Biotechnology Focus, a compendium of the Canadian life sciences industry, has published a guest column by MaRS Innovation President & CEO, Raphael Hofstein. The article explores the role of catalysis…
“If there’s one profession for which you don’t want students to have learning gaps, it’s medicine,” Rebecca Walberg wrote in the Smart Shift: Agenda for Innovation section in the Financial Post on May 7 (reprinted in the Vancouver Sun on May 9 and in the Calgary Herald on June 6, 2013). “Yet that’s exactly what Dr. Paolo Campisi saw while working with medical students at the University of Toronto.”
Walberg’s article, “Innovation in medical learning a Canadian business success story,” describes the process Campisi and his colleague and co-founder Dr. Vito Forte, both of the Hospital for Sick Children and cross-appointed to U of T, undertook to design the OtoSim device, which addresses the gap in how students were learning skills associated with otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat diseases or infections).
Here’s an excerpt (beginning with a quote from Dr. Forte):
“The answer wasn’t more time to lecture or show big pictures on a screen, but rather some kind of instrument that would mimic the experience of looking into an ear with an otoscope. And we went through a number of prototypes developing a simulator that can do just that.”
The result is the OtoSim, brought to market and sold by OtoSim Inc. The simulator consists of a rubber ear made to scale, and a computer display integrated into the model where the eardrum would be in a patient, which can display images of ear canals that correspond to a wide range of medical conditions.
Bedside Clinical Systems featured on Research Innovation and Commercialization Centre (RICC) panel discussion In an article for YourMississaugaBiz.com, Jon Cook writes, " 'The health-care industry is relying more on the…
WATERLOO, ON, Canada (April 23, 2013) — ClevrU Corporation today announced that it has acquired NewMindsets Inc., a company founded on online pedagogy researched and developed by two Schulich School of Business professors that has provided leading-edge educational content and services to over 10,000 Schulich students at York University over the past decade.
Through the acquisition, ClevrU will fully integrate NewMindsets’ proven e-teaching pedagogy in leadership, researched and developed by Professors Gareth Morgan and Jean Adams, into its world-class e-teaching platform, to be presented to York as a pilot and then delivered to millions of students worldwide.
TechVibes, EdSurge, Private Equity Hub, Yonge Street Media, and the Waterloo Record covered this announcement. The release is also viewable on CNW and in Chinese (.pdf).
The two companies announced a partnership in October 2012 to establish a second-generation online learning standard.
Over 9,600 people funded Toronto start-up’s one-dimensional mobile keyboard
TORONTO, Canada (April 18, 2013) — The Indiegogo campaign for Minuum, “the little keyboard for big fingers,” created by Whirlscape Inc., has closed after raising $87,369 in one month.
Minuum is a one-dimensional, tiny keyboard that frees up mobile screen space while allowing fast, accurate typing. Its specialized, patent-protected auto-correction algorithm allows highly imprecise typing, configuring the difference between what you type and what you mean in real time and getting it right even if you miss every single letter.
Read about the Minuum launch and reaching its $60,000 stretch milestone in previous posts. The posts include links to Minuum’s international media coverage. Most recently, their technology and Indiegogo success were featured in The Verge, the Financial Post, Mobile Syrup (includes an excellent Youtube interview with founder Will Walmsley, embedded below) and Tech2.
The campaign’s initial goal — $10,000 to fund the launch of an Android keyboard app — was reached within 14 hours. Since its launch on March 18, the campaign video has been viewed over 1.1 million times.
Did you know Minuum’s campaign is in Indiegogo’s top 10 of all time for projects with the largest number of supporters?
Dr. Kamran Khan, founder of BioDiaspora and an infectious disease physician and scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital, is among the experts studying the emergence of the H7N9 bird flu outbreak in China and the new coronavirus in the Middle East and Europe.
Global News National also covered this story on April 11, 2013. Watch Beatrice Politi and Carmen Chai‘s report, “Canadian scientists pioneer new formula in airport disease screening,” on the Global website.
The Toronto Star featured Khan’s research and BioDiaspora following the publication of his new paper in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization which assessed the impact of airport screenings in containing the 2009 H1N1 outbreak in Mexico.
Khan’s findings were covered in “Airport disease screening rarely worthwhile, Toronto study says,” by Helen Branswell.
Dr. Kamran Khan, founder of BioDiaspora and an infectious disease physician and scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital, is among the experts studying the emergence of the H7N9 bird flu outbreak in China.
Jennifer Yang interviewed Khan in today’s Toronto Star about the likelihood of the disease being easily transmitted from human to human or arriving in Canada, as SARS did in 2003.
Here’s an excerpt:
“This isn’t necessarily an event that poses a significant risk to Canada, at least based on all the current knowledge,” said Dr. Kamran Khan, an infectious disease specialist at St. Michael’s Hospital and founder of BioDiaspora, a program that predicts the potential spread of outbreaks. “Even if a case were to find its way into Canada, the likelihood of it spreading locally is quite low.”
BioDiaspora collects data on everything from air travel and weather to global distribution of disease-carrying insects and uses this data to forecast the potential spread of new diseases.
It has already performed a risk analysis of H7N9 for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which contacted Khan last Tuesday for help.
Health risk to Canadians is currently low
Dr. Kamran Khan, founder of BioDiaspora and an infectious disease physician and scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital, is among the experts studying the emergence of the coronavirus.
Carolyn Brown interviewed Khan for a recent CMAJ article on the viral outbreak, “New coronavirus with ‘pandemic potential’ sparks global surveillance efforts.”
Dr. Raphael Hofstein, president and CEO of MaRS Innovation, was quoted in Mary Theresa Bitti‘s National Post article, “Commercialization Conundrum: Canada must turn ideas into social and economic value,” published April 3, 2013.
The article examines Canada’s worsening track record in realizing commercialization gains based on the country’s significant per-capita investment in R&D.
Here’s an excerpt:
While Canada punches above its weight class when it comes to generating ideas — witness countless academic journals showcasing Canadian research — as a country, we are experiencing a failure to launch when it comes to commercializing those ideas and getting them to market. The Jenkins panel report on innovation spelled it out quite clearly, “Too many of the big ideas [Canada] generates wind up generating wealth for others.” Canada ranks 14th out of 17 peer countries when it comes to innovation, even though on a per-capita basis, our $7-billion federal annual investment into research and development (R&D) is far more generous than other OECD nations. The result: Our global competitiveness continues to slide. According to the World Economic Forum, Canada has dropped to 14th place in 2012 from 10th in 2010.
Whirlscape Inc.‘s Minuum keyboard has enjoyed the kind of launch that start-up founders dream about yet few achieve.
UPDATE: Whirlscape’s Minuum Project has now cleared its $60,000 fundraising target. Mobile Syrup wrote a follow-up article on the campaign with details about the Wearable Development Kit. Their technology also got a second spot on CTV News‘s Tech Tuesday report and was featured on Global TV’s The Morning Show.
The little keyboard for big fingers, which launched an Indiegogo campaign a week ago today to support the launch of its Android keyboard app and a wearable development kit, is currently less than $4,000 from its crowd-funded stretch goal of $60,000.
The company was featured on CTV News on Mar. 24, 2013. The CTV video story and photos of CEO Will Walmsley and CTO Xavier Snelgrove are available on CTV’s website.
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