Susanne Staer

BioDiaspora predicts Hajj and Umrah as two key possible spread points for MERS coronavirus

July 30, 2013
Susanne Staer
BlueDot

BioDiaspora, a start-up company based on the research of company founder, Dr. Kamran Khan of St. Michael’s Hospital, has identified two mass gatherings in the Islamic world as key possible spread points for the life-threatening MERS coronavirus, which emerged in the Middle East in early 2012.

BioDiaspora’s disease-tracking platform, which correlates uses global air traffic patterns to predict the international spread of infectious disease (as described in the original media release from St. Michael’s Hospital):

The first is umrah, a pilgrimage that can be performed at any time of year but is considered particularly auspicious during the month of Ramadan, which this year began on July 9 and ends on Aug. 7. The second is the hajj, a five-day pilgrimage required of all physically and financially able Muslims at least once in their life. It takes place Oct. 13 to 18 this year and is expected to draw more than 3 million people.

Predicted spread of MERS virus based on hajj travel pattters. Source: Potential for the International Spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in Association with Mass Gatherings in Saudi Arabia/PLOS Currents Outbreaks. — Predicted spread of MERS coronavirus based on hajj travel patterns. Source: Potential for the International Spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in Association with Mass Gatherings in Saudi Arabia/*PLOS Currents Outbreaks*.

It also identified the Mumbai-India corridor as particularly vulnerable to MERS based on the predicted exit traffic of travelers leaving the hajj and returning to their home countries following the mass religious event.

Khan’s research findings, published in PLOS Currents: Outbreaks, have attracted media coverage from the Times of India, CanIndia, Toronto Star‘s Foreign Desk blog (Jennifer Yang), Science Daily.com, DowntoEarth.org and Homeland Security News Wire.

Bringing mad science to mass production: Financial Post features the Bio Printer project

University of Toronto PhD student Lian Len with a prototype tissue printer. Photo courtesy of Dominic Ali (University of Toronto)

“It’s one thing to invent a machine that prints skin, but it’s a whole other challenge to bring what seems like the domain of mad science to mass production,” Matthew Braga wrote in “Looking for ways to get ‘skin’ in the game,” published in the Financial Post on July 15.

The article focuses on MaRS Innovation’s (MI) and the Innovations and Partnerships Office’s (University of Toronto) joint efforts to commercialize the bio printer, a “prototype 3D printer that, instead of extruding layers of plastic and other inorganic materials into physical shapes, builds layer upon layer of cell-laden tissue, a process that could lead to the cheap, rapid production of human skin.”

Braga’s article was syndicated in the Regina Leader Post, the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, and the Vancouver Sun, among other Canadian publications.

Flybits to demo technology at TD Night It Up! event in Markham

July 12, 2013
Susanne Staer
Flybits

Looking for something to do tonight? Come to Markham and see Flybits‘ technology in action.

Starting Friday, July 12 and running until July 14, Flybits Zones have been created for visitors to experience at the TD Night It Up! event in Markham.

The Flybits mobile user interface presents relevant information from surrounding geo-fences (zones).

Night It Up! is a outdoor night market styled in the vein of night markets from Taiwan and Hong Kong and many others from across Asia.

As a community partner for the Night It Up! event, Flybits team members will be on hand to interact with visitors and demonstrate the technology.

Whirlscape’s team on Minuum, Indiegogo and crowdfunding a beta keyboard launch

Every six weeks, MaRS Innovation’s marketing and communications manager writes a guest post for the MaRS Discovery District blog profiling MI’s activities or one of our start-up companies. You can read the original post on the MaRS blog.

On Monday, June 17, Whirlscape Inc. released the beta version of its hotly anticipated, tiny, one-dimensional digital keyboard, Minuum: “the little keyboard for big fingers.”

If you follow tech gadget news, you’ve likely read about or even supported the company’s successful Indiegogo campaign, which raised more than US$87,000—over 870% above their modest initial goal of $10,000—from nearly 10,000 supporters who have now become beta users for the product.

The stats don’t end there. By number of funders, the Minuum Keyboard Project’s campaign is in Indiegogo’s top 10 of all time and is ranked No. 2 among all technology campaigns. Over 1.1 million people worldwide viewed Minuum’s original teaser video on YouTube, which the Whirlscape team edited and shot themselves.

BioDiaspora among technologies redefining digital disease mapping

June 20, 2013
Susanne Staer
BlueDot

Dr. Kamran Khan, founder of BioDiapsora, was cited in a New York Times‘ Bits article on the Big Data solutions evolving to track the global spread of disease: “In New Tools to Combat Epidemics, the Key is Context.”

Amy O’Leary‘s article appeared as part of a special blog/supplement on June 19, 2013 (Big Data 2013).

Here’s an excerpt (links and emphasis ours):

One of the doctors in the field who can benefit from these types of insights is Dr. Kamran Khan, an infectious disease specialist and researcher at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.

Dr. Khan, who said he had a “bad habit of being around emerging diseases,” has worked on the front lines of the 1999 West Nile virus outbreak and the H1N1 pandemic of 2009. But the event that hit closest to home was when his own hospital was affected by a deadly outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which hit Toronto in 2003.

Yonge Street Media: Crowdmark, moderated marking and helping teachers grade better

June 19, 2013
Susanne Staer
Crowdmark

Yonge Street Media, a weekly online magazine that covers talent, innovation, diversity and quality of life stories in the Toronto region, covered Crowdmark‘s efforts to disrupt the way teachers grade and interact with students in their Innovation section on Wednesday, June 19, 2013.

Crowdmark graduated from the UTEST program earlier this spring. Last week, the company announced it has raised $600,000 in seed funding and completed two successful proof-of-concept pilot projects. Its co-founders are from the University of Toronto.

