By: Fatema Fatakdawala Backbone magazine (Business, Technology, Lifestyle) hosted a live pitch off event yesterday (May 15, 2012) at the OCE Discovery 12 trade show in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The competition which took place in the Gowlings Theatre was the culmination of an innovation contest in which 10 finalists each got 10 minutes to convince a panel [...]
By: Mobolade Ekujumi RIC Centre is proud to announce that we will be giving students a chance to participate in our annual competition Innovator Idol on Wednesday June 13th 2012 at the Noel Ryan Auditorium – 301 Burnhamthorpe W, Mississauga, ON. What is Innovator Idol? Innovator Idol is a competition modeled as a hybrid of [...]
By: Saadia Muzaffar Remember those scenes in old TV shows where factory workers wearing hair nets stood by conveyor belts and stacked food products such as chocolates, muffins, cookies, even chocolates by hand? Make way for today’s robots. At the recent site tour of ABB Robotics in Brampton, Innovate>Forward attendees watched numerous robots in action, [...]
By: Startup Nation As you develop strategies and plans to grow your existing business, you need to think about your business exit strategy. Are you trying to establish a lifestyle business that generates income without plans to sell it in the future, or are you building equity in a business that you may want to [...]
By: Fatema Fatakdawala I recently had the opportunity to attend a hands-on workshop for the development of mobile app strategies at the Centre for Social Innovation Annex in downtown Toronto. The workshop consisted of a brief presentation by the award-winning mobile developer James Eberhardt followed by some interesting discussions in breakout groups of six people [...]
By: Allen Porstner-Scheuka So you’ve come up with a product you know could be a game changer. The tough work of coming up with new ideas, designing and testing with prototypes, is only the beginning. As an advanced manufacturer, how do you successfully launch new products into the market? During the ever-critical commercialization stage, several [...]
By Kelvin Ngan @ MaRS Some weeknights, I think of my college “glory days” and realize there are certain things in life I just can’t handle anymore. In the words of Roger Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon, “I’m too old for this stuff.” What stuff you say? Things like: Eating an extra-large pizza at 11:00 p.m. [...]
By: Saadia Muzaffar Practical and relevant to the day to day operations of a manufacturing facility, Innovate>Forward continues to give advanced manufacturing companies the kind of “walk away and apply today” tips, tools and advice they need in order to successful pilot a new idea through to commercialization. At the April 17th session, 30 guests [...]
By: Fatema Fatakdawala The concept of marketing has changed its face very rapidly in the last few years. The principles behind marketing, however, are universal; keep your customers happy and loyal to your product/service. The golden rule has always been to gain new clients through recommendations and praise from your existing clients. You have scored the goal [...]
By James Burchill The International Data Corporation out of Framingham, Massachusetts just released information on smart connected devices for last year along with predicted growth patterns for them through to 2016 (four years). ‘Smart connected’ means any device capable of running applications and of connecting to the Internet. This includes smart phones, tablets, and other [...]
Like its popular TV show namesake, Innovator Idol IV is a reality-based contest in which winners are selected by a live audience. “Idol is just one example of how we use creative marketing to connect star innovators with motivated investors,” explained Pam Banks, Executive Director at the RIC Centre. “Because of events like Idol III, [...]
By: Neil Menezes How has one company managed to increase productivity across virtually every industry—automotive, plastics, metal fabrication, foundry, electronics, pharmaceutical food and beverage? Look no farther than ABB, a world leader in power and automation technologies. Although industrial robots have played a role in manufacturing for over 25 years, ABB Robotics has incorporated innovations [...]
By: Rob Lewis The Governments of Canada and Ontario, with IBM and a consortium of seven universities led by the University of Toronto and Western University, today announced they are collaborating to establish a new, Ontario-based $210 million dollar research and development initiative. The initiative is expected to create 145 new highly skilled jobs in Ontario. IBM will [...]
By: Fatema Fatakdawala Today’s Growing Your Business Breakfast with the Experts session will focus on the interesting but elusive topic of Leveraging Your Research Dollars. To provide a better understanding of this area for our entrepreneurs, let us turn to Michael G.H. McGeary et al.’s publication on how to leverage non federal research dollars. In [...]
By: Saadia Muzaffar R.E. Morrison Equipment manufactures some of the most innovative and efficient industrial and dental vacuum systems in North America. But in order to move into the global marketplace, President Ray Ralph was determined to make their BaseVac dental pump even better—and more competitive—by creating a more streamlined, “stackable” design. A prototype for [...]
By: Fatema Fatakdawala As we approach the month of May 2012, entrepreneurs should mark their calendars for the following two exciting conferences/trade shows that the RIC Centre will be participating in. May 11 – Toronto Entrepreneur’s Conference (TEC) 2012 7:30am - 5pm at Hammerson Hall, Living Arts Centre, Mississauga, ON The TEC is designed to provide both emerging and [...]
