The OSBR examines the issues relevant to the development and commercialization of open source assets. The intent is for the OSBR to:

• help create the right environment for companies to commercialize goods and services based on open source assets
• remove barriers to the commercialization of open source assets
• surface the open source related activity that is going on in companies, universities and governments and knits it together as a cohesive story that we can take to the world
• evolve to satisfy the needs of companies that use open source to compete

Initially, the scope of the OSBR will be the province of Ontario, then Canada, and eventually the world.

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Last week I had the pleasure of spending just over 24 hours in Washington, DC — one of my favourite cities and the place I called home for almost five years. I was in town to speak at the inaugural VCs-Deans Summit held at the Canadian Embassy and co-hosted by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer.

The full-day session was designed to break down the ivory tower walls impeding the creation of venture-backed start-ups from university research.

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Car Planter originally uploaded by aardvark
Kensington Market, Toronto

Following up on a story written about the announcement of the formation of the Ontario BioAuto Council, the RFP was just released which outlines the process and eligibility for their investment fund. Basically this is a $5-million fund that targets commercialization and market development of biomaterials destined for Ontario’s automotive sector.

The objective of this program is to leverage Ontario’s strengths in the automotive, materials and agriculture industries while encouraging innovation. Ontario is already a leader in these fields, which collectively employs a great number of Ontarians. This program should encourage innovation in what might otherwise be seen as a “sunset” industry. While the scope of the fund is clearly very narrow, I hope it will attract more players to the opportunities in this field.

The scope of the fund is as follows:

• BioAuto Investment Fund projects are expected to commercialize bio-based materials. This could include incorporating existing market-ready bio-based materials into Ontario-made products, application projects and new material concepts. Commercialization must be illustrated through product sales or buyer commitment at the end of the project.
• Commercialization is expected before March 31, 2010.
• Projects that involve only proof of concept research will not be funded.
• Projects that do not involve a renewable feedstock will not be funded.
• Bio-fuel technologies are not eligible, though projects which involve the use of byproducts from bio-fuel production to produce other biomaterials will be welcomed.

For the complete RFP, and other details on the program, follow the links below:

• The RFP
• Commercialization Process
• The Ontario BioAuto Council website

For more evidence that this space is heating up, here are just some of the headlines since mid-June on the subject, courtesy of Gord Surgeoner’s BioProducts Update:

• Ford to Use Soybean-Based Foam in Mustang Seats
• U of Guelph Names Premier’s Research Chair in Biomaterials and Transportation
• Queen’s University To Establish New Centre For Biomaterials Research
• Ready to replace petro-based plastics
• Putting Science to Work: DuPont™ Cerenol™ Made From 100% Renewable Resources

Watch Richard Florida on the Colbert Report

Richard Florida is generating quite the buzz these days, and not just in Toronto!

The UofT/MaRS-bound academic and author of the seminal Rise of the Creative Class was interviewed on the Colbert Report earlier this month. Colbert took a special interest in Florida’s findings on tolerant communities, suggesting with his usual tact that Florida was a gay-bohemian-artist real estate speculator.

Watch the video now.

Recently, Bill Gates returned to his roots at Harvard to do the commencement speech, and he noted that he had left the institution with “new ideas in economics and politics” and “great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences” but “no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world.”

“We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism – if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities. We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes.

If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world.”

Watch the videos and be inspired to make your discoveries count.

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Feeling brain dead this Friday? It could be worse - at least you’re not responsible for Microsoft Bob. Computerworld provides a handy rundown of the 21 biggest technology flops from e-books to the IBM PCjr - you can even vote on the absolute worst.

An eclectic group of leading executives drawn from high growth industries have turned to a new source of inspiration to sustain their creativity and focus - meditation.

The recent converts include such luminaries as Bob Shapiro (former CEO of Monsanto), former junk bond king Michael Milken, Bill George (former CEO of Medtronic), networking guru Keith Ferrazzi and Marc Benioff (CEO of salesforce.com).The form of meditation this group advocates is Vipassana (”insight” meditation) as taught in 10 day silent retreats. These retreats were founded by S. N. Goenka, a Burmese businessman who experienced for himself dramatic improvements in health and wellbeing after he was introduced to this meditation technique.

Is this just the latest business management fad or are the meditators tapping into some previously ignored resource? Research by Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin would argue that the effect is real. In his studies, experienced meditators were found to have dramatically altered brain activity and he noted that the practice of meditation “involves temporal integrative mechanisms and may induce short-term and long-term neural changes.”

Recently published work by a global team of scientists led by researchers from the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research led to the first genetic predictor for colorectal cancer. Dozens more genetic studies are set to report findings later this year. For example, Pfizer is partnering with NIH on a $26 million initiative called the Genetic Association Information Network (GAIN). GAIN aims to determine the genetic causes of common diseases over the next three years. The information derived from GAIN will be publicly available to researchers world-wide. Unlike many previous gene-disease studies that yielded spurious results, the new studies involve thousands of patients and are likely to hold up.

A common thread between the identified colorectal cancer predictors and GAIN is the need to analyze genetic data from thousands of patients, which is only possible through the collaborative efforts of many researchers internationally.

Eventually, understandings gleaned from our genes will lead to personalized medicine. Ironically, to develop these targeted drugs, we need the collective effort of individuals, research institutions and multiple jurisdictions. And we’re seeing the beginning of that collaboration now.

MaRS on TO’s number one social networking site

Being a leading technology and innovation centre, and having such a tech-savvy group working here in the MaRS Centre, it comes as no surprise that the MaRS community is connecting on one of the largest social networking communities, Facebook.

The Toronto Star recently ran a great story on how and why Toronto has become the capital of Facebook. We can claim more members of the site than any other city in the world. Developing these networks is a great way to meet and connect with people in your community that you might not have otherwise.

If you’re reading this blog, you’re a member of the MaRS community. And if you’ve been looking for a way to connect, Facebook is just one more option.

When you join the MaRS Facebook group, you can share what you’re working on, ask questions about others’ experiences, find people in your discipline, or even those interested in the same sport or music. Find out what events everyone is attending, post a job or share a photo. And don’t worry: you can be as public or as private as you want to be.

Charles Komanoff had a piece on the Grist blog last week exploring the benefits of Mayor Bloomberg’s traffic congestion pricing plan for New York City (apparently it was not required reading for the New York state legislature, which has shelved the plan for now). Komanoff argues that congestion pricing has value because “it establishes the principle that safeguarding ‘the commons’ … requires that we exact from ourselves a commensurate price for uses that damage or deplete it.”

The idea of a commons encompassing both tangible natural resources and intangible assets like information is gaining ground in contemporary discourse. The concept has been used to support diverse goals, from the regulation of carbon dioxide to open access to information. In business, the idea of the commons drives the corporate social responsibility movement, and is the inspiration behind entrepreneur Peter Barnes’ recent book, Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons.

On the web, information about the commons can be found on the following sites:

• On the Commons: a site that explores the value of the commons as “a force for innovation in social governance, political action, public policy and cultural change.”
• The Commons: a blog “dedicated to the principle of promoting environmental quality and human dignity and prosperity through markets and property rights”.
• Creative Commons: an organization that promotes alternative forms of copyright, or “copyleft.”
• Science Commons: a project of Creative Commons promoting open access to information and collaboration between researchers.