French video game developer Ubisoft has shuttered its Winnipeg office, putting 65 employees out of work. The news: First reported by Insider Gaming earlier this week, Ubisoft closed the Winnipeg studio as part of ongoing organizational changes that could impact up to 380 employees across the company. The latest changes also include the closure of…
The Canadian Space Agency has awarded $2.4 million to three Canadian companies tasked with developing the ground systems that will control the country’s next generation of satellites. The news: The agency announced on Thursday that Brampton-based MDA Space, Ottawa-based Calian, and Toronto-based Kepler were each awarded $804,000 contracts to develop ground-segment concept studies for RADARSAT+,…
The mother of a Montréal woman is accusing OpenAI’s ChatGPT of contributing to her daughter’s suicide last year. The news: Alice Carrier was a 24-year-old developer living in Montréal who died by suicide in July 2025. Kristie Carrier—represented by Susman Godfrey, Tech Justice Law, and Social Media Victims Law Center—filed a lawsuit in California against…
Toronto AI company Maneva, founded by a former Alberta welder turned engineer, has raised a $27-million USD ($38-million CAD) Series A round for its AI intelligence software for manufacturing. The news: Announced on June 10, the round was led by first-time Maneva investor, US Venture Partners, with USVP partner Matt Garratt joining the board. Its…
A fighter and a trainer circle each other in the centre of a caged-in octagon, adrenaline and cortisol coursing through their veins. The fighter seems to dance on lightning-quick feet; muscles twitch, like a cobra ready to strike. I shut my eyes when the first blow lands—thwack—against the sparring glove. This is not my thing….
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM What if scraps from a dinner could become a habitat? That’s the basic premise of the Shells for Shorelines program in a meaningful sense: the shells of oysters eaten at restaurants in Orange County can become the foundation on which new oysters settle and grow in the ocean. The…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The strategy is fine. The team is capable. But at the end of the quarter, the needle hasn’t moved. Julie Turpin, Chief People Officer at Brown & Brown, says this pattern almost always traces back to the same thing: habits. “Results that stick are built by habits that stick…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Every orange you eat comes with a second product most people toss without thinking. The peel is packed with limonene and other essential oils, citric acids, flavonoids, polyphenols, and antimicrobial compounds. Gardeners have been finding uses for it, and the list keeps growing. “I do use orange peels in…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM There is a small mobile cart somewhere in the Netherlands right now, and if you bring it a handful of cigarette butts, it will give you poffertjes. Those are Dutch mini pancakes, in case you were wondering, and yes, the exchange is real. WasteBar is the project behind it….
As frontier AI model providers increase their prices, some Canadian startup leaders that rely on them are evaluating alternatives to alleviate the high costs. The news: Leaders from a handful of Ottawa-based companies talked about the quirks of building in the AI era in a panel discussion at AccelerateOTT on Thursday morning. The founders of…
