Mather Carscallen’s SABRTech Inc. won gold in Innovacorp’s CleanTech Open last week, but I’d like to unofficially award silver and bronze medals to the Atlantic provinces and Innovacorp.

The entire region (I was tempted to say Nova Scotia but prefer to take a regional view) is a winner because this international competition has developed stronger links with scientists, environmentalists, and, most importantly, sources of finance around the world. And it wouldn’t have happened if Innovacorp didn’t have imagination and courage.

A few years ago, the Nova Scotia government decided that

Three Maritime companies – GoInstant, TitanFile and VidCruiter -- that have yet to see their second birthday have been named to Branham Group Inc.’s list of Top 25 Canadian Up and Coming ICT Companies.

Ottawa-based Branham is a strategic consulting firm focused on technology, and it ranks hundreds of Canadian ICT companies, including 25 young companies that are ascending.

Listing its top newcomers alphabetically, it highlighted: GoInstant, the Halifax startup that allows users on different computers to work on one-another’s screens; TitanFile, the Dartmouth-based collaboration and

When country rock band The Divorcees launched their latest album Four Chapters at the East Coast Music Awards in their home town of Moncton this month, one partner they could have thanked was the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. 

 The band, which had previously won ECMAs, used the site to raise about $9,500, which they needed to complete the album.  After they finished touring last summer, they realized they hadn’t quite made enough money for their next project and then they heard about the crowdfunding site. It ended up helping them. 

“We’re really proud of the album and we were happy to

Innovacorp has scoured the globe for the best cleantech startup anywhere and found it was located in its own back yard -- in a Dalhousie University lab.

Halifax-based SABRTech Inc. has won the $300,000 first prize in Cleantech Open, a competition open to green technology companies from around the world as long as they agree to establish their business in Nova Scotia.

SABRTech, formerly known as Marine Arctic and Antarctic Technologies, is developing a system to reduce the cost of developing biofuel from algae. Headed by Dalhousie PhD candidate Mather Carscallen, the company is

A few weeks ago, I found myself in a coastal area rich in universities and colleges, bursting with ambition, and actively trying to draw back residents who had moved away and improve an income level well below the national average.

Sound familiar? No, I wasn’t in Atlantic Canada but rather in an office in downtown Bangor, Maine, listening to the principals of Mobilize Eastern Maine outline their impressive plans to revitalize their region’s economy.

Maine has a bipolar economy. Most of its residents live in the affluent southern area, and census figures show that the disparity between

In 10 days, a group of Canadian expats in London will hold the official launch of C100UK, the British equivalent of C100 in Silicon Valley.

There has been relatively little hype about this new group since the Globe and Mail reported its advent in December, and I’m surprised there’s not more buzz about it in Atlantic Canada. I get that London is not Silicon Valley and if you want to be somebody in the tech world you have to make waves in suburban San Francisco. No arguments here. But the mission of the Atlantic Canadian innovation community should not be just to make waves in the tech

Innovacorp and GrowthWorks Atlantic are leading a $1.1 million first round of funding of 2nd Act Innovations, which will help the Halifax company develop a product for midsized customers.

The company, which has developed an advanced document-organization system called Oris4 Enterprise Content Manager, or ECM, has doubled its customer base since I last reported on the company in October, and CEO Andrew Doyle said 2^nd Act  next year aims to raise about $5 million to $7 million.

Innovacorp, Nova Scotia’s innovation agency, and GrowthWorks, the venture capital fund, are each investing

Our Guest Columnist today is Jeff Thompson, (@thomjeff) of Fredericton, who exited his tech company Conseros when it was bought by Genesys in 2009. Jeff recently announced his departure from Genesys and is now a tireless and sage mentor (according to several people we know) with Launch36 and the Canadian Youth Business Foundation.

 By Jeff Thompson

The Atlantic region has long been a source of natural resources, including forestry. As a region we’ve been challenged to diversify our economies and ensure we have a place in the so-called new economy.

I heard the New Brunswick Government

An entrepreneur I know recently lamented that most entrepreneurship events in Atlantic Canada are attended mainly by support organizations rather than by businesspeople. What he would love to see is an event that attracts the rookie entrepreneurs—the folks who are working on new technology in their basements.

I suggested that he look across the Isthmus of Chignecto to New Brunswick. The old Loyalist–Acadian stronghold does a magnificent job of dragging its entrepreneurs out of their cellars and into the blazing sunlight where people can see them. In fact, I don’t think any other province

 Dear Readers:

We may have told some of you we were planning to move to Calgary, where Peter had accepted a job with a financial company. Well, as so often happens, those plans have changed and we’re delighted to say we’re remaining in Atlantic Canada. We are now refocusing our efforts on Entrevestor and planning some new initiatives. And we are excited – really pumped! -- about what’s coming up. We know we’re supposed to say something like that, but we’ve got some cool stuff in the pipeline and can’t wait to unveil it.  

Thanks to all of you who sent kind messages. We really appreciate