Dana Fox, vice chair of Waterloo-based ClevrU Corporation, was featured in CBC’s Transforming Tech: Changing Careers in the Digital Age series, hosted by Matthew Kang.
The interview explores Fox’s career and decision to co-found ClevrU and his ongoing role in the start-up’s development.
Fox’s interview runs just over six minutes. After clicking the link, scroll down the page to the second interview to play the audio file.
Dr. Rafi Hofstein is among the experts featured in this month’s “One question, three experts” post on the MaRS Discovery District blog.
This regular feature addresses some of the challenges that start-ups face by asking three experts to respond to a different question each month — anything from marketing and financing guidance to advice on partnerships and mentors.
Here’s Hofstein’s response:
The first question to define is “partnership with whom?”
You will face very different issues when, for example, partnering with another founder to create a company together than you do when negotiating a relationship between a startup and a more established company.
Got a killer software-based idea? Are you passionate about turning that idea into a start-up company?
If you’re a current student, faculty member or recent graduate of the University of Toronto, consider applying to the University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) program.
Applications are now closed. Stay tuned for the third UTEST application call.
Created as a pilot in 2012 to help the U of T community bring their software-based ideas to market, UTEST is part of a growing ecosystem of incubators and commercialization support services.
UTEST accepts companies in the very earliest stages of idea generation— before they’re ready for traditional incubators — and awards each company up to $30,000 in start-up funds.
It also provides nascent software companies with office space in the MaRS Discovery District, mentoring and business strategy support.
“From a results standpoint, we couldn’t be more satisfied with first cohort of companies,” says Kurtis Scissons, co-director of UTEST at U of T. “In six months, they secured over $650,000 in follow-on funding. Each has filed solid patent protection and some are already gaining customer traction. They have also collectively created 21 highly-skilled jobs (HQPs).”
Update May 2013: Those figures now stand at $1.2 million and 29 jobs; most of the companies have secured customers.
Biotechnology Focus, a compendium of the Canadian life sciences industry, has published a guest column by MaRS Innovation President & CEO, Raphael Hofstein.
The article examines how to build a strong biotechnology cluster from an academic base in the midst of a global recession.
Here’s an excerpt:
Gone are the days of large-scale, well-funded, in-house departments with resources to liberally support academic and start-up collaborations. Financial pressures and the economic downturn have made it clear that the go-it-alone model is no longer sustainable, and industry players are recognizing that they don’t have a monopoly on research acumen and disruptive ideas. Simultaneously, industry has expressed less interest in investing in early-stage technologies that carry significant risk. They remain receptive to the research emerging from academic enterprise, but need a means of bridging the gap that technologies face as they move from the bench to the market.
The University of Toronto’s news site has posted a brief snapshot of Toronto’s entrepreneurial scene, highlighting the university’s historical and current innovative strengths.
Here’s a brief excerpt:
Entrepreneurs don’t have to be in Silicon Valley to become the next great business success story. Toronto now ranks fourth among the world’s top 25 start-up ecosystems, according to Start-up Genome, a project that maps the success rates of start-ups. Toronto ranks just behind Silicon Valley, New York City and London.
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