We want to offer huge congratulations to Tim Houston, a member of the startup community who was elected to the Nova Scotia legislature last night.

Running for the Progressive Conservatives, Houston won the Pictou East seat in last night’s provincial election, and will be a member of the official Opposition to the new Liberal government.

Houston is a Co-Founder of the New Glasgow-based startup, Znanja (pronounced  NAN-ja), whose technology makes it easy to convert existing training materials to SCORM compliant online eLearning material. Online eLearning requires users to access training material through a technology called a learning management system, or LMS, but converting traditional content and material to a format that an LMS can read can take hundreds of hours. Znanja performs the task in seconds.

The company entered the I-3 innovation competition in 2011 with little more than a concept, and last year was one of eight Atlantic Canadian companies to attend MentorCamp.

One other note from the election:  The Liberal party’s platform included a pledge of “expanding the Equity Tax Credit for eligible small businesses.”

That is really all the detail I have right now, and will try to learn more about the Liberal's plans for the ETC in the coming weeks. Nova Scotia now offers individuals resident in the province an ETC of 35 percent on investments of up to $50,000. Premier-designate Stephen MacNeil has an opportunity to truly assist the most dynamic portion of the Nova Scotian economy by being bold and creative with this program.

While MacNeil will likely be cautious as he assumes power, it would be great if Houston, in his opposition duties, carried the torch for startups and kept this issue on the front burner.  

[Full disclosure: I am a member of the Progressive Conservative party and have worked previously for its caucus.]