BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Spider silk has always had a certain reputation: impossibly strong, faintly magical, and mostly reserved for nature documentaries and superhero origin stories. But in a humid lab in Oxford, it is being treated less like a wonder and more like a tool. A tool that might help surgeons solve…
The federal government has revealed a pair of new Canadian defence technology investments. The feds have allocated up to nearly $7 million CAD in non-repayable funding to Toronto’s Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) to support the delivery of its new defence accelerator and a more than $8-million repayable contribution (or zero-interest loan) to help Aurora-based defence…
As computing costs and climate impact soar amid the AI era, JetScale AI has set out to make corporate cloud infrastructure “predictable, efficient, and less wasteful.” The Montréal startup, which announced $5.4 million CAD in seed funding on Thursday, is developing AI-powered software designed to help companies manage and optimize their cloud usage. JetScale AI…
Canadian entrepreneurship and innovation hub YSpace now works with over 1,400 companies. Increasingly, many of them are asking how they can expand beyond North America in a structured way. In December, leaders from YSpace and York University travelled to South Korea to formalize an answer. “There are a lot of synergies between Canada and Korea’s…
A healthtech company in the Yukon has released a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool to help clinicians in the territory quickly knock out administrative work using just their voice. Dubbed CoWork, the tool is a product of Whitehorse-based PeerSupport.io. The autonomous AI browser completes assigned tasks across a clinic’s electronic medical records (EMRs) and web-based…
OpenAI says that since it banned the account of the perpetrator of a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, BC, it has tightened its protocols for referring ChatGPT accounts to law enforcement, and would have reported that account to police if the account had been flagged today. “We believe in innovation, but not at the expense…
The Québec government is injecting $36 million CAD in fresh funding into Montréal-based AI research institute Mila as it aims to maintain the province’s reputation as a leader in AI research. “In a highly competitive global environment, we must make strategic choices to preserve our strengths.” Minister Jean Boulet Government representatives, including economy and innovation…
Three University of Regina (U of R) research projects are benefitting from nearly $460,000 in funding from Innovation Saskatchewan. The provincial agency announced the funding on Wednesday through its Innovation and Science Fund (ISF). The projects receiving support focus on water security, environmental sustainability, and antimicrobial resistance. Innovation Saskatchewan’s investment matches funding from the Canada…
An Ontario defence and aerospace company has been tasked with developing a tool to detect harmful space radiation for astronauts on the International Space Station. The technology will give researchers “practical data to help protect astronauts from harmful radiation.” The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) announced today that Bubble Technology Industries (BTI), based in Chalk River,…
Vancouver-based fractional real estate investment platform Addy told users this week that it is restructuring its business. Co-founders Stephen Jagger and Michael Stephenson broke the news with an apology in an email sent to users on Wednesday. In it, they said the company is “unable to continue operating in its current structure” and that professional…