By: Fatema Fatakdawala In a recent speech to the Toronto Board of Trade (TBOT), Professor David Naylor, President of the University of Toronto discussed why the Toronto Region is Canada’s innovation leader. The short answer to this question was a phenomenon known as multiplicative convergence. He explained using three examples. 1) Toronto’s Food and Beverage sector is the largest in Canada, [...]
By Knowlton Thomas Pair is a new iPhone app designed to harden the fragility of long-distance relationships. Co-launched by Oleg Kostour, a Canadian entrepreneur who moved to Silicon Valley to participate in Y-Combinator, Pair offers a slew of couple-oriented features such as “thumb-kissing.” Described as “the easiest way to stay in touch with the person you love,” Pair [...]
By: Fatema Fatakdawala In answer to this question, representatives from several small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) gathered together last week at two workshops in Mississauga and Brampton hosted by the RIC Centre to assess and measure the outcomes of digital technology adoption on productivity. This 2-day workshop served two purposes; 1) improving the understanding of the link [...]
By: Saadia Muzaffar Taking a great idea through an objective evaluation is a critical step in the innovation process. It could be an idea for a new product, or for a company like Xerox, ideas for new materials. For Sheridan engineering students recently, it was a Formula One racing car. Once your idea is technically [...]
By: Nathan Monk JFK once said: “One person can make a difference, and every person should try.” For me, one such person is Lew Lim, entrepreneur and President of MaRS client MedicLights Research Inc. Lew is building a medical technology business with the potential to profoundly impact the lives of those affected with HIV. MedicLights [...]
The Sharpe-Way Group accepts the 2011 Brampton Outstanding Business Achievement Award of Distinction for Community Contribution By: The Brampton Economic Development Office The RIC Centre is a proud sponsor of Brampton Outstanding Business Achievement Awards (BOBAA) which publicly recognizes and honours local businesses that have demonstrated a passion for excellence. Recipients are selected from six categories: Advanced Manufacturing, Food [...]
By: Neil Menezes “Wow! VentureStart helped me double my company’s seed capital and gave me the tools to make my business a success!” Last month, our Executive Director came to us with fabulous news. We were just approved to coordinate a program on behalf of the RIC’s in the ONE Network that would provide up [...]
By: Darcy Bachert The pressure to commercialize innovation in Canada is fierce, competition for money is often tight and the path to success requires a completely different skillset then universities and academics are generally equipped with. The process of taking a technology from the lab to the market requires the mind of an experienced entrepreneur. [...]
By: Saadia Muzaffar You’re an entrepreneur–inventor who’s come up with a good idea. Chances are, you’re not going to be very objective when evaluating whether or not your idea’s going to be a success once it hits the market. Sure, you’ll think it’s a great idea—the best you’ve ever had. But how do you get [...]
Training workshops for increasing productivity through digital technology Looking to improve your company’s overall performance—and competitiveness? If you can capitalize on the productivity benefits of digital technology, you could be well on your way to additional profits. Free training workshops will focus on building productivity awareness and encouraging SMEs (in any sector with 50 or [...]
By: Andrew Maxwell As a follow up to the RIC Centre’s Growing Your Business Series this month on Business Valuation, here are a few tips to determine the value of your business before it achieves revenues. It is often necessary to attract equity capital at this stage – which raises the question – how much equity [...]
By: Neil Menezes Sure, you’ve figured out that technically, your idea for a new product or process will work. But idea evaluation doesn’t stop there. Now you need to ask yourself, “Is our idea something our customer wants?” “Will employees will find this new process easy to use?” or “What can we do that would [...]
By: Ana Karen Palacios Most individuals regard social media as a powerful networking channel and content generator. Across the Web, commercial and personal websites push these technologies to reach their online community, and establish a feedback loop with their users. But, what about entrepreneurs engaged in fields unrelated to communications? Social media stands as a [...]
By Knowlton Thomas Ottawa-based startup Shopify, an ecommerce platform used to create online stores, today announced the winner of its “Build-A-Business Competition.” Over 3,000 entrepreneurs created online stores last year in an effort to seize the vast opportunities of e-commerce—and compete for $500,000 in cash and prizes. Combined, the businesses generated more than $12 million [...]
By: Fatema Fatakdawala The average business owner miscalculates the value of his/her business 59% of the time according to a Maryland based valuation firm, Spardata. Historically, businesses are evaluated by comparison to other businesses in the same industry. However, in truth, this technique is faulty since every business is unique and its value must be [...]
By: Saadia Muzaffar It’s the classic story of a great idea falling by the wayside. A pharmaceutical company was set to launch in a new direction until the legal department squelched the idea because the idea was seen as going against the company’s standard operating procedures (SOPs). Unfortunately, the SOPs were written for a different [...]
By: Darcy Bachert As a technology partner in Canada’s life science industry, Prolucid is always pleased with reports that demonstrate strong activity in this sector. Universal access to healthcare, an aging population, and spectacular developments in pharmaceutical and medical technologies have together produced a healthcare industry in Canada that’s booming. Canada’s highly diversified medical device [...]
