Here are three adjectives to describe the 2015 cohort of the Breakthru startup competition in New Brunswick: diversified, experienced and keen.

Breakthru, the biennial competition organized by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, held its bootcamp on Saturday, which is the one time during the half-year-plus process that all the participants get together in one place.

NBIF this year

A month after revealing it’s attracted an impressive set of investors, Qimple has been accepted into one of the best-known accelerators in the world.

The Moncton online recruitment company is one of about 30 startups that will attend the coming cohort of 500 Startups in San Francisco.

Qimple CEO Yves Boudreau found out Monday that his company had been accepted, and he leaves Saturday to attend the 14-week program. He said it will be an experience that could alter the course of his company’s development.

 “I’m very level-headed in that I don’t get overly excited or down about things,

SimplyCast, the Dartmouth-based multi-channel marketing startup, has issued the following press release:

SimplyCast Introduces Free CRM Solution and Sales Pipeline Acceleration Tool

SimplyCast is launching its own powerful customer relationship management solution, SimplyCast CRM.

SimplyCast CRM enables businesses to track and manage customers and leads with detailed personal profiles that are dynamically updated based on interactions and behaviors.

SimplyCast CRM's sales pipeline tool accelerates the sales process using detailed tracking and highly targeted lead nurturing

With its core social network for students reaching a critical mass, Equals6 launched a new product this week that helps universities co-ordinate their mentoring networks.

The Halifax startup has just introduced Students2Mentors, a cloud-based platform that streamlines the creation and management of mentorship programs.

The company has set up students2mentors.com, and universities and colleges can develop their own branded sites to use the technology.

The idea behind the product is to help universities with easier administration of their programs that link students with mentors

Deloitte, the international accountancy and business consultancy, has released its 2015 predictions on technology, media and telecommunications, and launched its Canadian roadshow to showcase them.

Ahead of the tour making two stops in Atlantic Canada next week, we’re publishing their predictions below.

Duncan Stewart, the Director of TMT Research at Deloitte Canada, will present the predictions Monday at 8:15 am at the Cineplex Cinemas in Saint John, and Tuesday at the McInnes Cooper offices in Halifax at 8:15 am. It’s free to register, and you can do so here.

 

Forgot your wallet?

By this summer, a new startup based in Sydney hopes to be producing gold nano particles to be used in the diagnosis and treatment of soft tissue cancers.

SONA Nano Tech recently won $50,000 in Innovacorp’s Spark competition and is using the money to establish itself in the Sydney startup community. The company is now working at raising $300,000 to $500,000 with which it plans to begin producing nano particles for medical treatment.

“Current radiation therapy techniques are limited in their effectiveness because they damage healthy bone and tissue,” said Gerrard Marangoni, a St. Francis

The Acadia Institute for Data Analytics will host a symposium next Tuesday on the use of data analysis for small and medium-sized businesses.

Cathy Simpson, the Vice-President of Marketing at T4G, will be the keynote speaker at the Productivity & Competitiveness for SMEs through Data Analytics Seminar, which will be held from noon to 4:30 pm at the Clark Common at Acadia University.

Simpson was one of the founding members 12 years ago of Propel Saint John, which has grown into Propel ICT, the regional tech accelerator. She is also one of the founders and organizers of the Big Data

The UIT program at Cape Breton University reached a milestone Monday when its dozen students were to present their best ideas to the members of the One Nova Scotia Coalition.

UIT is a new technology and entrepreneurship program championed by Gavin Uhma, the CBU graduate who went on to co-found GoInstant, one of Nova Scotia’s most successful startups. The program offers free tuition to 12 students, divided evenly between men and women.

While two or three students are focusing on developing real companies, most are being encouraged to come up with ideas in various forms of technology and

Since we reported on the federal government’s Scientific Research and Experimental Development program two months ago, we’ve heard a strong message from several Atlantic Canadian entrepreneurs. They’re angry at that their claims under the program are either being denied or held up in an appeal process that is taking too long to settle. The word “anger” may understate the sentiment. There’s a certain fury around this issue that is unlike anything I’ve witnessed in the three-and-a-half years I’ve been covering Atlantic Canadian startups.

To recap, we reported on Nov. 27 that several

Libbe Englander’s voice mail was a sign that fresh opportunities are brewing in the tech segment in Atlantic Canada.

On Tuesday, Englander called Entrevestor and left a message asking if we have a job board. She wanted to know because her company, Pharm3r (pronounced farmer) is hiring developers in the Halifax area.

Nothing unusual in that. Most companies I speak to are looking for programmers. What caught my interest is the fact that Pharm3r is based in New York City.

The company, which conducts data analysis in the pharmaceutical industry, will remain headquartered in Manhattan. But