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.
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 »
Microloans: like throwing coins in a fountain?
Promoted by everyone from Nicholas Kristof to Natalie Portman, microfinance was a hot topic in 2007. In 2008, the New Yorker cuts through the hype to take a realistic look at both the potential and the limits of microlending. The problem, writes James Surowiecki, is that while microloans are highly effective on an individual basis, at an aggregate level they fail to make poor nations wealthier.
John W. Baumstark and Suniva founder, Ajeet Rohatgi
Think you don’t know enough about business to be an entrepreneur?
Meet Ajeet Rohatgi, founder of Suniva, a company planning to make CD case-sized solar energy cells. Rohatgi was a scientist and researcher — he knew nothing about business. Enter John Baumstark. He knew nothing of science, but he knew how to run a business. Together they created an company aimed to spread solar power cells to rooftops around the world.
Read more at ajc.com: “Scientist, exec pool skills in sun power“
For the “read” file
There are five sources that I read regularly; for entrepreneurs and business managers alike they provide perspectives on a range of topics from current global events to understanding the intricacies of markets, to learning more about the foundational social sciences that contribute to business like sociology, psychology and economics.
This content from the world’s leading minds comes to you free of charge. Read the rest of this entry »
Now that the Oscars have come and gone, awards junkies may be feeling a little let down. Luckily, the Collegiate Inventors Competition is now accepting applications for their 2008 awards. The competition, which makes up for what it lacks in glittery gowns with creativity and innovation, rewards student inventors in science, engineering and technology.
Corey Centen and Nilesh Patel, the McMaster students behind MaRS client Atreo Medical, were among the 2007 winners.
psiphon — an anti-internet-censorship tool designed by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab — is the first recipient of a new award for digital pioneers chosen by an international group of specialists and awarded in Paris this month.
A market in my hometown is blending community involvement and creative financing to support the expansion of their store.
Brothers Jamey and Robert Lionette of Lionette’s Market in Boston’s South End are pitching their plan, dubbed a Community Supported Market, to their neighbors.The Boston Globe reports that:
“…People who invest $10,000 will get a two-year stipend of $125 per week at the store (for a total of $13,000 in food). For $5,000, investors get a $55 weekly stipend for two years; $2,500 gives investors a 10 per cent discount on store items for two years…
In Praise of Slow
Did you know that today, February 25, 2008, is the second annual Worldwide Day of Slow Living? If that’s news to you, let’s slow down for a minute and talk about the growing international slow movement.
Carl Honoré, a Canadian journalist based in London, was in Toronto recently to speak about the slow movement at the Ontario Library Association conference.
This Global Attention Profiles map shows what countries were included in the New York Times news coverage of December 1, 2003. Countries in red received the most attention, while pink and blue countries received smaller and smaller amounts of media coverage.
That was Ethan Zuckerman’s emphatic message at the recent Ontario Library Association conference in Toronto. Zuckerman, a research fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, studies the intersection of technology and developing countries. He co-founded Global Voices Online, a “global citizens’ media project” at Berkman that collects and distills web content from across the world, particularly from the Global South; he’s also behind the Global Attention Profiles project (GAP), which monitors the geographic distribution of media attention.
Zuckerman provides a much-needed counterpoint to Thomas Friedman’s Gospel of Globalization, the idea of the digital revolution as great global equalizer. Zuckerman argues that an Internet connection alone cannot correct the vast disparities between developed and developing nations. While he recognizes the democratizing potential of such technology, he emphasizes the fact that persistent structural and systemic disadvantages keep Friedman’s dream from becoming reality.
Kathryn is the Market Research Information Specialist Intern at MaRS. She is a recent graduate of the Masters of Information Studies program at the University of Toronto.
