MaRS announces partnership with Torstar to share innovation news

The GTA is one of the fastest growing tech communities in the world. Torstar and MaRS are partnering to report on the rising innovation economy.

TORONTO, April 12, 2021 – Today, MaRS announced a partnership with Torstar, the Toronto Star’s parent company, to tell stories about Canada’s innovation economy. Launching on April 13, the partnership will provide readers with the technology trends, companies, investments and people shaping business today and the markets of tomorrow.

“Startup companies and their ideas are driving this city into the future, and we all need to understand how that future is shaping up. It’s been a difficult year for everyone, but the upward trajectory of our startup scene has been one bright spot,” said Yung Wu, CEO of MaRS. “Since everything got turned upside-down last year, the province’s young tech ventures have been caught up in a frenzy of pivots, talent wars, venture deals and IPOs.”

Toronto has been growing faster than every other city in Canada and the U.S., and it was already a significant driver for Canada’s innovation economy when the pandemic began, nurtured and fed by an ecosystem of world-class university training grounds, research institutes and tech hubs. Venture capital investment grew 500 percent over the course of the 2010s and local tech employment soared, jumping 16.6 percent in 2019 alone. During the Trump administration, Canada succeeded in reversing the brain drain by repatriating expatriate tech talent and attracting high skilled immigrants. Ontario reaped the rewards of this talent influx — with the employers, the capital and the cultural diversity to absorb engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs from around the world.

Founded in 1892, the Toronto Star has long been Canada’s largest daily newspaper. Now a multi-platform news organization, the Star publishes a newspaper seven days a week in the Greater Toronto Area and publishes ongoing news and information to a global audience on thestar.com on web and mobile applications.

MaRS content will appear in the Toronto Star and thestar.com, one of the most-visited newspaper websites in Canada, as well as The Hamilton Spectator, Waterloo Region Record, St. Catharines Standard, Niagara Falls Review, Welland Tribune, Peterborough Examiner and the Chinese-language newspaper Sing Tao Daily.

“Technology has always been critical to our lives, but the past year has revealed just how irreplaceable it’s become for the economy of today and tomorrow,” said Wu. “We must keep a close eye on the trends shaping our economic future.”

“MaRS supports a great and growing number of entrepreneurs and houses some of the top AI, biotech and research institutes in Canada,” said Jordan Bitove, publisher of the Toronto Star. “The stories coming from this innovation community are transformative and we know that this is the content readers of Canada’s largest newspaper will be following for years to come.”

 

About MaRS

MaRS Discovery District (@MaRSDD) is North America’s largest urban innovation hub. A registered non-profit, MaRS supports high-growth startups and scale-ups tackling key issues in the health, cleantech, fintech and other sectors. In addition, MaRS convenes all members of the tech ecosystem to drive breakthrough discoveries, grow the economy and make an impact by solving real problems for real people — in Canada and around the world.

 

Contact
Media@marsdd.com