Experience Mars in a whole new way
If you could travel to Mars, would you? Even we at MaRS are interested.
Space jokes and anecdotes about the planet Mars are in circulation here, being our home planet and all. But this is pretty cool. The Science Centre is opening “Facing Mars,” a hands-on, interactive exhibition, on June 9th.
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Medicine 2.0 Map
In part one of our Medicine 2.0 series, we talked about what Medicine 2.0 means. In this interview, Dr. Gunther Eysenbach, Senior Scientist at the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, talks about why Medicine 2.0 is so important and what factors make it relevant and pertinent to scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs.
Read on for the second in the Medicine 2.0 series of interviews with Dr. Eysenbach.
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Conducting convergence innovation
Creative Sparks was launched at MaRS on Wednesday, May 7, as a component of the Esprit Orchestra’s 2008 season and the New Wave Composers Festival. It was conceived by Esprit’s Music Director and Conductor, Alex Pauk, and it was an exemplary model of the themes that MaRS embraces: convergence, innovation, creativity and collaboration.
The project brought professional composers together with Toronto Area high school and middle school students to mentor the burgeoning compositional and performance talents. The idea was to stretch the boundaries between the students’ understanding of what orchestral music is and what it can become. Students were encouraged to consider the traditional sound of an orchestra being enhanced by technology, amplified sounds that would not usually be part of a score and MaRS as the performance platform.
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What’s to become of the Rockefeller
gasoline legacy?
John D. Rockefeller is a Titan. And he’s shaking up the petroleum industry yet again.
Forever immortalized in contradictory terms; revolutionary industrialist, leader of the petroleum industry, ruthless robber baron, corporate innovator (holding companies to work around monopoly laws), target to anti-trust movement, innovator of modern charitable trusts, benevolent benefactor and the wealthiest man to ever live (inflation adjusted). Arguably one of the best business books ever written chronicled how this one man came to hold all of these titles. His legacy in the oil industry is immediately apparent when you consider the successor companies to the post-monopoly break-up of Standard Oil.
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Red Maple Leaves in the Sun by joesflickr
I just finished reading the latest report on Canada’s competitiveness (PDF) released by the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity. The report describes our current state in 2008 and the outlook to 2020, and it’s troubling to see that even though our economic performance is among the strongest nations, we are trailing the US by a whopping $8,800 in GDP per capita.
So what does this mean?
It means that we have opportunities to improve the value we add to our human, physical and natural resources, that will in turn contribute to our national prosperity and standard of living.
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At Wednesday’s Entrepreneurship 101 lecture, attendees heard Dr. Peter Hofstra of Greenrock Asset Management talk about the cost/benefit analysis of a higher education. Talking from his own experience in transitioning from a PhD in Engineering Physics to a fund manager, he discussed the transferable skills that a PhD can give you.
But for the true entrepreneur (think Bill Gates or Michael Dell) often leaving a degree program to “just do it” is the better path. Based on the questions from the audience, it was clear that many people are torn about which way to go.
Question of the Week:
What advice do you have for a Masters graduate trying to decide whether or not to do a PhD program?
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Inky with the latest CIX Award
Some very interesting companies could be found among the presenters at the Canadian Innovation Exchange event this week. It was great to see a range of companies hitting the stage. They included brand new players such as Sandy Ward, founder of local search startup Homezilla and the always colourful, angel investor and company builder Mark Dowd of Brainpark. Mark is building a peer to peer collaboration platform to tackle the very big and lucrative problem of managing knowledge within the enterprise. CIX also had a share of more established, venture-backed players such as Butch Langlois who presented the online travel site PlanetEye and Ron McKenzie, CEO of the online collaboration platform Octopz, a MaRS tenant.
Among many solid and “entertaining” presentations at CIX, Ron McKenzie and the Octopz team stood out as the choice of attendees when the votes were tabulated. They took home top honours for the best presenting company at the event. This win follows on the heels of the amazing debut of Octopz’s latest software at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco last week where over 10000 attendees packed the Moscone Centre to see the latest stuff. Read the rest of this entry »
Prestigious award funds innovation
On Tuesday evening, the research and innovation community came to the MaRS Centre to celebrate the 2008 Premier’s Innovation Awards — three prestigious awards programs that support and promote ideas and discoveries that build on Ontario’s innovation strengths. The Premier’s Innovation Awards include the Premier’s Catalyst, Discovery and Summit Awards. The Premier’s Summit Award program is administered by MaRS on behalf of the Province.
Premier Dalton McGuinty and Minister of Research and Innovation John Wilkinson joined MaRS Board Chair John Evans and our CEO, Ilse Treurnicht to celebrate some of the best and brightest minds in Ontario’s research and innovation community.
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Get involved: volunteer week
With the current awareness around community involvement and volunteering, especially since this week is Volunteer Week, many businesses are interested in contributing to their local community through a group volunteer experience. They look to volunteerism as an alternative to the traditional team-building exercise or charitable gift donation, where a meaningful volunteer experience helps improve motivation and teamwork skills among employees. But an employee-supported volunteer program can also help increase corporate visibility and highlight a corporate commitment to social responsibility in the community.
Volunteer Toronto has established the Employee Supported Volunteer Program (ESVP) to help bridge these business interests with the needs of non-profit agencies.
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