TEC Edmonton, as one of Alberta's leading business incubators, was honoured to be the venue for the Tuesday, May 28, 2013  unveiling of the provincial government's new Open Data Portal.   The Open Data Portal provides access to more provincial government data than ever before.   “The portal is the next step we are taking down the open government road as we continue to build Alberta,” said Manmeet S. Bhullar, Minister of Service Alberta. “This government is committed to a new way of doing business - one that values the proactive sharing of information - and this portal builds on that commitment.”   "TEC Edmonton exists to support local tech entrepreneurs for whom access to resources and knowledge is vital to making strategic decisions," said Chris Lumb, CEO of TEC Edmonton. "The Government of Alberta’s new Open Data portal will be a tremendous resource to researchers, innovators and the business community, empowering them to maximiz ...

Alberta innovates - Technology Futures has announced the Alberta-Finland Innovation and Commercialization Program and is inviting proposals from small to medium sized enterprises in clean technologies, advanced materials, instruments and sensors, health and information and communications technology.  The idea is to accelerate technology development through collaboration with Finnish companies.

See the Edmonton Journal story of April 24, 2013 Alberta and Finland team up to fund, market tech innovations.

The MaRS Discovery District  - Toronto's innovation centre - has announced the  appointment of Euan Robertson as President and Chief Operating Officer (COO).

Robertson comes  to MaRS from the New York city Economic Development Corporation where he was executive vice president, and managing director of the Center for Economic Transformation.

MaRS names leading innovation expert as President and Chief Operating Officer.

 

  Alberta-Germany technology commercialization program announces first round of projects (press release from Alberta – Germany Collaboration Fund for Product Development and Commercialization. April, 2013. The Alberta-Germany Collaboration Fund is a TEC Centre tenant.)     Three Alberta small to medium-sized enterprises will receive support for commercializing innovative products and services through the Alberta – Germany Collaboration Fund for Product Development and Commercialization.   The program is a partnership between Alberta Enterprise and Advanced Education and the German-Canadian Centre for Innovation and Research (GCCIR) aimed at supporting joint research and commercialization activities between companies  in Alberta and Germany in strategic areas of technology. The program enables Alberta companies in certain sectors to access high-tech resources and European markets through a formal relationship with Germany. The program may also lead to new mo ...

Treasury Board President and Government of Canada cabinet minister Tony Clement visited TEC Edmonton on April 3, 2013, and liked what he saw. “I’m not as involved in business assistance models as I was as Minister of Industry,” the minister said in a brief interview following a tour of the TEC Centre in Enterprise Square. “But with Treasury Board, you have your fingers in many different pies. This is an interest of mine.” Two weeks earlier, the minister was at a meeting in his Ontario home riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka, to discuss setting up a business incubator/accelerator in Huntsville. He took in a presentation on TEC Edmonton by TEC Edmonton Chief Operating Officer Pamela Freeman. “Pamela talked about TEC Edmonton and its success to date. She was truly inspirational.” Since the minister was coming to Edmonton, he asked to tour TEC Edmonton. In addition to an informal lunch with TEC Edmonton representatives, he visited the labs of livestock genomics service pro ...

  According to Advance-Tek consultants Kevin Unger and Mark Wolff, a whole pile of money is being left on the table from the myriads of Canadian companies that qualify for the SR&ED (Scientific Research and Experimental Development) tax credits administered by the Canada Revenue Agency  … money that, if properly and legitimately claimed, could be re-invested in a company’s research and development efforts. SR&ED credits are the single biggest way the federal government supports scientific research and experimental developments in Canada. If approved by Revenue Canada assessors, a company can earn an investment tax credit of 35% up to for the first $3 million of qualified research expenditures, and 20% on any excess amount. In Alberta, the provincial government chips in another 10% as its contribution to science and research investment in the private sector. SR&ED credits are big business. According to Revenue Canada’s Overview of the SR&ED progra ...

The  federal government has a new start-up entrepreneur immigration initiative - to attract startup entrepreneurs to Canada via a special "immigrant-entrepreneur" visa.

Overseas entrepreneurs would be identified by venture capital funds as worthy candidates to start new businesses here, that would be more than the mom 'n' pop enterprises currently coming out of the business visa program.

One interesting condition: the sponsoring venture fund  must be prepared to invest in the startup company. 

Here's the link to The Globe & Mail story on the subject of Sept. 11, 2012, "Canada designs new visa for immigrant entrepreneurs."

  The end of an era. Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka - a couple of young docs fresh out of the U of A medical school - were huge video game fans, who, against all odds, founded their own video games production firm Bioware in 1995, and grew it into one of the top video game production studios in the world, all based in Edmonton. They sold Bioware to Elevation Partners in 2005, who then passed the company on to international game publishing giant EA (Electronic Arts). Both Greg and Ray continued as senior executive management of the BioWare  and other divisions of the company. To this day, the BioWare division continues to thrive in Edmonton. The Bioware co-founders collectively announced their retirement today (Tuesday, September 18, 2012) from the studio they founded nearly 20 years ago, as well as from their positions at parent company Electronic Arts. Their thoughts on retiring are posted in individual blogs on the Bioware blog site,  from Ray Muzyka and from Greg Zeschuk. Congra ...

In his business column in the Edmonton Journal of July 31, 2012, entitled "Edmonton's tec successes fly under the radar"  Gary Lamphier reports on TEC Edmonton's online survey of 74 junior tech firms in Greater Edmonton. The survey provided strong, reliable data that indeed, Lamphier writes, junior tech firms "are generating well-paid local jobs requiring significant scientific expertise, thus helping to diversify Edmonton's resource-based economy, one step at a time."  In his accompanying online Edmonton Journal blog, entitled "Tech should build on Alberta's natural resource strengths, says TEC Edmonton chief,"  Lamphier continued the discussion with TEC Edmonton CEO Chris Lumb, passing on Lumb's observations that local tech startups that build on the province's existing resources industries stand a far better chance of success than brand-new tech unrelated to the fundamentals of the Alberta economy. Both are excellent stories of interest to anyone who follows the innovatio ...

More Edmonton Technology Innovation news:  Mitre Media is the recipient of a $8.6 million investment by iNovia Capital. According to the Edmonton Journal story on the investment, the deal was done some months ago. Mitre Media acquires financial media assets to provide online information and advice to wealthy investorsis   has announced. 

A year ago, INovia Capital was part of a group investing $1.2 million in Edmonton-based Empire Avenue, a social platform centred on social currency.

Mitre Media founder Tom Hendrickson was one of the original employees of Investopedia.com, a very successful Edmonton-based financial information website that, according to the Journal, was sold to Forbes Media in 2007 for an undisclosed sum, then sold by Forbes three years later for $43 million.