might be interested to know that the Toronto Blue Jays are the only team in Major League Baseball to be located outside the United States. The Blue Jays won the World Series twice in their history - again the only team outside the US to do so."??

Read the full guide here. 

Original source: The National

The Toronto International Film Festival wrapped almost two weeks ago now, but the reviews and accounts continue to poor in. Buried among them, this story from the BBC that examines why TIFF matters.

 

"Since it was first held in 1976 the festival has grown exponentially, aided in part by its apposite positioning at what is widely considered the onset of the annual film awards season," BBC writes. 
 

The article states TIFF's position in September makes it a jumping point for film season. It continues, "A positive response in Toronto in September can get the ball rolling on an awards campaign that could result in that most coveted of accolades - an Academy Award - at the end of the following February."

"Toronto has become this extraordinary platform for many of the most serious films by some of the greatest film-makers in the world," says British actor Tom Hiddleston, who stars as Loki in the Avengers and Thor: the Dark World. 
 

That TIFF asks its "passionate," "intelligent," and "literate" audience to determine the top selection of films—and not, as is in other festivals, a jury—shows that this is a city dedicated to film, the article reports, and not the glamour and fashion of other film fests.

The "behemoth" size of the film festival both draws and dissuades its attendees. The challenge comes in making sure each film gets the proper promotion—and ensuring viewers arrive early enough to catch a screening. 

Read the full story here. 
Original Source: BBC

"Some people collect baseball cards and others collect coins. Martin Howard, however, collects century-old typewriters," writes Gizmodo Australia, which ran a story on the Torontonian's extensive collection. It features typewriters that look like "navigation instruments" and others that "look like scales."

 

The article selects a few from the collection that it deems the most beautiful. Of them is the Crandall – New Model from 1887, which resembles a sewing machine. It features decorative flower designs with gold accents, detailed by 28 keys that support 84 characters.

 

Another, the Lambert 1 from 1902, resembles a rotary dial phone. It's "ideal for the one-finger typist," the article writes. 

 

"The Martin Howard Collection includes dozens of rare and historically significant typewriters. It’s the largest of its kind in Canada and continues to grow as its owner comes across new pieces. While the typewriters sometimes travel for exhibitions, you can always see the whole collection on Howard’s website, and if you really want to you can probably buy them," Gizmodo reports.

 

Read the full story and check out Gizmodo's favourites here. Or, if you desire, view the entire Martin Howard collection on his website here. 

Original source: Gizmodo 

The final numbers of TIFF's economic impact on the City of Toronto for 2013 have yet to be released, but a news report that aired on CityTV reports that the festival generates anywhere from $130- to $170-million in revenue each year.

 

"It's one of the busiest times of the year," says Raffaele Bettalico, the owner of Zaza Espresso Bar in Yorkville, in the video. His business triples during TIFF, which wrapped its 11-day stint on Sunday. 

 

When you think of the impact, Peter Finestone, the film commissioner for the City of Toronto, says in the video, you need to think of its reach. This includes the restaurants rented for after parties, the limousine services, the increase in restaurant and bar traffic, money to buskers, hairdressers, bartenders, and so much more. 

 

"It's not just the stars spending money, out of town visitors alone spend $27-million," the report says.

 

Not mentioned in the report is the amount of press TIFF generates, making it tough to track down stories for this week's In The News section that weren't about the glitz and glamour of the world's largest open to the general public film festival. 

 

Watch the report here. 

Original source: CityTV

 

Toronto is on its way to earning a new nickname "Silicon Valley North," according to an article that ran in Global News. The article names numerous reasons. We've compiled the top five. 

 

 

This year alone, the article notes, Google "scooped up" University of Toronto startup DNN research, while Apple acquired data services startup Locationary. 

 

 

The city's ties with the surrounding Waterloo and Markham ("known for its slogan 'Canada's high-tech capital'") regions positions it as a central hub of entrepreneurial culture. 

 

Engineers
 

“If you think about Facebook, Google, all of the big Valley companies – most of them were started out of the universities. It’s the talent from the engineering schools that fuelled the tech scene in Silicon Valley,” says Payman Nilforoush, CEO of earned advertising platform inPowered, in the article. 

The article points out that major tech companies have noticed the talent coming out of schools such as the University of Toronto and University of Waterloo, noting that companies such as Google and Facebook have "made an effort to attract some of those graduates." 

Cost

Nilforoush notes that, "In his experience, relative to Silicon Valley, the cost of running a business in Toronto in most cases is nearly half."

Mentorship

"According to the Bank of Montreal, almost half of Canadian post-secondary students surveyed — 46 per cent — said they see themselves starting a business after graduation," the article reports. It states grads are relieved to find out they don't have to travel to Silicon Valley to receive the mentorship they desire due to a number of "boot camp" style programs stemming from Ontario universities. 
 

Read the full story here. 

Original source: Global News.

Last week, the University of Toronto was named among the top 20 universities in the world. This week, the school has turned up on another list, this time placing seventh in the top 15 colleges that are "just as great" as American schools, according to Policy MIC. 

 

Here's what the article said:

 

The University of Toronto is a public research university founded in 1827 by royal charter. Originally known as King's College, it took on its present name when it declared itself a secular institution in 1850. It is notable for the discovery of insulin and birthplace of stem cell research, and its physics department built the first practical electron microscope in 1938. The university's library system is the fourth largest in North America and holds over 10 million bound volumes. It is also home to the first Canadian collegiate fraternity, Zeta Psi.
 

Read the full list here. 

