Organizers of the Big Data Congress, to be held in Saint John on January 24, hope it  will evolve into a national event that will be held annually to promote the development of the digital economy in Canada.

Geoff Flood, the CEO of the data analytics consultancy T4G, came up with the idea for the conference as part of his movement to establish a big data centre of excellence in the region. The conference will feature some of the world’s leading thinkers in the growing industry of data analytics, interspersed with more local discussions, a trade show, and workshop.

“We’re in the very

Springleap, the South African crowdsourcing startup that was the co-winner of MentorCamp in September, will move to Halifax in the New Year, complete with a new feature and (hopefully) a new round of funding.

Now based in Cape Town, Springleap was recruited to Halifax to participate in MentorCamp, a one-day training session for entrepreneurs, by the founder of the event, Permjot Valia, who does business in the African country. The 40-or-so international mentors at MentorCamp were so impressed with Springleap that they awarded it one of two first prizes, each comprising an equity

Fredericton-based Inversa Systems, whose technology can detect structural flaws through backscattered radiation techniques, intends to pursue a twin-track strategy in 2013 to pursue its two key markets – civil infrastructure and the offshore oil and gas industry.

The company wants to scale up sales in its civil business, which is mainly testing infrastructure like culverts (corrugated metal pipes) to make sure they are structurally sound. That business accounts for about 60 percent of Inversa’s revenues, but the greater growth may be found in the fledgling business of monitoring

Halifax startup Novawise Inc., has raised an additional funding of $350,000, bringing its total equity fundraising from Atlantic Canadian angel investors to more than $1 million.

Founded last year by Chief Executive David MacKinnon and Chief Technology Officer Steve Macdonald, Novawise is developing a customerrelationshipmanagement software for pharmaceuticals and other regulated industries.

The company grew quietly with $750,000 in seed funding starting in 2011, and so far this year has made three announcements about financing.

• On Friday, MacKinnon announced the company has raised

ClinicServer, a Saint John-based company that helps health clinics digitize their operations and records, has expanded into Zimbabwe as it moves from allied health facilities into more mainstream patient care.

The company began in its current form in 2010 with $1 million in angel funding and aims to help health clinics use cloud-based software for scheduling, billing, maintaining patient records and other common tasks.  The company says its basic service can produce a 5 percent increase in each professional’s revenues by allowing him or her to see more patients, and the premium service

Cube Automation and Sunny Corner Enterprises of northern New Brunswick have formed a joint venture with seed funding from the Frank McKenna Technology Fund to develop remote monitoring and automation applications for the mining industry.

Sunny Corner, based in Miramichi, and Cube Automation of Tracadie will develop technology that will allow mining companies to monitor their machinery in remote locations, often operating in extreme climates. The device will monitor such aspects of drilling as  torque, power and performance, and relay the information by satellite to a centralized office.

NewfoundOcean, a four-day training and mentoring program for entrepreneurs involved in ocean technologies, will be held in St. John’s from March 18 to 22, said MentorCamp CEO Permjot Valia, who is helping to organize the event.

The event will kick off with a bootcamp, which will be open to a range of Newfoundland companies. It will close with a one-day program based on the MentorCamp format, which Valia devised by holding sessions in the past two years in Halifax with entrepreneurs drawn largely from Atlantic Canada – entrepreneurs spend a day meeting a range of international mentors, so

Shannon MacDonald is on a crusade to improve productivity in the Maritimes, and she sees one shining example of progress  -- the region’s startups.

The Managing Partner (Atlantic) of the professional-services company Deloitte, MacDonald has worked on the firm’s analysis of productivity in Canada, a study that includes some stark data for the country in general and Atlantic Canada in particular.

 “Canadian productivity is starting to fall significantly behind our competitors,” MacDonald said recently during a lecture she gave for Dalhousie University business students. “This isn’t good,

The founders of Spring Loaded Technology just can’t wait for the day when some sports authority bans their product.

The three Dalhousie University students – Chris Cowper-Smith, Bob Garrish and Shea Kewin – are developing a new type of knee brace, which not only stabilizes the joint but also strengthens it, allowing the user to receive more power from his or her quadriceps. The product, which they hope to license to an established device manufacturer, would grant greater mobility to people who have difficulty moving because of age, disability or obesity.

But it could also improve

IntroHive Inc., a Fredericton- and Washington, D.C.-based startup that helps large companies to mine the contacts of their staff, has raised $1.8 million from GrowthWorks Atlantic Venture Fund,  the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation and a range of angels.

The company was founded by Jody Glidden and Stewart Walchli, who previously launched New Brunswick’s Chalk Media, which they sold to BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion for $30 million in 2009. They came together earlier this year to found IntroHive, with seed funding from Fortify Ventures of Washington, D.C., and CIT Gap Funds of