BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The house Tala and Farah Mousa were living in was bombed. So they looked at the rubble and started asking what it could become. Their answer is Build Hope, Palestine: a way to turn debris from damaged buildings into reusable blocks. Crushed and sieved rubble, mixed with clay, ash,…
Float co-founder and CEO Rob Khazzam, Google DeepMind’s Amit Vadi, and Boardy founder Andrew D’Souza are among the latest speakers joining Toronto Tech Week’s official mainstage event. Homecoming returns for its second year on May 27, where it will anchor Toronto Tech Week’s days-long celebration of Canadian technology. Hosted at History, Homecoming aims to bring…
Strong revenue growth and a continued AI focus weren’t enough to assuage Shopify investors today, with shares falling nearly 10 percent as the company posted a net loss. The Ottawa-based e-commerce giant posted a $581-million USD ($790-million CAD) net loss in the first quarter of this year, compared to a $682-million USD loss in the…
At the DiscoveryX conference in Toronto last week, a trio of Canadian venture capitalists (VCs) couldn’t come to a consensus on whether the AI industry is currently in a bubble. They did, however, agree that the valuation math isn’t adding up. On a panel moderated by BetaKit reporter Josh Scott, McRock Capital partner Udit Bhatnagar,…
A proposal from the federal government to ban cryptocurrency ATMs is drawing backlash from Canada’s digital asset industry, with advocates and industry leaders calling for more consultation. Buried in a section of Canada’s Spring Economic Update 2026 is a subsection outlining the establishment of a Financial Crimes Agency that would combat illicit financial activity like…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM A study presented at the 2026 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons annual meeting found that among nearly 147,000 adults with type 2 diabetes and obesity, GLP-1 use was associated with higher rates of osteoporosis, osteomalacia, and gout. The finding attracted a lot of attention, but the fine print matters…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM For most of its history, women’s football has played in spaces that weren’t built for it: men’s training grounds, borrowed pitches, stadiums designed for crowds three times the size. Brighton and Hove Albion is changing that. The club has announced plans to build a 10,000-capacity stadium on a site…
The federal government is working on spinning out the National Research Council of Canada’s (NRC) Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre (CPFC) into a “commercial entity.” Industry Minister Mélanie Joly announced the intended spinoff at a reception for the CHIPS NORTH semiconductor conference in Ottawa on Monday evening, saying in a statement that the spinout “will strengthen…
Craig Reiff spends much of his time thinking about the consumer and the digital experience that surrounds them. As Senior Vice President of Core Payments at Mastercard in Canada, he focuses on the systems that power how transactions actually happen. “Scalability will not be challenged by technology. It’s going to be challenged by trust.” In…
Sanofi announced on Monday that it is investing $294 million to expand its AI Centre of Excellence in Toronto. The French biopharmaceutical giant’s commitment towards the hub, which currently employs more than 150 people, is expected to create 50 additional jobs across AI, machine learning, and pharmaceutical data science by 2028. Through Invest Ontario, the…
