Almost three years ago, New Brunswick Premier David Alward sat down with Robert Hatheway to offer the Fredericton orthodontist and businessman the chair of the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation. 

From that discussion, Hatheway understood that innovation and research would soon assume a broader position in the province’s development strategy, and that NBIF would play the quarterback position in that new game plan.

“When the Premier asked me to fill this role, he told me that one of the things we can’t do in New Brunswick is continue to look into the rearview mirror,” Hatheway said in

The latest incubation centre and program for Atlantic Canadian entrepreneurs were launched in Fredericton on Thursday with the aspirations of being a national or international enterprise by the spring.

Knowledge Park, a development for knowledge industry companies in the New Brunswick capital, officially opened the Planet Hatch Centre (formerly called the Commercialization Environment for Advanced Learning Technologies, or CEALT), which will be home to the new ACcelR8 program. About 180 people registered to attend the launch.

The facility and program are starting off with a first cohort

Compilr, the Halifax company whose online development environment allows users to learn, write and test code in the cloud, has received interest from a number of potential suitors that may be interested in buying its assets.

Founder and CEO Patrick Hankinson said in an interview the company is talking about the sale of its back-end infrastructure and its educational product. “We’re just re-evaluating what technology we have and who the technology would fit well with,” said Hankinson.

He said the talks could result in the infrastructure and educational platform being sold to one or two

Halifax-based Karma Gaming, which develops video games for regulated lotteries, has added to its Series A round of venture capital with a $1 million funding from Vanedge Capital in Vancouver.

The funding, Vanedge’s first in Atlantic Canada, is an addition to the $4 million first closing announced in June, bringing the total for the A round to $5 million. The first closing of the round included $2.5 million from Rho Canada Ventures, the Canadian arm of Rho Capital Partners, which has offices in Palo Alto, Calif., New York and Montreal, and $1.5 million from Innovacorp, the Nova Scotia

Eggroll Digital Studios Inc., a new mobile and software development company, is launching in the Miramichi region with an investment from the Miramichi Technology Fund, which was established by former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna.

The company will be headed by Mike White, a native Nova Scotian who studied and worked in television animation in Nova Scotia before starting a mobile gaming company in San Francisco in 2008.

“We’ll be focused primarily on developing games for mobile devices,” said White in a statement. “For now we’ll be creating iOS games for the iPhone and iPad.

Ladies Learning Code, the national group that introduces people of all ages and genders to programing, is coming to New Brunswick.

The group began in Toronto a few years ago and came to Atlantic Canada earlier this year with a few sessions in Halifax. Though it does encourage females to learn about technology, the organization is somewhat misnamed because its students are simply people who are new to coding, regardless of their sex. It’s also proven a great way for children and teenagers to learn about coding.

The first New Brunswick Fredericton event will be held Sept. 21 – which is

Mindful Scientific, the Halifax company whose portable device can detect head trauma instantly, has been selected as one of six North American finalists in the IBM Global Entrepreneur Competition.

CEO Ying Tam said Monday the company will participate in the IBM North America Regional SmartCamp, to be held in Silicon Valley from Sept. 17 to 19.  

“It certainly validates where we’re going in terms of market opportunity and the size of market,” he said in an interview.

Mindful Scientific has been developing the Halifax Consciousness Scanner, or HCS, as a comfortable, attractive device

Performance Genomics Inc., a Truro-based biotech company that aims to improve the fertility of livestock, has received a $250,000 equity investment from Innovacorp, capping off a year in which it has raised more than $500,000 from a variety of sources.

One of the veterans of the region’s life sciences industry, PGI identifies genes that control reproductive performance in mammals and is developing genomics tests to predict how long livestock will stay fertile. If farmers can identify which cows stay fertile the longest, they can employ selective breeding to ensure their cattle produce

Robert Niven looked around the packed room at the Innovacorp Enterprise Centre on Friday and said it once again: “I love this event.”

The CEO of Halifax-based CarbonCure Technologies has good reason to love Innovacorp’s I-3 competition, whose launch we were attending.  His was a true startup (then known as CarbonSense Solutions) when he entered the competition in 2009, yet the company placed second in the Halifax area, behind the eventual provincial winner, Tether. Since then, CarbonCure has grown steadily, finding national and international markets for its sustainable method of making

Peter McMath is carrying on a proud New Brunswick musical tradition, though it’s only indirectly related to playing an instrument or singing a song.

McMath is president of Timbre Cases, a Fredericton startup that is dedicated to making the best guitar cases available. A lifelong music fanatic, he wants to emulate the success of local companies Sabian Cymbals and Los Cabos Drumsticks, which have excelled in the global market for music equipment.

 “What we set out to do was design and make molded instrument cases out of plastic,” said McMath in a recent interview at a table along the