Ontario Innovation Agenda
Yesterday morning, Minister of Research and Innovation John Wilkinson unveiled Ontario’s new innovation strategy in Ottawa – and in so doing outlined the specific, concrete steps the province is taking to secure a leading position in the global knowledge economy. MaRS is a key part of that plan.
The strategy is built around five key themes: Read the rest of this entry »
Blindness
In the world’s first clinical trial of the treatment, gene therapy restored sight within six months to people affected by a severe, inherited form of blindness which begins at birth and has no effective treatment.
Teams in the US and Britain were able to restore vision to four young people with Leber’s congenital amaurosis, a group of recessively inherited forms of blindness that gradually destroys the retina and leaves patients completely blind by their late 20’s. Caused by the mutation by several genes, including RPE65, surgeons from University College London (UCL) and Moorfields Eye Hospital injected a harmless virus containing a healthy copy of the RPE65 gene under each patient’s retina. The virus then ferried the healthy gene into nearby cells, which then began working normally.
Last Wednesday, Entrepreneurship 101 participants heard Mike Polonsky of the Equicom Group talk about how to give a pitch - what to do (and what not to do) when telling the world about your idea.
Here’s a thought: perhaps as scientists and engineers we could apply the same lessons to our technical presentations to our peers! No more boring 6pt font tables of mind numbing data - just a clear articulation of a story. Is anyone out there brave enough to break the mold of “I have to impress them with how difficult my research is otherwise they won’t think highly of me”? Read the rest of this entry »
Question of the Week:
Anyone ready to do as Mike suggested: tell a story simply and clearly?
New Radicals Button
On Tuesday, April 15th, a multitude of people came together at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramics in celebration of the touted tome entitled “We are The New Radicals: A Manifesto for Reinventing Yourself and Saving the World.” The author, Julia Moulden, a five-foot-something dynamo exhibited an energy for this idea as vibrant as the red lipstick she sports. Read the rest of this entry »
Medicine 2.0 conference
Technology in the health care system is constantly evolving, creating more opportunities for development and, increasingly, technology is being used to involve patients in their own care. When I heard that the MaRS Centre was playing host to the Medicine 2.0 Conference in September (papers for this conference are due next week), I wanted to find out more about this model.
I caught up with the Dr. Gunther Eysenbach, Senior Scientist at the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, to talk about Medicine 2.0, how and why it is important and how it is relevant to scientists, entrepreneurs and the rest of us.
Read on for the first in the series of interviews about Medicine 2.0 with Dr. Eysenbach. Read the rest of this entry »
Donning a new hat to get stuff done
After exercising your creativity muscles during Idea Week and Creativity & Innovation Day last week (as I’m sure you all were!), it’s now time to put those fantastic ideas into action.
But how do you change gears from creativity ringleader and innovation cheerleader to schedule whip-cracker so that big ideas don’t flounder in the ether?
Scott Berkun spoke yesterday at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco and told us “How to innovate on time.”
Regenerative medicine applications
Following my recent blog about the regenerative medicine industry and how the US, Canada, UK, Japan, South Korea and China are leading the global race, it’s time to show you how this industry can impact our lives with some very cool videos.
These videos show some of the possible implications and applications of this technology: growing stem cells, regrowing finger tips, pulsing heart valves for transplantation, bioengineered hearts, and you’ll see the actual transplantation of a bioengineered bladder.
At last Wednesday’s Entrepreneurship 101 lecture, Dr. Jeffrey Coull of Chlorion Pharma shared some of his experiences in dealing with venture capital companies. One of his messages was that “no” from a VC often simply means “not now.” Coull recounted having presented numerous times to a collection of over 60 VC’s — with one of the initial “no’s” ultimately becoming an investor in Chlorion.
His message: persistence pays!
MaRS Tenant launches anti-malarial community
Philanthropy just got easier and a lot more accessible to the public thanks to the social networking power of the Internet and a ground-breaking initiative led by our team at the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health (MRC). And just in time for World Malaria Day this Friday, April 25th.
At MalariaEngage.org, people can enlist directly in the anti-malaria battle by contributing $10 or more to an initial choice of seven highly varied projects involving selected scientists in developing countries. Over time, new projects will replace those that reach their funding goal. The site features a discussion area where supporters can interact with researchers and each other, obtain news and photos of both funded and proposed projects, a running tally of money raised, and stories from the front lines in the war against the scourge of malaria.
A truly green measure of success
Let’s start with a truism: financial results are the success metrics of corporations. People who make daily decisions on creating and executing corporate policies are trained (and paid) to think in ways that improve the performance of the corporation.
As such, it is not surprising that the success of our technocratic society so far has not been based on an ecosystem justice but rather on developing efficient ways of converting “natural capital” into “man-made capital.” Martin Herbert Kijazi in the recent issue of Idea&s magazine proposes that an ecologically compatible economy would embrace a wide range of objectives beyond economic profitability.
However, the old saying, “what gets measured gets managed,” always applies. So, how to measure the integrity of an ecosystem? Or the vitality of an urban centre? Read the rest of this entry »
Veronika Litinski coordinates the MaRS venture services programs delivered to entrepreneurs, investors and high-growth companies. She also provides advisory services to entrepreneurs and high growth companies, with a special focus on life sciences markets, specializing in corporate finance and business development.