By: Omer Gulzar To add credibility to my last blog, I had the opportunity to attend the RIC Tech Leaders Network session on the “Art and Science of Imaging” hosted at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada, (which I should mention is the perfect facility to house such an event with their extensive material research division). Jason [...]
By James Taylor Two reports published by the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) demonstrate that patent filing is back on the rise and is of increasing value to stakeholders. This is interesting news for biotech startups and other companies who’s value is often determined by their cutting edge intellectual property. Each year, WIPO publishes an [...]
By: Omer Gulzar Over this past week I had an assignment to present a quick overview of imaging technology to key stakeholders in our company. The following few words are my attempt to share the world of imaging technology as I see it over the next few decades. After all the research I performed into [...]
By: Saadia Muzaffar Anyone can toss about ideas. But not everyone—or every company culture—is able to generate innovative and practical ideas that are truly game-changing. I asked Tim Scott, RIC’s Entrepreneur in Residence, who has 28 years of experience in the manufacturing sector, to simplify the difference between an innovative idea and just any simple change: [...]
By: Rob Lewis Today on Silicon Valley Watcher Tom Foremski writes about The Dirty Little Secret of Silicon Valley’s Startup Boom. Thousands of startups are being launched with dreams of making a difference in the world. Yet Angels and VCs are selling them off to the big corporations in what are essentially engineering talent acquisitions. [...]
By: Fatema Fatakdawala With nine out of ten executives reporting that it is near impossible to innovate in today’s economic climate, it is clear that a new model needs to be put in place to drive economic growth and improve quality of life. Around the world, companies are adopting new approaches to innovation. General Electric [...]
By Tedd Campbell Benjamin Franklin was an innovator extraordinaire. His noteworthy achievements in politics, diplomacy, science, business, technology, music, literature, and other diverse fields bear witness to how effective he was at pushing the envelope. Ben’s inventions have improved the lives of millions—probably billions—since he introduced them more than two centuries ago. These inventions include [...]
By Knowlton Thomas Shove over, smartphones. Tablets are quickly crowding the enterprise. A new report by Infinite Research suggests that, over the next 5 years, global growth for tablets in enterprises is pegged at an astonishing compound annual rate of 48%. This will see 2011′s 13 million units shipped rise to an impressive 96 million units [...]
By Tim Scott Ask any advanced manufacturing company, “Is innovation important to you?” and they’re certain to answer, “Yes, it’s a priority.” Many, however, have difficulty with the steps needed to deliberately bring an idea to fruition as well as the culture required to encourage innovation in the first place. It takes much more than [...]
By Saadia Muzaffar @ThisTechGirl The most common hurdle that all start-ups are concerned about is the lack of resources. Typically money and/or talent. And a lot of start-ups claim to have fizzled out because the right amount of capital and or talent wasn’t injected at the right time. And while that may be very true, [...]
By Knowlton Thomas In 1911, cars and the telephone were new, bleeding-edge technology. And back then, like at any single point in history, guessing what any aspect of the world would be like in a century’s time was a daunting—nay, impossible—task. Still, American civil engineer John Elfreth Watkins Jr. attempted just that. He wrote an [...]
By Pam Banks Jobs and the economy are a prevalent topic of discussion at dinner tables and board room tables around the country. Local Mississauga MP’s joined a round table discussion with Hon. Peter Van Loan, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and local business leaders recently. The conversation focused on how [...]
By Omer Gulzar To kick off the New Year, Savino DiPasquale, Vice-President of Business Development and Corporate Planning for GSK, provided an overview of pharmaceutical industry trends from the perspective of a leading global multi-national firm. This event was hosted by Life Science Ontario at the GlaxoSmithKline headquarters in Mississauga Ontario on the 18 of January. [...]
By Neil Menezes Looking to grow your advanced manufacturing business? All you need is a good idea for a new product or way of doing something differently. It’s not nearly as easy as it sounds. But for the approximately 30 advanced manufacturers gathered last week for the first of six Innovate > Forward sessions, many [...]
By Marielle Voksepp You’ve probably made certain assumptions about your target market. How do you validate them? At last week’s Entrepreneurship 101 lecture, market research experts Usha Srinivasan of MaRS and Daniel Colquhoun of Frost & Sullivan introduced the basics of market research and analysis. Their presentation covered the following topics: concept evaluation, packaging and pricing, messaging [...]
Arqam Iqbal Pasha The Young Entrepreneur Challenge hosted by the Digital Enterprise Management Society at UTM was a treat for both entrepreneurs and students. Stretching over two days, this event brought the brightest minds together and gave young entrepreneurs the opportunity to both learn and connect. Ian Carnivalle, a participant of the YEC 2012 and [...]
By Jasmeet Duggal @jasmeetduggal Bright entrepreneurial minds (from marketing, programming, design, and business) and industry keynote speakers came out in full force at this weekend’s Young Entrepreneurs Challenge 2012 – a 2-day weekend event hosted by the Digital Enterprise Management Society at the University of Toronto Mississauga Here are my top highlights from Day 1 of the keynote [...]
