Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial companies are integral contributors toward the growth and competitiveness of the Canadian economy. So often these early-stage firms are lacking in financial support, which is arguably their main hindrance for success. Angel Investors are defined as high-net-worth individuals; often experienced and well-educated professionals, who invest their own funds in the businesses of unrelated individuals. These Angels play a fundamental role in sustaining entrepreneurial companies, but are often untraceable.

The differences among today’s multiple generations of workers, such as Baby Boomers, Generation X and Millennials have received a great amount of attention from the media, business best-sellers and academic researchers. Much of the recent existing research has documented perceived and observed characteristics of the millennial generation (those born in the 1908s and after), who are said to differ from preceding generations in their perspectives on work and life in general.

This project aims to advance local/regional food systems in Alberta, as part of a 5-year SSHRC Partnership titled Food: Locally Embedded, Globally Engaged (FLEdGE). Local food systems generate opportunities to capture economic value (e.g., income and employment) within local communities, and can also result in indirect economic, social and environmental benefits. However, current resources within Alberta are fragmented and insufficient to meet increasing demand.

In Canada, the transport sector contributes to almost a quarter of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are already having a dramatic effect on planetary climate systems. In the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) the share of transport sector emissions increases to over half of all GHG emissions. To help reduce greenhouse emissions from this sector, a number of new technologies (e.g. battery electric vehicles (EV) and buses, natural gas fueled buses) and community services (e.g. ridesharing) are proposed and being tested.

We are all well aware of the spectacular improvement in life-expectancy around the world since the 1990’s. While most people would agree that living longer is a good thing, it nonetheless increases the risk of having people outlive their assets so that they become forced to accept lower standards of living in old age. People with a defined benefit pension plan or people with a life annuity contract have transferred their individual “longevity risk” to their Pension Fund or to an Insurance Company.

The Centre for Operations Excellence Industry Projects consists of eight sub-projects sponsored by four different industry partners. Each sub-project represents an important challenge for its sponsor.

Technology business accelerators represents a relatively recent concept to accelerate the growth of technology companies. Little research has been done on how to best implement this concept to different sectors and the specific needs of the Cleantech sector received even less attention. My research will explore current accelerators’ design and develop a new business model for a Cleantech business accelerator that will be tailored to local conditions, expertise, and needs in the Greater Peterborough Area.

The project will develop a firm-level multi-criteria supply chain design and management tool for Parmalat that will accommodate conflict and convergence between requirements for lean, agile, green, resilient, and nutrition characteristics that are all needed for convergent innovation (CI) in the dairy sector supply chain.

This research project is being undertaken in partnership with The Evidence Network Inc. It will extend the company’s scientifically-based method of assessing the impact of innovation support programs to the clean energy innovation sector. To keep this kind of assessment method scientifically sound requires customization for each particular industry. The established methods have been widely applied in the IT and medical fields, but not yet in the energy sector.

The NACO 2015 Early Stage Company Report will report on early-stage companies from the lense of the company, taking into account support from incubators, accelerators, and VCs. NACO will publish a final report that analyzes the extent to which different combinations of capital and strategic partnerships help entrepreneurial firms grow.