Lost in the recent controversy over budgets in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick is the fact that we’ve moved no closer to harmonizing or unifying investment tax credits in the region.

In fact, there are now greater differences in the provincial programs than ever before.

The recent budgets have created controversy over the film tax credit in Nova Scotia, over the fiscal picture in New Brunswick, and over education funding in both provinces.

The issue that the startup community had focused on in the lead up to the budgets was the tax credit given to equity investors in small businesses,

When Kelly Galloway speaks of her product that monitors septic systems, it doesn’t take her long to outline her plans for an Internet of Things solution that will automatically protect homeowners from the horrors of reversing septic tanks.

Galloway is the President of Stratford, P.E.I.-based Engineering Technologies Canada Ltd., which later this year will release its patented Septic Sitter

From the outset, Sean Sears and his team at sageCrowd felt that modern learning science would provide a sound basis for their e-learning platform.

Nonetheless, in a pattern typical of startup development, the sageCrowd founders shifted the direction of their company several times before finding the best course.

The Halifax company works with well-known authors to deliver competency-based

There was a Nova Scotian angle to the $1.5 billion deal that was the talk of Silicon Valley yesterday.

Professional social media network LinkedIn announced it would pay $1.5 billion in cash and stock for Lynda.com, a Carpinteria, Calif.-based company that offers online training. Part of the technology that LinkedIn is buying was developed by Halifax-based Compilr, founded by serial entrepreneur Patrick Hankinson.

Last year, Lynda bought Compilr for an undisclosed price, and Hankinson and his CTO Tim Speed have continued to work on the product since the deal closed.

Compilr began life

PropelICT, Atlantic Canada’s startup accelerator, announced Wednesday that the best Nova Scotian and New Bruncswick graduates from its accelerator will now be eligible for an additional $100,000 in funding.

The accelerator has struck a partnership with the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation and Innovacorp, which will consider investments in the leading graduates from each cohort. This program will begin with the coming cohort, which will run through the summer.

These graduates – those that complete the more advanced “Build” program – are already being considered for $150,000 in funding

I returned recently from a trip to India. We were there to film part of a new documentary called The Millennial Dream. We wanted to see how millennials and an emerging culture of social entrepreneurship in a city of 1.5 million people could inspire us back home. The documentary records New Brunswick’s journey toward becoming Canada’s mecca for millennials or “digital natives” who want to create

GetGifted has sent out its last gift list.

The Charlottetown startup that helped local merchants reward customers by giving them gifts announced on social media Tuesday that it would cease operations.

CEO and co-founder Gillian McCrae said in an interview that merchants were still using the weekly gift lists. However, she and her team came to understand the resources needed to roll out the

The Nova Scotia government announced Tuesday it will contribute $400,000 to Brilliant Labs, an initiative that encourages technical education in schools in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Premier Stephen McNeil said the government will ensure the initiative operates through all eight school boards in the province in the 2015-16 school year.

Under the terms revealed Tuesday, the not-for-profit initiative aims to provide lab space, to teach a range of technical skills and to encourage collaboration with industry.

A statement from the government said it will offer labs where students can

At Volta, Moses is leading his people to the promised land of wellness and productivity.

In this particular case, Moses is Moses Robicheau, CEO of Addo, a startup that helps organizations encourage physical activity and good health among their memberships. It is one of the newest ventures working out of the Halifax startup house, and it’s already creating an impressive list of corporate and not-for-profit clients.

Make no mistake: there are a lot of competitors out there, as there are several websites that help organizations improve the wellness of their employees. But it’s also true

Nathan Armstrong doesn’t mind using the F-word, and believes more Atlantic Canadians should discuss it openly.

The F-word, despite what you may have thought, is “failure”.

Armstrong is rightly proud that he and his brother Greg launched their cleantech startup Hyton Innovations, were shortlisted for an award and took the company through two accelerators. And he’s not ashamed to say that