Women’s Equity Lab (WEL) Manitoba has closed its third fund, and at $300,000 CAD it marks the first time the Manitoba chapter of the venture capital collective has reached full subscription. “We’re having to turn people away that have expressed interest now that we’ve reached our full subscription.” WEL Manitoba announced the closure of the…
Former Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan’s new defence tech startup is laying the foundation for a public listing on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV). Vancouver-based Juno Industries announced the sale of 15 million subscription receipts at 80 cents a piece on Friday morning, securing the company $12 million CAD in financing ahead of a…
AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton is afraid that powerful AI could eventually wipe out humanity, and he has a striking idea for how to prevent that from happening. If we embed “maternal instincts” in AI now, we could ensure it does not want to get rid of us, Hinton said on Thursday at the Ontario Centre…
Steven Wang is CEO of Venture for Canada and lecturer at Harvard University and the University of Toronto. . . . As Canada enters graduation season, approximately 650,000 post-secondary students are preparing to enter the workforce. They will arrive at a time when youth unemployment already sits at 13.8 percent, more than double the national…
Toronto Tech Week’s marquee opening event has unveiled its full lineup of speakers. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey, Dominion Dynamics founder Eliot Pence, and more leaders from across Canada’s innovation ecosystem will join the BetaKit Most Ambitious: Town Hall on May 25. “We’re on a mission to change the country, and that…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Getting a library card should be easy. For many children, it isn’t. The process can require documentation that not every family has: a fixed address, proof of residency, or a guardian’s signature. For students who are unhoused, in foster care, or undocumented, those requirements can make the library effectively…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The Bahamas became the 12th country or territory in the Americas to receive WHO certification for eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV, joining a regional cohort that now accounts for more than half of all such certifications worldwide. The certification, announced April 22 by the World Health Organization, is awarded…
Speaking at Saskatoon’s Uniting the Prairies tech conference, the Government of Canada announced today $7.9 million in federal funding to support the tech sector in Saskatchewan, including $3.7 million to independent incubator Co.Labs. The announcement was delivered by Taleeb Noormohamed, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, Evan Solomon, on…
As the AI industry concentrates into fewer players, Canadian co-founded Featherless AI wants to ensure open-source AI models remain a viable alternative option. Deploying open-source AI models typically means spinning up a server rack yourself or paying rent to a hyperscaler’s cloud service. The San Francisco-based company is building what it calls the neutral foundation…
Richmond, BC’s General Fusion wants to become the first company to develop commercially viable fusion power, and thinks going public could help provide the capital it needs to win. Pending regulatory and shareholder approval, General Fusion is expected to debut on the Nasdaq by mid-2026, after striking a deal to merge with Dallas-based special purpose…
