The annual Spark Nova Scotia startup competition will be launched on Thursday, beginning the process that will result in $375,000 in prizes being awarded to entrepreneurs outside the Halifax area.

This year, the competition for idea-stage and pre-revenue businesses in the province’s outlying districts will feature greater instruction for all participants, not just the finalists, as well as a

Ignite Labs, the incubator for startups in rural Nova Scotia, has opened applications for the fall cohort of its Ignite Explore program for youth.

Created in 2019, Explore is designed to teach high school and university students the basics of entrepreneurship, such as customer discovery and prototyping, via a series of virtual workshops. The program is open to Atlantic Canadians between the ages

Virtual reality company Modest Tree, which creates software for training simulations, has received an automotive industry security certification that qualifies it to handle sensitive corporate secrets.

Based in Halifax, Modest Tree’s software allows companies to create custom VR scenarios to allow their employees to practice performing complex tasks. The level 2 Trusted Information Security

Traditional customer analytics techniques are due for an update, according to HYKE Technologies CEO Sid Eskand, whose company promises to tap into consumers’ subconscious minds.

St. John’s-based HYKE has developed an app that offers users ever-changing discounts at retailers, restaurants and service providers as a way to study their preferences and biases.

The company is the brainchild of

Tick deterrent maker AtlanTick has expanded its product offering to include a set of wearable lava bead accessories that absorb tick spray and release it over the course of several days.

The latest expansion comes on the heels of three years of triple-digit sales growth for the Nova Scotia company, which recently moved its manufacturing operations to a new facility in the town of Blockhouse.

Sydney-based Ethical Swag, which distributes sustainable promotional products, has become the first company in Cape Breton to become a Certified B Corporation.

The company has joined the global B Corp community, which means it has passed rigorous examination to show that its business is sustainable and that it adheres to ethical business practices.  Companies that are B Corp certified are

Canada’s Ocean Supercluster has announced a $29 million initiative that uses artificial intelligence to track the movement and health of fish stocks and predict their behaviour.

The Canadian government will contribute $13.74 million to the Ocean Aware initiative via the Atlantic Canada-based supercluster, and the rest will come from private industry.

The Ocean Supercluster is one of five

As COVID-19 continues to menace much of Canada and the world, it’s clear that elderly populations are uniquely impacted. But a growing crop of Atlantic Canadian companies are offering potential solutions.

More than 70 percent of the people killed by COVID-19 in Canada have been over the age of 80, but the same group accounts for less than 12 percent of hospitalizations. A June report from the

Halifax-based Charcoal Marketing has partnered with Sugar Estate Media Inc. of Toronto to establish Charcoal with a digital media trading desk, allowing its clients to access “programmatic advertising.”

Programmatic advertising automates the process of buying digital media via software, and relies on complex algorithms to deliver the correct advertisement to the correct website at the right

The Dartmouth-based Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship has chosen former Emera executive Melanie Nadeau as its new CEO.

Headquartered in a decommissioned Coast Guard base, COVE is an ocean-tech business park created with the intent of fostering collaboration and resource-sharing between ocean technology businesses. Nadeau is an engineer whose resume includes postings with the