ACOA Funds Venture for Canada Program

Top university graduates from across Nova Scotia in June will begin two-year paid fellowships at some of the province’s most promising emerging and early-stage startups. The Government of Canada on Friday announced a $45,450 contribution to enable Venture for Canada to create the infrastructure needed to place six fellows at venture-backed Nova Scotian companies. The non-repayable contribution comes through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s Business Development Program.

A new Nova Scotia Program Director will work to close a gap between startups and post-secondary institutions by matching top university graduates with cutting-edge, homegrown organizations in the ICT, oceantech, cleantech and life sciences sectors. Through a fellowship program, companies will gain access to the talent and energy they need to thrive, and graduates will gain the experience, mentorship and networking opportunities they need to become the innovative entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

After receiving nearly 1,700 applications, Venture for Canada is confident of the very high quality of graduate talent that will be made available to the startup companies.

Kinduct Joins RBC Training Ground

Kinduct Technologies, provider of innovative data collection and analysis software, is partnering with the Canadian Olympic Foundation in supporting a new talent identification program called RBC Training Ground. The program is a series of regional combine events designed to help Canadian sport officials uncover athletes with Olympic podium potential. A collaborative effort between RBC, CBC, the Canadian Olympic Foundation and the Canadian Olympic Committee, RBC Training Ground was hosted in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Halifax in 2016.

At RBC Training Ground, athletes perform a set of workouts that measure speed, power, strength and endurance. Using performance benchmarks provided by high-performance officials from various national sport organizations, Kinduct Technologies can collect and analyze these young athletes’ results, and ultimately determine if they exhibit Olympic-level fitness potential.

SimplyCast Launches Hands-Free

SimplyCast, a leader in marketing automation, has announced the launch of its new service: Hands-Free.

Hands-Free is a new initiative of SimplyCast where the team’s collective knowledge will be used to create and manage marketing campaigns for clients. Essentially with Hands-Free, a client can sign up and SimplyCast will create, manage, and report on any and all marketing campaigns done in the SimplyCast 360 platform for that organization.

Hands-Free will allow companies to harness the power of marketing automation and offer more to their customers without needing to learn how to operate the technology. This is ideal for businesses that may not have the staff or resources to use marketing automation themselves.

“This new service is something we’re really looking forward to,” said President and CEO Saeed El-Darahali. “It’s a great way for us to put our knowledge of automation to work for clients and help them expand their reach easily and effectively.”