Growing up on the island nation of Madagascar, Jean Mamelona became fascinated by the ocean and marine life. Now, the biochemist is launching a seaweed-based weight-loss aid from his Moncton startup, Biomolecules for Life.

Mamelona and his partner, Denis Brion, a marine chemist with experience in market development, began their venture in January 2013 with the aim of producing health supplements

Digital Nova Scotia this week named the winners of its first Digital Diversity Awards, the final phase of its 36-month Women Leaders Fueling the Digital Economy project.

The awards, which were presented Tuesday at the Centre for Women in Business’ Spring Finale, acknowledge and honour both female leadership and diversity champions in Nova Scotia’s ICT sector, while encouraging the province’s

The Norman Newman Centre at Dalhousie University has announced its teams for the 2016 LaunchPad Cohort, the university’s summer entrepreneurship program.

Overseen by professors Mary Kilfoil and Ed Leach of Launch Dal, LaunchPad accepts 10 teams that receive $10,000 each in development costs to help get their business off the ground. The program received 20 applications this year.

A statement

Brian Sharp wants to limit the amount of time that film crews waste making and communicating creative decisions, and he’s launched a company to solve the problem.

Onset Communication Inc. is a Charlottetown-based company that is now completing its 12-week stint with the Propel ICT accelerator. As a member of the advanced Build program, Onset will be one of the startups presenting at the Propel

Prince’s Operation Entrepreneur will hold a seven-day business bootcamp at Dalhousie University this summer to teach entrepreneurship to people moving on from the Canadian Armed Forces.

POE is a program of The Prince’s Charities Canada, the Canadian arm of the charitable organization established in the U.K. by Prince Charles. The Prince’s Trust for decades has been helping young Britons start

Propel ICT has announced the 14 companies that will present at its Demo Day in Halifax on June 21, including eight from the Launch program for younger startups.

The companies are:

Launch Program

Halifax

SHED -- Shed has created a platform to help homeowners quickly and easily hire a service provider to carry out chores around the home.

Swell Advantage – AirBnB for docks and moorings.  Swell helps the boaters find short-term docking space and the owners of wharves and moorings to make money from their waterfrontage.

Charlottetown

Airbly – Airbly has developed hardware and software that

BioNova Launches BioInnovation Challenge

BioNova is now accepting applications for the 2016 BioInnovation Challenge, a $50,000 pitching competition for early-stage life sciences companies or researchers from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

BioNova, Nova Scotia’s life sciences industry association, created the BIC to help ease the transition from research laboratory to

Sentinel Alert, the St. John’s company developing worker safety products, spent last week delving into product development in Waterloo Region in a unique form of company retreat.

The week of working with d{} – the Deloitte outpost in the Communitech innovation hub – gave the members of the far-flung company a chance to come together to work on product and business models. With three pilots in

Today in Job of the Week, we’re presenting an opening for two software programmers with Smartpods of Moncton.

Smartpods has developed an automated, adjustable desk, which helps the user avoid the adverse health effects of sitting all day. The Smartpod desk automatically moves so that throughout the day the worker may be sitting or standing.

The Jobs of the Week article features openings posted

The Propel ICT finished off its local Demo Days on Thursday with presentations in Halifax and St. John’s.

Twelve of the companies in the current cohort, including seven from the advanced Build program, will present at the regional Demo Day on June 21.

We were unable to be at the event in St. John’s, but here are the companies that pitched in Halifax:

WoodsCamp

This member of the Build program has developed an online marketplace to help woodlot owners bring their timber to market at the best price possible. CEO Alastair Jarvis explained that 65 percent of the woodlots in Nova Scotia are