It seems ironic that the term “2020” is a synonym for perfect vision. As we reach the halfway point of the year 2020, I couldn’t imagine a foggier view of things.

As the Atlantic Canadian startup community looks to the second half of the year, there are so many reasons to be pessimistic – almost as many as there are to be optimistic.

Will this column clarify things? Fat chance.  In 2020, if

When Ross Simmonds wrote an opinion piece for Entrevestor this month, he called for data on inclusivity in the Atlantic Canada startup community – a demand we’re now trying to meet.

An examination of the Entrevestor Databank indicates that Black and Indigenous communities from Atlantic Canada are under-represented in the region’s startup sector. I say “indicates” because we haven’t canvassed

Halifax-based social media analytics company Dash Hudson is hiring a Full Stack Developer, which is our Job of the Week posting this week.

Dash Hudson is a visual marketing Software-as-a-Service company that helps its clients increase engagement on their social media platforms. Its software, called Vision, is a one-stop spot for clients to manage, source and engage with the traffic of their

Startup Genome, the Silicon Valley group that assesses startup ecosystems around the world, has ranked the 100 top emerging ecosystems in its 2020 report, and Atlantic Canada failed to make the list.

The organization last year ranked Atlantic Canada as the No. 4 best ecosystem in the global “activation phase”, the category for young ecosystems with small startup communities.  Startup Genome this

Minority and newcomer entrepreneurs bring incredible ideas and innovations to our society and economy but face significant barriers to reaching the same level as other members of this ecosystem. Atlantic Canada prides itself on close-knit communities and familiar faces. This is a benefit when you’re on the inside of those networks, but can be a barrier for entrepreneurs who are unfamiliar with

Saint Mary’s University is offering a course via its David Sobey Centre for Innovation in Retailing and Services to help local sales businesses navigate the challenges of COVID-19.

The centre’s RISE Again Retail program is a spin-off of its “Retail Innovation, Strategy and Excellence” course. It is cancelled for 2020 but usually offers management training to retail entrepreneurs.

“This is

Halifax senior monitoring startup Tenera Care is among the companies accepted into the Creative Destruction Lab’s Recovery accelerator program.

The COVID-19 inspired course is a joint project with Montreal-based artificial intelligence hub Scale AI. It aims to rapidly commercialize innovations that could help protect public health or accelerate the economic recovery.

Tenera uses wearable

The University of New Brunswick and Ignite Fredericton have announced a partnership to provide local businesses with free consulting services for COVID-19-related projects.

The Catalyst program will see companies submit proposals, and UNB students, faculty members and researchers will collaborate to form consulting groups.

In a statement, Ignite Fredericton said the initiative is motivated by

The anti-racism protests of the past month have had special impact on one Atlantic Canadian startup, MESH/diversity, which is witnessing first-hand the movement’s effect on society.

The New Brunswick- and Toronto-based company was founded four years ago to help organizations become more diverse, thereby improving their productivity and profitability. And the events of the past month – the Black

One doesn’t need to spend a lot of time in the Atlantic Canada startup space before they notice a lack of diversity. Yet, the idea that diversity drives innovation is almost universally accepted.

Founders belonging to diverse groups are used to the fact that there is hardly ever another person who looks like them in the rooms they occupy. This isn’t because diverse groups are not founding