Author: Mark Henderson

GTA bid for second Amazon HQ underway

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Mayors in the Greater Toronto Area have mobilized to formalize their bid to woo internet giant Amazon to consider Toronto as its next North American headquarters. Mayors of Toronto, Mississauga and Brampton are joined by the chief executives of the regions of Durham, Halton and York to prepare to submit a proposal to Amazon. Mark…

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Toronto AI firm gets fund boost from Fidelity Investments

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A Toronto-based company developing artificial intelligence (AI) systems for enterprises has recently received a fresh round of funding from Fidelity Investments Canada. DeepLearni.ng will use the $9 million in Series A funding to help the company scale the development of its machine learning platform, called Frontiers, which is used for rapid deployment of AI enterprises.…

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New Space Advisory Board calls for urgent action to halt decline in embattled sector

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The precarious state of Canada’s space sector has compelled the recently populated Space Advisory Board (SAB) to issue an “urgent call to action” for a new national strategy and “long-term continuity” for its space program. The recommendation to the federal government is part of a suite of suggested actions that include taking a whole-of-government approach to space, making space a national strategic asset, boosting smaller programs considered more suited to the so-called New Space environment and a continuing role for the SAB to ensure coordination, stakeholder dialogue and metrics to evaluate implementation plans.

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NSERC’s honing of Discovery Grants Program reflects increasing diversity of research community

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The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) has announced $515 million in awards through its latest Discovery Grants Program (DGP) competition as the research community awaits the federal government’s response to recommendations of the David Naylor-led panel on fundamental research and the appointment of a chief science advisor which is expected in the coming weeks.

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CMC Microsystems extends window for securing new financing; prepares for leadership change

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The leaders of CMC Microsystems have announced their retirement after saving the organization from a near-death experience and giving it renewed hope of further funding after current government commitments end in 2019. President and CEO, Dr Ian McWalter, will step down at the end of the current FY after 33 years of engagement and — years at the helm. Also stepping down is Dan Gale, VP and CTO, who joined CMC (then known as Canadian Microelectronics Corp) prior to its incorporation 1984.

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Rob Annan

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Genome Canada has appointed Dr Rob Annan as VP public affairs and communications, effective September 11. In his new position, Annan will be responsible for an overall communications strategy targeting major stakeholders and raising the organization’s profile nationally and internationally. For the past year, he has been an innovation and management consultant as well as…

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Feds roll out new student-placement workforce program

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The Department of Workforce Development and Labour has launched a $73-million, four-year Student Work-Integrated Learning Program (SWILP) that will create 10,000 paid workforce placements for post-secondary students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and business. The new program complements the work of Mitacs, which received $221 million over five years in the last Budget…

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Scientists raise alarm over future of neutron beam research capacity

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Canadian researchers whose work relies on access to a neutron beam source have issued an urgent appeal to the federal government for stop-gap funding to offset the looming impact from the March 2018 closure of the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor at Chalk River ON. The Canadian Neutron Initiative (CNI) is requesting $24 million over the next three years and $19 million a year between 2021 and 2029 to buy beam time at foreign facilities and to upgrade the small, medium-flux nuclear reactor at McMaster Univ.

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Merck to acquire Burlington-based Natrix Separations

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Merck, Darmstadt Germany, is acquiring Natrix Separations Inc, Burlington ON, a provider of hydrogel membrane products used to eliminate impurities during bioprocessing and accelerate the production of monoclonal antibodies and vaccines. Natrix markets both an anion exchange membrane and cation exchange membrane and is developing additional products to enable a fully single-use, full-scale biological purification…

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ICAMP partnering on project for improving marijuana production

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North Bay ON’s Canadore College has been awarded an applied research project by Trichromes Ltd to develop an automated curing system for the production of marijuana. The project will be undertaken by Canadore’s Innovation Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Production (ICAMP) as companies and governments ramp up activities prior to marijuana’s legalization in 2018. An…

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