First Steps on MaRS Only Months Away
In just a few short months, several hundreds of people will claim to be the first humans on MaRS. By the summer, the population of MaRS will swell to over one thousand. And with the official Opening Celebrations and Fall Programs starting in September, many thousands more visitors from the science and business communities from across Canada and around the world will get a glimpse of the possibilities that are in store when life on MaRS really begins!
While MaRS may not in reality be on a different planet, it does represent an important new force in Canada’s innovation and commercialization landscape. MaRS is many things. It is a physical “place”, with over 1.5 million square feet under renovation and construction in the heart of Toronto’s downtown Discovery District. Tenants in the MaRS Centre include multi-disciplinary scientific research groups, start-up, emerging and established technology companies, leading service providers and community groups, as well as funding agencies and venture capitalists. The MaRS Centre will create both purposeful and serendipitous opportunities for this community to come together, and to engage with the bigger commercialization marketplace.
MaRS is also a virtual “place”, with its multi-purpose online portal up and running to serve a geographically dispersed community of participants. The MaRS Centre will be the catalyst for a wide range of programs and events, designed to foster higher levels of collaboration within and among the disciplines of science, business and capital.
Phase One of the MaRS Centre opens in May 2005. Almost 90% of the 700,000 square feet available has been leased to a diverse mix of tenants. These organizations include: CMDF (Canadian Medical Discoveries Fund), Heenan Blaikie LLP, The Hospital for Sick Children, Innovations Foundation (University of Toronto), Interface Biologics, MDS Inc. (MDS Sciex Division), NPS Pharmaceuticals, PricewaterhouseCoopers, RBC Technology Ventures Inc., RBC Financial Group, Transition Therapeutics, the University Health Network (UHN), UHN Business Development Office, UHN Global Ventures, Vasogen and others.
To pull together the many facets that will comprise MaRS, the Board of Directors recently appointed Dr. Ilse Treurnicht to the position of CEO. In making the announcement, Dr. John Evans, Chair of the Board said, “Dr. Treurnicht has broad experience in supporting Canadian companies in their quest to become global market leaders. She has a deep understanding of the innovation ecosystem, and her leadership will contribute to realizing the MaRS vision.”
Dr. Treurnicht joins MaRS from Primaxis Technology Ventures, one of Canada’s leading seed stage venture funds in the advanced technology arena. She has been an academic, as well as an entrepreneur, and has held senior management roles in start-up companies.
“Canada faces major competitive pressures in the global knowledge economy. We must stay on the forefront of innovation and convert that innovation into economic performance. The MaRS Centre is anchored in one of the world’s most powerful and concentrated clusters of scientific and biomedical research. I believe that MaRS will bring the leadership in science, business and capital together to create results, and make a fundamental contribution to the health and economic future of Canadians. I’m very excited to be part of this process,” says Dr.Treurnicht.
A number of events to celebrate the opening of the MaRS Centre are currently being planned for September. A key event, which embodies the convergence trends in science, is the joint opening symposium on Computational and Chemical Biology organized by the Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research and MaRS. At the conference, top international experts will present their research to a live audience, while state-of-the-art technology will broadcast to thousands more remote participants. The first of its kind in Canada, the Donnelly CCBR is a multi-disciplinary research institute located on the University of Toronto campus across from the MaRS Centre, and scheduled to open in the same timeframe.
The MaRS team will be engaging key stakeholders in the design of the ongoing MaRS programs as it moves towards its Opening Celebrations. “We’ll be listening to our partners and the community to ensure that our programs meet their needs and offer next generation thinking as well. We want to facilitate new conversations and collaborations within and across the boundaries of the scientific, business and investment communities. MaRS also wants to support the launch and growth of strong Canadian companies. The MaRS Centre will house incubation space for young companies and a resource centre for scientists, entrepreneurs, tech transfer professionals, angels and early stage investors, as well as non-resident companies. The mix of programs and support services will help make the innovation ecosystem more robust,” says Dr. Treurnicht.
While the opening of the MaRS Centre and full scale programming at the facility are a couple of months away, the virtual component of MaRS is now live. The MaRS portal is the online destination for information, tools, and resources central to the commercialization of research and innovation. Members of both the science and business communities will find information tailored to meet specific needs. Over the next few months, the MaRS portal will continue to expand with new community building tools and applications. Development plans include microsites for Ontario’s Regional Innovation Networks, enhanced features and functionality, and opportunities for personalization.
“MaRS is a bold Canadian initiative, with a bold set of objectives,” says Dr. Treurnicht. “We have our virtual MaRS space up and running, and very shortly the MaRS Centre will come to life. We need to harness our immense research output in science and technology to deliver economic benefits to Canada. MaRS will create the “magic” that will make it happen.”
While MaRS may not in reality be on a different planet, it does represent an important new force in Canada’s innovation and commercialization landscape. MaRS is many things. It is a physical “place”, with over 1.5 million square feet under renovation and construction in the heart of Toronto’s downtown Discovery District. Tenants in the MaRS Centre include multi-disciplinary scientific research groups, start-up, emerging and established technology companies, leading service providers and community groups, as well as funding agencies and venture capitalists. The MaRS Centre will create both purposeful and serendipitous opportunities for this community to come together, and to engage with the bigger commercialization marketplace.
