Roll up, roll up! The 2009 edition of the MaRS Regenerative Medicine Industry Briefing is now available.
New content in the 2009 edition includes:
Jenga: Demonstrating gravity
Quick: What are the seven innovations that revolutionized the world?
According to Jacob Zimmer’s grade school teacher, our society was revolutionized by Gutenberg’s press, Copernicus’ solar system, Newton’s physics, Darwin’s evolution, as well as the Industrial, Nuclear, and Information Revolutions.
It inspired Jacob Zimmer to create “Dedicated to the Revolutions,” an innovative show that engages the audience around these scientific revolutions that have altered the course of humanity… while remembering that science is fun (and funny). It opens tomorrow and plays until April 12th.
In the following interview, I ask Jacob about what the MaRS community of innovators can learn from his show.
At last week’s CIBC Presents Entrepreneurship 101, we heard Mr. Craig Thorburn speak about the different roles and responsibilities of shareholders, boards of directors, advisory boards and company officers. These may well be fulfilled the same person(s) at the start-up stage of a company, but once external investors come on board they typically insist on a more formal board structure to guide the company.
This often leads to a difficult question – who gets how many seats on the board? The founders wish to ensure that they continue to have a strong say at this level – but the investors have a similar need. Both parties, and the company, would likely benefit from external, independant input. What do you think is the ideal size for an early stage board, and who gets the seats?
As it does every year, the Tokyo Nano Tech Expo has started the nanotech conference season off with an impressive event.
Japan’s nano tech 2009 conference covers the entire nano marketplace and creates a place where big worldwide players in this space can meet at Tokyo Big Sight by concurrently holding five related industry-specific exhibitions:
Last week, 19 IT startups from the GTA took the “10 slides in 10 minutes” pitch deck challenge in front of a panel of US and Canadian VCs as part of the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service’s Toronto Regional VC Boot Camp hosted by MaRS. Start-ups did a trial run of a pitch deck in front of VCs to gain honest (sometimes brutally so) feedback from them, as well as meet and learn from other entrepreneurs in the IT sector.