Original Source: Policy MIC

 

Forbes has compiled a list of the top cities for entrepreneurs, naming Toronto as a key region.

 

"Toronto is home to Canada's largest entrepreneur ecosystem and one of the largest in the world. Toronto entrepreneurs have their attention on new markets and outsourcing is increasingly popular. Some entrepreneurial success stories are Wave Accounting, FreshBooks, and Achievers," the article says.

 

Incidentally, Toronto was listed second, surpassed only by Silicon Valley.

 

Techvibes also recently weighed in, wondering if Toronto has what it takes "to become the entrepreneurial capital of the world."

 

"Toronto was recently ranked among the top five startup hubs globally, one of the most livable cities in the world, and the fourth-largest city in the North America in terms of population—but what does this all mean for community’s entrepreneurial future?" Techvibes wrote.

 

The article cites the city's multi-cultural, "diverse and entrepreneurial workforce" as a key component. "Universities in Ontario have a strong emphasis on research and innovation. They are producing the deepest talent pools in business, engineering and science with many of these graduates choosing to start their own businesses."

 

Government funding opportunities, accelerator programs, VC funding, and a "great ecosystem for young companies" are also cited as reasons why Toronto is a top city for entrepreneurs. 

 

Read the full story here. 

Original source: Forbes

The University of Toronto has ranked in the top 20 universities in the world for the second year in a row, climbing two spots from last year to tie with the University of Edinburg for 17th place. QS World Universities ranks international universities annually to determine the top educational institutions in the world.

 

"The University of Toronto has assembled one of the strongest research and teaching faculties in North America, presenting top students at all levels with an intellectual environment unmatched in breadth and depth on any other Canadian campus," says QS, directly quoting the University's profile. 

 

"U of T faculty co-author more research articles than their colleagues at any university in the U.S. or Canada other than Harvard. As a measure of impact, U of T consistently ranks alongside the top five U.S. universities whose discoveries are most often cited by other researchers around the world."

 

The University ranked with an overall score of 91.30 out of a possible 100. However, the school ranked 13th overall based on Academic reputation, which earned a score of 99.90. The University has been climbing steadily since 2007, when it was ranked 45th out of 100. This number climbed to 23rd by 2011, and broke the top 20 in 2012. 

 

Here is a list of the top 20 overall out of 100 for 2013/2014:

 

1) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

2) Harvard University

3) University of Cambridge

4) UCL (University College London)

5) Imperial College London

6) University of Oxford

7) Stanford University

8) Yale University

9) University of Chicago

10 = California institute of Technology (CALTECH)

10 = Princeton University

12) Eth Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)

13) University of Pennsylvania

14) Columbia University

15) Cornell University

16) Johns Hopkins University

17 = University of Edinburgh

17 = University of Toronto

19) Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne (EPFL)

19) King's College London (KCL)

 

McGill University in Montreal was not too far behind, with an overall ranking of 21. The University of British Columbia ranked 49th, the Université de Montréal ranked 92nd, and the University of Alberta ranked 96th.

 

Read the full list here. 

Original source: The Independent

In an article that ran in Troy Media detailing examples of regimes that sacrifice artistic freedom (think the imprisonment of two members of Pussy Riot, the "punk feminist protest collective that performs songs criticizing the oil economy, the Roman Catholic Church, and President Vladimir Putin himself"), Toronto received accolades for its place on the Bohemian Index.

 

The Bohemian Index is a ranking system designed by Richard Florida – a current professor at the University of Toronto and the head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management – back in 1957. 

 

The system looks at The Rise of the Creative Class (one of his many books exploring creative class and urban development) and ranks cities based on what he calls "high bohemians," people who work in the arts and technology, as well as LGBT people, and their role in economic development. 

 

"Clearly the freedom of artists to be openly critical of the state is an indicator of broader freedoms in society," writes Mike Robinson in the Troy Media piece. 

 

"Canadian academic Richard Florida has argued that high densities of creative class individuals correlate well with urban economic success. His Bohemian Index measures creative class concentrations among North American cities. A high Bohemian Index is associated with economic vibrancy and quality of life. Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal lead the country in this respect."

 

Read the full story here. 

Original Source: Troy Media

A man who got his start in entrepreneurship here in Toronto is speaking out about the very incident that changed his life. 

 

"It was a chance remark by a stranger in Toronto" that inspired Baljit Singh Sandhu to move back to India and start his own business, Worldwide Immigration Consultancy Services Limited (WWICS), says an article that ran in the Business Standard.

 

Sandhu had been living in Toronto and working as a land surveyor with Canadian companies after moving here from India. He lived in Canada for 10 years and throughout this time kept meeting people in his neighbourhood who were from all over the world, but were living here as illegal migrants. 

 

"It was due to sheer ignorance on the part of these educated people and silly mistakes in their applications that they were treated as illegal migrants," Sandhu says in the article. He started advocating on their behalf through Canada's special courts for refugees and the court noticed. "One day, an officer asked me why I didn't help the foreign arrivals before they landed in Canada as illegal migrants, instead of wasting the court's time and energy after they arrived," he says. 

 

"It was this remark that was to change the course of my life. I returned to India in September 1998 and set up WWICS in October that year."

 

WWICS conducts seminars to "disseminate information" about jobs, resettlement options, and the "benefits of complete and accurate documentation in migration," the article says, working with aspirants to choose locations that match their skills. The company now has 40 locations throughout India and around the world, including here in Toronto. The article reports that WWICS has helped 100,000 families migrate in its 15 years of operation. 

 

Read the full story here. 

Original source: Business Standard