MaRS is also a virtual “place”, with its multi-purpose online portal up and running to serve a geographically dispersed community of participants. The MaRS Centre will be the catalyst for a wide range of programs and events, designed to foster higher levels of collaboration within and among the disciplines of science, business and capital.
Phase One of the MaRS Centre opens in May 2005. Almost 90% of the 700,000 square feet available has been leased to a diverse mix of tenants. These organizations include: CMDF (Canadian Medical Discoveries Fund), Heenan Blaikie LLP, The Hospital for Sick Children, Innovations Foundation (University of Toronto), Interface Biologics, MDS Inc. (MDS Sciex Division), NPS Pharmaceuticals, PricewaterhouseCoopers, RBC Technology Ventures Inc., RBC Financial Group, Transition Therapeutics, the University Health Network (UHN), UHN Business Development Office, UHN Global Ventures, Vasogen and others.
To pull together the many facets that will comprise MaRS, the Board of Directors recently appointed Dr. Ilse Treurnicht to the position of CEO. In making the announcement, Dr. John Evans, Chair of the Board said, “Dr. Treurnicht has broad experience in supporting Canadian companies in their quest to become global market leaders. She has a deep understanding of the innovation ecosystem, and her leadership will contribute to realizing the MaRS vision.”
Dr. Treurnicht joins MaRS from Primaxis Technology Ventures, one of Canada’s leading seed stage venture funds in the advanced technology arena. She has been an academic, as well as an entrepreneur, and has held senior management roles in start-up companies.
“Canada faces major competitive pressures in the global knowledge economy. We must stay on the forefront of innovation and convert that innovation into economic performance. The MaRS Centre is anchored in one of the world’s most powerful and concentrated clusters of scientific and biomedical research. I believe that MaRS will bring the leadership in science, business and capital together to create results, and make a fundamental contribution to the health and economic future of Canadians. I’m very excited to be part of this process,” says Dr.Treurnicht.
A number of events to celebrate the opening of the MaRS Centre are currently being planned for September. A key event, which embodies the convergence trends in science, is the joint opening symposium on Computational and Chemical Biology organized by the Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research and MaRS. At the conference, top international experts will present their research to a live audience, while state-of-the-art technology will broadcast to thousands more remote participants. The first of its kind in Canada, the Donnelly CCBR is a multi-disciplinary research institute located on the University of Toronto campus across from the MaRS Centre, and scheduled to open in the same timeframe.
The MaRS team will be engaging key stakeholders in the design of the ongoing MaRS programs as it moves towards its Opening Celebrations. “We’ll be listening to our partners and the community to ensure that our programs meet their needs and offer next generation thinking as well. We want to facilitate new conversations and collaborations within and across the boundaries of the scientific, business and investment communities. MaRS also wants to support the launch and growth of strong Canadian companies. The MaRS Centre will house incubation space for young companies and a resource centre for scientists, entrepreneurs, tech transfer professionals, angels and early stage investors, as well as non-resident companies. The mix of programs and support services will help make the innovation ecosystem more robust,” says Dr. Treurnicht.
While the opening of the MaRS Centre and full scale programming at the facility are a couple of months away, the virtual component of MaRS is now live. The MaRS portal is the online destination for information, tools, and resources central to the commercialization of research and innovation. Members of both the science and business communities will find information tailored to meet specific needs. Over the next few months, the MaRS portal will continue to expand with new community building tools and applications. Development plans include microsites for Ontario’s Regional Innovation Networks, enhanced features and functionality, and opportunities for personalization.
“MaRS is a bold Canadian initiative, with a bold set of objectives,” says Dr. Treurnicht. “We have our virtual MaRS space up and running, and very shortly the MaRS Centre will come to life. We need to harness our immense research output in science and technology to deliver economic benefits to Canada. MaRS will create the “magic” that will make it happen.”
BROWSE PAGES
- MaRS Convergence: Spring 2008
- MaRS Convergence: Fall 2007
- MaRS Convergence: Winter 2006/07
- MaRS Convergence: Fall 2006
- MaRS Convergence: Winter 2005
- First Steps on MaRS Only Months Away
- Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Takes Research Centre-Stage
- Donnelly CCBR/MaRS Scientific Symposium
- Ontario Offers a Wealth of Resources for High Tech Entrepreneurs
- Tips from Enterprise Toronto Seminars
- Unique Global Centre for Theoretical Physics Opens Doors
MaRS FACTS
MaRS provides advisory services to entrepreneurs – from market intelligence and financing, to partnership building, sales and PR advice – through its team of Venture Group advisors.MaRS BLOG
- The business of Medicine 2.0
- Design for results: Get the award
- Social networking: The Emperor has no clothes
MaRS PICKS
strategy + businessBooz Allen Hamilton , the US major global strategy and technology consulting firm, gives online acce...globalEdge
Created by the International Business Center at Michigan State University, globalEDGE is a knowledge...
