UNB, Mastercard Ink $1.75M Cyber Deal

Mastercard will sponsor the University of New Brunswick’s Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity, or CIC, to the tune of $1.75 million, with the money going towards establishing a security research chair and funding scholarships.

The CIC’s new Mastercard IoC Chair is Rongxing Lu, an associate professor of computer science who started at UNB in 2016 and holds two PhDs, one from Shanghai Jiao Tong

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GoodLeaf, Adastra Partner on Plant Growth Tech

Guelph, Ont.- and Bible Hill, NS-based vertical farming startup GoodLeaf Farms has inked a $2.5 million deal with data analytics firm Adastra to develop an artificial intelligence system for determining optimal growing conditions for plants.

The project will be worth about $2.5 million, with Scale AI — the Montreal-based and federally backed supercluster which partners with the private sector to

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Feds Offer Digital Grant

A new program from the federal government is offering small- and medium-sized businesses grants to pay for digital technology.

The Canadian Digital Adoption Program, or CDAP, offers grants up to $2,400 to build e-commerce storefronts and up to $15,000 to cover 90 per cent of the cost of digital advisory services from pre-vetted advisors. Businesses can also access zero interest loans from BDC to

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Lockhart on How To Cope with Talent Shortage

The most significant effect of the technology sector labour shortage for startups is not problems accessing talent, but rather the price of workers and its knock-on effects for capital raises, according to Propel CEO Kathryn Lockhart.

In an interview, Lockhart told Entrevestor that Propel — an online startup incubator serving the Atlantic provinces — is advising its resident companies to

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B-Line Joins REACH Accelerator

On the back of launching its living lab at the Port of Halifax’s PIER innovation centre, building management startup B-Line has been accepted into the National Association of Realtors’ REACH scale-up program in the U.S.

REACH and its sister program, REACH Commercial, are run by NAR’s Second Century Ventures innovation arm. They aim to help companies that have demonstrated significant market

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Innovatia Sells Accelerator Unit

Saint John-based Innovatia Accelerator, which makes software for information management and communication in industrial settings, has been acquired by Swedish automation and remote monitoring giant Hexagon AB for an undisclosed price.

Innovatia is a group of several digital businesses, and several years ago it launched AcceleratorKMS, a SaaS product that allows industrial workers to access

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Harbr, Introhive Find International Partners

Two Atlantic Canadian startups have inked collaboration deals with foreign companies: Halifax construction fintech specialist Harbr and Fredericton- and Miami-based sales software-maker Introhive.

Introhive sells artificial intelligence technology to identify data stored in companies’ computer systems and help them use it to increase revenue and improve productivity. And Harbr automates

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Villaumé Named New CEO of TechNL

After six years leading the Memorial Centre for Entrepreneurship, Florian Villaumé has been selected as the new CEO for techNL, the Newfoundland and Labrador association for digital industries.

The techNL board’s search committee had been working with the seach agency Knightsbridge Robertson Surrette for several months to find a replacement for former CEO Paul Preston. He left the organization

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