Minuum’s potential goes far beyond improved touchscreen typing. The company’s so-called “one-dimensional” keyboard approach can actually be applied to a wide range of scenarios, in particular, highly touted new wearable technologies like Google Glass, and motion-sensing technologies such as Microsoft’s Kinect and the Leap Motion 3D controller, enabling users to type “anywhere.”
2013 was an exceptional year for MaRS Innovation. Here are the top 10 news stories from our commercialization portfolio. 1. MaRS Innovation secures a $15 million CECR funding extension In January,…
Indiegogo campaign raised $53,390 from over 500 worldwide donors
WaveCheck co-inventor, Dr. Gregory Czarnota, appeared on CTV National News on December 15.
CTV National News featured WaveCheck’s crowdfunding campaign on December 15 in a report by Avis Favaro. The report included an interview with MaRS Innovation’s President and CEO, Dr. Raphael Hofstein (at the 1:37 mark).
William Tran, a researcher associated with the project at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, was also interviewed on Canada AM on December 16.
WaveCheck, which closed its campaign December 4, was invented by Dr. Gregory Czarnota of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Prof. Michael C. Kolios of Ryerson University. WaveCheck uses ultrasound technology to show people with breast cancer if their chemotherapy is working within weeks.
While the Indiegogo campaign has concluded, Sunnybrook Foundation is now accepting donations flagged “WaveCheck” on behalf of the researchers through its website.
At campaign close, WaveCheck ranked in the top 0.005 per cent of health-related campaigns on Indiegogo, and was covered by CBC television and Metro Morning, theToronto Star, Sing-Tao and MedCity News.
From left, WaveCheck campaign co-director Elizabeth Monier-Williams contributing artist Janet F. Potter, WaveCheck supporter Carmen Tellez O’Mahony, contributing artist Deniz Ergun Seker, WAAC President Dale Butterill and contributing artist Lila Miller.WaveCheck’s appreciation event was held at The Louise Temerty Breast Cancer Centre, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.
Present were several members of the Women’s Art Association of Canada (WAAC) who donated 11 of the 15 artworks to the campaign. Also present was Dale Butterill, president of WAAC, who expressed support during her opening remarks. Together with members of WAAC, contributing artists donated over $15,000 worth of art to the campaign.
“Breast Cancer Awareness Month’s positivity makes it easy to overlook the fact that 60 to 70 per cent of chemotherapy treatments fail,” says Dr. Gregory Czarnota, chief of Radiation Oncology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and co-inventor of WaveCheck with Professor Michael C. Kolios of Ryerson University. “WaveCheck’s technology can tell people with breast cancer and their doctors if a particular chemotherapy is working in as little as four weeks.”
Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for North American clinical study during Breast Cancer Awareness Month; 12 artists donate 13 original works worth over $15,000 to support campaign
Toronto, Canada (October 9, 2013) — WaveCheck— a painless, non-surgical clinical technique developed by a Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre oncologist and a Ryerson University physicist and supported by MaRS Innovation — is poised to transform chemotherapy response monitoring for women with breast cancer.
Dr. Gregory Czarnota of Sunnybrook Health Sciences (left) and Professor Michael Kolios of Ryerson University, WaveCheck’s inventors.
WaveCheck combines traditional ultrasound with new software to detect responses to chemotherapy in breast cancer tissues. By making better, more accurate information available about a woman’s response to her chemotherapy treatment in weeks rather than months, WaveCheck creates greater transparency through dialogue between a women and her doctors, empowering her to participate in discussions about whether a given chemotherapy treatment is effective.
Contribute to WaveCheck‘s Indiegogo campaign and help make this technology available to all women with breast cancer faster.
Developed by Dr. Gregory Czarnota, chief of Radiation Oncology at Sunnybrook’s Odette Cancer Centre, and Michael C. Kolios, professor of Physics and Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Applications of Ultrasound at Ryerson, WaveCheck has been used in clinical studies with nearly 100 women receiving upfront, neoadjuvant chemotherapy to treat locally-advanced breast cancer. These results are published in two leading journals, Clinical Cancer Research and Translational Oncology.
In the Indiegogo campaign video, Czarnota, Kolios and three of the 100 women who participated in the first Sunnybrook study explain WaveCheck’s impact.
“The hard truth for women with breast cancer is that 60 to 70 per cent of chemotherapy treatments fail,” said Czarnota, who is also a senior scientist and director of cancer research at Sunnybrook Research Institute and assistant professor in the University of Toronto’s Departments of Radiation Oncology and Medical Biophysics within the Faculty of Medicine. “The 1.5 million women worldwide who will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year need to know that their chemotherapy is working as soon as possible. But this kind of treatment monitoring doesn’t currently exist in standard clinical practice. Instead, a woman’s tumour response is evaluated after she completes her chemotherapy treatment, which is typically a four- to six-month process.
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.
10,000 Indiegogo supporters first to try one-dimensional, virtual mobile keyboard
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 Japanand 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.
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.
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.”
Whirlscape’s Minuum keyboard leads the way in Matthew Braga‘s January 5 Financial Post article highlighting promising start-ups from across Canada.
