How are industry-academia partnerships advancing research in Canada?

Vancouver, BC — Mitacs’ Accelerate and Elevate programs are advancing research in Canada and providing grad students and postdocs with the professional skills they need to transition to the job market determined a longitudinal survey released this week. Of the university professors surveyed, an overwhelming 92 percent reported they would recommend the programs. Mitacs’ Accelerate program pairs […]

Finding a job can be tough, especially for newcomers, but one Toronto-based organization is trying to make that search easier with an innovative platform called the Livelihood Project. Developed by Arash Samimi and Parin Kothari, the digitally-based mobile career coach combines digital technology with behavioural science to equip newcomers with the skills they need to […]

Thousands of refugees and other newcomers arrive in Toronto every year, but many struggle to find a job, let alone one they want. To solve that, problem Arash Samimi co-founded The Livelihood Project — a community space, an agency and a mobile app all designed to help newcomers find employment and build careers. While supports for refugees and […]

Toronto, ON — The Ukrainian-Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko (Shevchenko Foundation) and Mitacs, a national not-for-profit research and training organization, announced a new partnership that will allow Ukrainian undergraduate students to participate in research internships at Canadian universities for the first time. The agreement was signed at the Bahen Centre for Information Technology at the […]

Arash Samimi, after living in Kingston from 2009 to 2016, calls it his Canadian home. Now based in Toronto, the Iranian immigrant wants to replicate the sense of community he felt here for other newcomers to Canada, through his first not-for-profit organization. Launched in the fall of 2016, the Livelihood Project is focused on finding […]

Toronto, ON — At Mitacs’s 2017 Entrepreneur Awards ceremony a panel discussion titled Coopetition: A global advantage for Canadian business united experts from entrepreneurship and academia to discuss how cooperation among competitors can strengthen Canadian start-ups and business. The panel discussion preceded the presentation of the Mitacs Entrepreneur Awards, and was moderated by Dianne Buckner, […]

Toronto, ON — Six up-and-coming Canadian entrepreneurs received recognition, and a total of $25,000, for their groundbreaking industry contributions that are helping to improve the lives of Canadians. They were awarded at the 2017 Mitacs Entrepreneur Awards tonight at MaRs Discovery District in Toronto. Mitacs launched the awards in 2015 as a way to celebrate […]

Arash Samimi, co-founder of the Livelihood Project, tells about his company. Arash is a recipient of a 2017 Mitacs Entrepreneur Award and a PhD graduate of Queen’s University.

Asha Srinivasan, a recipient of the 2017 Mitacs Entrepreneur Awards, tells about her company that uses the patented IMPACT process to treat agricultural and municipal waste and sludge. Asha is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia.

Finding meaningful work in Toronto, let alone any job, can be difficult even with the right qualifications and connections. Strip all that away, remove the easy benefit of speaking English, and the job hunt becomes close to impossible. Enter the Livelihood Project. Co-founded by Parin Kothari and Arash Samimi, the initiative began in 2015 with […]

Toronto, ON – This week, leading Canadian academics convened at Congress 2017 to discuss why social sciences and humanities (SSH) perspectives are essential to Canadian policy-making. As part of the conference, a panel discussion featuring Mitacs’ Canadian Science Policy fellows and a representative from Natural Resources Canada discussed the need for diverse perspectives, including those […]

Various tech centres in Canada are often referred to as Silicon Valley North. Just like California, northern regions like Halifax, Waterloo, Vancouver and more offer concentrations of spinoffs, startups, and the talent and venture capital that support them. But as we grapple with innovation policies in Canada – and often seem to try to replicate […]