CarbonCure Technologies, the Halifax cleantech company dedicated to low-carbon concrete products, has signed a licensing agreement with Northfield Block, a division of publicly listed Oldcastle Inc., the largest producer of concrete masonry and precast products in North America.

Taken together with recent agreements with Central Concrete Supply Inc. of California and Midland, Ont.-based concrete manufacturer Atlas Block, the Northfield agreement shows that CarbonCure is attracting clients that should soon generate top-line growth.

The ultimate parent of Northfield is Dublin,

Big Data evangelists often say data analytics will improve and lower the cost of health care, and Research Avenue of St. John’s is working each day to make it so.

Research Avenue is a bioinformatics startup that is commercializing research at Memorial University of Newfoundland by analyzing genetic data to develop algorithms for predicting risks of developing diseases. The initial target is colon cancer, but the system could apply to other diseases.

Company president Tyler Wish said in an interview at the recent Face2Face conference in Baddeck that Research Avenue is examining a range

New Brunswick has decided that innovation is going to be its engine of economic growth, and the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation is the engineer making sure the machine runs smoothly.Already this year, New Brunswick Premier David Alward has announced a new program highlighted by a commitment to fund innovation initiatives with $80 million over five years, as well as the creation of the New Brunswick Research and Innovation Council. And he has signaled that NBIF will play a key role in implementing the programs.

NBIF president and CEO Calvin Milbury says the enhanced mandate will mean a

Once again, I've got together with my friends at Startup Kitchen for Startup Monthly, and round-table discussion of what's going on in the region.

In addition to Suhaim Abdussamad and Robert Foley, we're joined this month by Jason Janes, a founding member of Startup St. John’s. Jason brings great insight to the panel and broadens our reach beyond the Maritimes.

Our topics this month are the wave of accelerators hitting the region and a look a few exciting young companies. Enjoy.

As you read this, prison inmates in Minnesota, Kansas, South Dakota and Alabama are ordering basic consumer goods, doing financial transactions or sending messages using technology developed in Nova Scotia.

Genesis Technology of Halifax has developed a system that allows inmates to organize their finances, communicate and order basic products, all from a kiosk in portions of jails that are open to the prison population. The company has installations in numerous facilities in the U.S., and CEO Chris Barker said the company’s target is to be in dozens of new institutions over the coming

The interactive media industry in Nova Scotia is pressing the provincial government to review the terms and duration of its current digital media tax credit, saying it is difficult to develop long-term strategies without knowing if the credit will exist in a few years.

The credit for developers of video games, interactive training videos and the like expired after a five-year stint at the end of 2012, and the government extended it for one year.

The industry expects that at the end of this year it will be extended for another year, forming a pattern of annual renewal. However,

With its customer list growing, Karma Gaming of Halifax has announced the $4 million first closing of its Series A round of venture capital in what is believed to be Atlantic Canada’s biggest VC financing from outside the region in almost two years.

The developer of video games for regulated lotteries has received $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 innovation agency. Paul LeBlanc, co-founder and CEO of Karma Gaming, said there is a

Virtual Marine Technology, the St. John’s, N.L., developer of simulated training systems for maritime industries, has quintupled its revenues in the last two years with its drive into export markets.

And president Anthony Patterson says that move into foreign markets will only continue in the future.

Since emerging from Memorial University of Newfoundland nine years ago, the company has become a cornerstone of the St. John’s oceans industry cluster. But like so many startups, the challenge has been to grow revenues in a meaningful way.

It had been targeting two market segments — oil

But there were two interesting standouts that played supporting roles at the conference, which was held in Halifax on May 30: the region’s start-ups and its universities.

The final conference in the 4Front series wrapped up with the 250 delegates taking pledges on what they would do to improve the region’s economic morass. These included such promises as hiring students and immigrants and exporting more.

The discussion was framed against Barton’s keynote address, which delved into revolutionary changes in Asia, where he lived for more than a decade. Led by emerging markets in Asia and

[Editor’s Note: Perry B. Newman is a consultant in Portland, Maine. We were discussing how Entrevestor could write more about startups in Maine when he proposed a guest column on what we in this region could learn from Israel. Here's the result.]

There’s much to be said for collaboration and coordination in both entrepreneurial and economic development efforts. We get ideas from each other. We share resources, and we create critical mass that enhances the potential for our success. We build virtual teams and virtual companies, and we construct paradigms that allow us to punch above our