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MaRS Innovation featured in International Innovation magazine

International Innovation feature on MIMaRS Innovation and its member institutions are is profiled in International Innovation‘s July issue (#191) in a feature interview with Dr. Rafi Hofstein, MI’s president and CEO, written by Rosemary Peters.

The article is posted on the publication’s website and viewable through a digital interface (pages 80 and 81).

Here’s an excerpt from Dr. Hofstein’s comments:

“Canada’s academic research community is internationally highly competitive, but it has been argued that its scientific commercial success tags behind other countries such as the U.S. and the U.K. While this remains a matter of debate, I do agree that we need to continually encourage additional sources of seed capital to join is so as to allow for accelerated advancement of early-stage technologies. Industry needs to become much more engaged in advancing early-stage (and promising!) technologies emerging from the academic sector, which are usually young and in significant attention, navigation, management expertise and seed capital provisions. These are areas of rising importance in Canada, as many innovations fall into the ‘valley of death’ due to a lack of proper funding, or they leave the country and flourish in the U.S. where funding is more abundant.

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Xconomy names Xagenic to 2012’s Biotech Startup Class

MI spin-off company one of 30 listed in North America and the United Kingdom

Xconomy, a U.S.-based business news website, named Xagenic to its 2012 Biotech Startup Class.

Luke Timmerman‘s article, published December 3, 2012, sited Xagenic as one of only 30 “exciting biotech startups” to raise significant venture capital (at least $5 million) in the life sciences sector.

Xagenic, founded by Drs. Shana Kelley and Ted Sargent at the University of Toronto,  was also the only Canadian company named to the list.

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Shotlst: “Track changes” for the physical world

Shotlst is one of six inaugural UTEST companies; next UTEST application round to begin shortly

UTEST-Shotlst co-founders Matt Ratto (left) and Mike Borg
Shotlst co-founders Matt Ratto (left) and Mike Borg. Shotlst was one of six companies accepted into UTEST‘s inaugural cohort. Photo courtesy of Jon Horvatin, University of Toronto.

What if you could turn on Microsoft Word’s “track changes” tool and apply it at will to the world around you?

Sound like science fiction?

Meet Matt Ratto, a professor in the University of T’s Faculty of Information, and Mike Borg, a recent graduate of the faculty. They’ve formed Shotlst, a new software company being incubated by the University of Toronto Early Stage Technology (UTEST) program.

The central metaphor of Shotlst is the “shot list,” a list of scenes a film director plans to get each day on a movie set. It serves to organize the cast and crew’s time and activity for the day.

With Shotlst, a user decides at the outset on “shots” that will be consistent throughout the life of a project.

For example, an architect might take pictures of a cardboard model of a building, 3-D renderings and, later, the actual construction site. These shots would serve as raw material that colleagues could use to annotate and collaborate using the software.

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