BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The question seemed reasonable enough: what heat adaptation interventions were already working in Africa’s low-income communities? Lara Dugas, an epidemiologist, and climate scientist Mark New had received funding from the Wellcome Trust’s HeatNexus initiative to evaluate what was in place. When they went looking, they found nothing. “The initial…
Calgary-based Showpass plans to buy university campus engagement platform Bounce, expanding its presence into the university market. The news: The agreement between the Queens University-founded Bounce and Showpass, Canada’s largest domestic live event ticketing platform, was announced on Tuesday and is expected to fully close later this month, according to Showpass CEO Lucas McCarthy. McCarthy…
The news: Canadian non-profit organization Shareholder Association for Research and Education (SHARE), on behalf of the pension plan of the United Church of Canada, had called on Shopify to pledge that it will respect human rights and align with international standards when using AI. At Shopify’s annual general meeting on Tuesday, shareholders voted to reject…
Toronto-based AI scaleup Cohere is seeing more interest from potential customers after the US government blocked access to Anthropic’s latest large language model. The news: Cohere chief AI officer Joelle Pineau told Bloomberg Tech host Ed Ludlow on Monday that enterprise and government customers want control over a predictable tech stack, and that the US…
Last week, Fellow employees gathered at their annual company summit to share drinks and revel in their latest milestone, only to be surprised by 200 drones displaying their logo above the heart of Ottawa. The enterprise meeting assistant startup had gone all out to celebrate hitting 5,000 customers, gathering its employees to witness the drone…
Tailscale, the Toronto startup that sells virtual private network software to companies, is updating its products to help simplify how businesses manage and track their AI use. The company announced on Tuesday that it is adding new capabilities to Aperture as it looks to help clients contend with the ever-shifting AI market. They include: a…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The human brain contains approximately 86 billion neurons. A honeybee brain contains roughly one million, packed into about one cubic millimeter. That brain, it turns out, can learn to tell human faces apart. The research goes back more than two decades. Across multiple studies, honeybees have been trained to…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM An impressive $14.7 million from the city. $1.3 billion in economic investment returned. $1.4 billion in energy savings. 11,000 jobs created. Those are the results of the Philadelphia Energy Campaign’s first decade, according to a 10-year economic impact report released last month. The financing model that made this possible…
The federal government unveiled long-awaited reforms to Canada’s privacy laws today, handing authority previously held by Canada’s privacy commissioner to the as-of-yet-unestablished Canadian Digital Safety Commission (CDSC). The reforms were announced this afternoon in a technical briefing that came on the heels of Bill C-36. The bill, dubbed the Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act…
A former BDC Capital principal is suing the Crown corporation for alleged wrongful termination, BetaKit has learned. In a court filing, Priniotakis alleged that he was fired for failing to sign a confidentiality agreement related to an investigation he had prompted after he complained about a “hostile work environment.” Emmanuel Priniotakis, a former principal investor…
