Why transit is a key element in creating a fair and equitable society. When Jennifer Pennell-Ajie set out to help fix Fort Erie, Ont.’s struggling bus system in 2019, she instantly found herself up against a number of formidable obstacles. At the time, the town’s transit network was in undeniable free fall — ridership was down, costs were up — and, though nobody could predict it, the pandemic would soon make the situation much worse. Even the local geography was an impediment. Unlike other municipalities with distinct city centres, Fort Erie is made up of multiple pockets of urban density con ..read more

CEO Vincent Ircandia shares his game plan for turning die-hard spectators into valuable team assets. Just about every entrepreneur stresses the importance of having a winning mindset, but Vincent Ircandia takes that sentiment to heart. The CEO and co-founder of StellarAlgo has a Stanley Cup ring, he was part of the muscle behind a MLS Cup championship win and he has proud memories of representing Canada on the world stage of collegiate baseball. Before launching his AI analytics company in 2016, the Calgary native spent years in the backrooms of some of North America’s top teams, developing t ..read more

MaRS HR expert Daneal Charney shares her insights on how to recruit and retain the right people. Landing the right hires has always been a crucial part of running a successful business, but in the time since COVID was at its height, the challenges involved in attracting talent have evolved. While generous salaries and paid vacation days may once have been enough to turn heads, the number of employees working in hybrid arrangements in Canada has more than tripled in the past two years alone, jumping from 3.6 to 11.7 percent of the workforce. From flexible arrangements to retention incentives a ..read more

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From aquatic Roombas to pollution-zapping gadgets, new tech offers novel ways to tackle pollution in our lakes, oceans and reservoirs. Last summer, a pair of odd vessels could be found patrolling Toronto’s Outer Harbour Marina. They weren’t boats, however. More like supersized aquatic Roomba vacuum cleaners, these autonomous drones were specially designed to suck up trash floating in the water. PortsToronto launched the two drones (named Ebb and Flow courtesy of a crowdsourced campaign) as part of an effort to clean up the harbour and prevent plastic detritus from clogging our waterways. Each ..read more

Private AI identifies sensitive information and anonymizes it, so it can still be used to analyze and solve problems without revealing personal details. Everyone’s excited about the life-changing potential of artificial intelligence. (It can drive cars! Diagnose cancer! Write stories like this one!). But many people aren’t aware of the risks that come with it. Patricia Thaine co-founded her company, Private AI, in 2019 to minimize one of the biggest hazards of AI-based technology: the possibility of it sharing confidential information that violates an individual’s privacy. That chatbot you ju ..read more

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Startup Jenthera is developing in vivo gene editing that can directly modify a person’s DNA and fine-tune immune cells to find and attack specific types of cancer. A biochemist, engineer and serial inventor, Philip Roche has spent the last two decades following his curiosity. Moving through fields that include cancer biology, protein engineering, nanomedicine and biometrics, led him to work on nanoparticles, ultra-fast diagnostics, biomedical devices and wearables. Now, as the CEO and chief scientific officer at Jenthera Therapeutics, Roche is focused on pushing CRISPR gene editing beyond som ..read more

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People with disabilities often can’t get the devices they need. A new mobility hub at MaRS aims to change that. Christopher Hutchison was like many aspiring entrepreneurs — intelligent, charismatic, ambitious. Then a horrific accident sent his world into chaos. In 2009, Christopher, then 17 years old, fell under a train in Switzerland and needed to have one leg amputated above the knee and the other below. It was a difficult adjustment: strangers’ stares made him feel like a pariah, and his ill-fitting prosthetics left him with sores and blisters. He wanted to make it easier to find prostheti ..read more