research and innovation : Featured Stories

If Facebook can make you feel good about your relationships, why can't Rypple make you feel good about your workplace? This Toronto company is applying social media to the office.

With researchers from 37 countries, the Xerox Research Centre of Canada's "diversity of thought" strategy, adopted in 2004, has resulted in a 17 per cent year-over-year increase in the number of its patent ideas.

Imagine Guitar Hero for your brain: Toronto companies Wero Creative and Spongelab Interactive are creating computer games that are both fun and get kids learning too.

Artez Interactive is the behind-the-scenes company that helps fundraising campaigns take part in the social media revolution.

Forget about selling candy bars and bake-sales -- new company FundTunes was co-founded by Toronto entrepreneur Eduardo Alvarez, a Queen Street entrepreneur and gym-owner, who wanted a more healthy way to raise quick cash for charities.

In a time of shrinking ad sales, Markham-based Cognovision has developed an innovative way to count how many people are looking at digital ads in public spaces, all while maintaining privacy.

It's Net Change Week at MaRS and tech-biz thinker Don Tapscott is asking us to rethink how, well, just about everything operates. It's a new way of doing things, and Toronto's social innovators like Michelle Hamilton-Page at Toronto Public Health are helping lead the way.

Toronto's Bloor West Village Business Improvement Area recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. A world's first in 1970, BIAs have since spread across the city, country and around the world. The Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas' John Kiru explains how the idea started and spread.

Head Gear Animation are known for their ground-breaking work that mix up a variety of different animation techniques. Their latest venture is the first 3D commercial in Canada and its production required pioneering a new stereoscopic technique.

Toronto's Ethical Ocean, a new e-commerce startup, is trying to change the way we consume by offering ethical choices. With lofty goals and considerable business ambition, they might just do it, one purchase at a time.

Ajax-based Scientists in School brings the fun into science education and hopes to breed a new generation of innovators from an early age.

The De Miguels come from a family of Argentinean winemakers who grew up helping out on their family's Woodbridge winery. They decided to bring that experience to the city, opening a new D.I.Y. urban winery that teaches Torontonians how to make premium booze. 

The medium is part of the message for Why Not Theatre, an innovative and growing Toronto-based theatre company that uses both technology and the city's global, diverse connections to produce contemporary work.

Downtown Toronto's Salvation Army Gateway shelter has turned a liability -- its dirty laundry -- into a revenue source and in the process given homeless men steady employment and work experience.

Angela Wong-Liao has made networking easy by creating the Power Networking Group, a keep-it-simple platform that allows business people from the 905 and 416 area to meet once a month and connect, all without the usual fees.