Here’s an excerpt from Hamutal Dotan‘s article (emphasis ours):

It is the bane of every teacher’s existence: grading. Though essential, it’s also repetitive and time-consuming. It is also increasingly prone to concerns about inequity: from grade inflation to inconsistent standards across different classrooms, sometimes parents, students, and even teachers themselves have a hard time deciding just what the grades they have assigned actually mean.

Aiming to help with both those problems is Toronto startup Crowdmark. Founded by two University of Toronto mathematics experts–the department’s associate chair, James Colliander, and graduate student Martin Muñoz–Crowdmark provides teachers with a suite of tools to facilitate faster grading, and enables teachers to handle large volumes of grading collaboratively.

Whirlscape releases Minuum keyboard beta to early users

10,000 Indiegogo supporters first to try one-dimensional, virtual mobile keyboard

Minuum launches beta for Android users who supported Whirlscape's Indiegogo campaign — Minuum launches beta for Android users who supported Whirlscape’s Indiegogo campaign

TORONTO, Canada (June 18, 2013) — Whirlscape Inc., creators of Minuum, “the little keyboard for big fingers,” today released the Android beta to the nearly 10,000 supporters who funded the keyboard’s wildly successful Indiegogo campaign.

The Minuum Project campaign raised over $87,000 (USD) through the crowdfunding platform between March and April 2013, well past its initial goal of $10,000. Whirlscape promised to release the hotly anticipated Minuum beta two months after the campaign, and has delivered on that promise.

Minuum’s beta launch to its Indiegogo supporters was covered by TechCrunch, TechCrunch Japan and Mobile Syrup. Whirlscape’s technology was also highlighted in a VentureBeat article on the future of typing.

The product was also reviewed on TechVibes and the Android Police blog: “Minuum Keyboard Beta: Good enough to renew my faith in crowd-funded campaigns.”

Minuum is a tiny, linear, one-dimensional touchscreen keyboard that re-imagines the standard QWERTY layout. It frees up mobile screen space while allowing fast, accurate typing. This touchscreen keyboard marks the first phase of the Minuum Project, which seeks to simplify typing on mobile devices—such as smartphones and tablets—and enable typing for wearable technology. The beta release is an important first step towards Minuum’s “type anywhere” future.

Dr. Raphael Hofstein’s MRI blog post: How Team Ontario’s biotechnology takes on the world

Dr. Raphael Hofstein, president & CEO, MaRS Innovation.

Dr. Raphael (Rafi) Hofstein is president and CEO of MaRS Innovation (MI) – the commercialization agent for an exceptional research discovery pipeline stemming from 16 leading Ontario academic institutions. As a single entry point to annual member research and development activity of $1B, MI provides a gateway for investors and licensees who wish to access Ontario’s technology assets.

During the 2012 BIO convention in Boston, Dr. Hofstein blogged about how CQDM of Montreal and MaRS Innovation of Toronto had teamed up to help “fill” the QC-Ontario corridor and why the corridor is good for business in both provinces.

In my previous blog post during BIO2012, I talked about how MaRS Innovation and CQDM had jointly collaborated to form Encycle Therapeutics, a startup that was created around disruptive technology, developed by Professor Andrei Yudin of the University of Toronto, involving the cyclization of biologically active peptides.

A year later, I’m pleased to report that Encycle is alive and kicking. The company has since recruited seasoned management, and its developing product line is drawing tremendous interest from global pharmaceutical groups. In the next few months, we expect Encycle to raise significant capital and establish meaningful ties with strategic allies.

Taking a wider look at the life sciences sector, this has been a vintage year for Ontario in general and MaRS Innovation’s ecosystem in particular.

Mobile Syrup announces Minuum keyboard to launch “early next week”

The Minuum Project has achieved such international buzz that even the news of a beta launch from Whirlscape Inc. without a firm date generated media interest.

Mobile Syrup, one of the first technology outlets to report on the company’s Indiegogo campaign, filed a post on next week’s beta release launch by Ian Hardy on June 14, 2013:

Toronto-based Whirlscape developed Minuum, the one-dimensional simplified keyboard for smartphones, tablets and wearable technology. This idea gained a great deal of attention back in March when they went live on crowd-funding site IndieGogo. […]
Those who backed the initiative were promised early access to the beta app for Android sometime in June. Minuum seems to be on track as we’ve been informed that the beta app for Android is scheduled for release “early next week.”

Crowdmark to save teacher marking time and government dollars

June 11, 2013
Susanne Staer
Crowdmark

Ed-tech start-up completes successful EQAO and Canadian Open Math Challenge pilots

TORONTO, Canada (June 11, 2013) — Crowdmark Inc., a Canadian education technology start-up, is positioned to save cash-strapped Departments of Education millions by making massive-scale testing more efficient. Crowdmark has raised $600,000 in seed funding through the University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) program, MaRS Innovation and U of T’s Connaught Fund, among others.

This story was covered by Yonge Street Media, TechVibes, EdSurge and PEHub.

Dr. James Colliander, co-founder and CEO of Crowdmark — **Dr. James Colliander**, co-founder and CEO of Crowdmark.

The Crowdmark assessment interface, informed by decades of teaching experience and research by company co-founders, James Colliander (Professor of Mathematics) and Martin Muñoz (Researcher and Developer), at the University of Toronto, streamlines the complicated and time-consuming grading workflow for teachers.

Crowdmark archives student work and all grading feedback into individual digital portfolios that students and parents may access any time online and via mobile devices.

Through two separate pilot projects, Crowdmark has achieved proof-of-concept as a novel and scalable solution to the problem of assessment blockage that eats into already limited resources in education systems worldwide.