A giant telescope carried on aballoon the size of afootball stadium will soon allow researchers to gaze at distant gas planets known as“hot Jupiters”–and aUniversity of Toronto startup is playing akey role in the endeavour.Growing out of research at Uof T,StarSpec is contributing to the 2025 NASA project by providing the suborbital research vessel that houses and controls the mission’s telescope,which will be deployed some 40 kilometres above the Earth’s surface after the balloon is launched from avolcanic island in Antarctica.It’s hoped the NASA mission–one of several StarSpec is involved with–will both improve our understanding of exoplanets and put StarSpec one step closer to realizing its ultimate goal of helping small organizations,including researchers,access space by providing them with cheap,highly functional gear.“There is agrowing class of people who want access to space either for astronomy,Earth-observation or satellite-based Internet,but need it faster and at alower cost than is typically afforded by what Iwould call‘the old space regime,’”says Javier Romualdez,StarSpec’s CEO and aformer PhD student at Uof T.“StarSpec is making space accessible through the availability of standardized sub-orbital technologies–satellites,hardware and software–that can allow researchers and technology developers to get access to space or near-space without the risk,cost and long development times associated with atypical space mission.”For the upcoming NASA mission,StarSpec’s balloon-borne research gondola will be equipped with high-precision telescope and image stabilization systems,enabling the U.S.space agency’s Exoplanet Climate Infrared Telescope(EXCITE)to make spectrographic measurements of planets with ahigh degree of accuracy–crucial for better understanding their atmospheres while shedding light on how solar systems and planets form. 查看详细>>

Starting abusiness requires agood idea,passion and commitment–and aspiring entrepreneurs tend to have all three in spades.But Indigenous entrepreneurs may face barriers when it comes to other key ingredients such as business education and access to capital.Enter Jonathon Araujo Redbird and Christina Tachtampa.The pair run Redbird Circle Inc.,which partners with post-secondary schools to deliver entrepreneurship programming that incorporates traditional Indigenous knowledge and values,and they have aplan to help Indigenous Peoples in Canada realize their business dreams.Their latest partner is the University of Toronto Mississauga.Working with the campus’s ICUBE entrepreneurship hub,Redbird and Tachtampa are launching the Indigenous Entrepreneurship Program.“We will be looking at entrepreneurship through adual lens,where we will combine Indigenous knowledge with Western pedagogies to create anew learning framework that empowers the next generation of Indigenous entrepreneurs,”says Redbird,who is part Ojibway and the managing partner of Indigenous venture-builder Pontiac Group.Redbird and Tachtampa first joined forces in 2019 while participating in the Master of Management in Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at Queen’s University.They identified major gaps in the area of business training and support for emerging Indigenous entrepreneurs and decided to tackle the problem for their capstone project.Their efforts and shared vision led to abusiness partnership,which has provided consulting services to Queen’s business school. 查看详细>>

Novo Nordisk A/S and the University of Toronto have announced aC$40-million investment to establish the Novo Nordisk Network for Healthy Populations.Based at Uof TMississauga,the new network is apartnership between the Dalla Lana School of Public Health,the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and University of Toronto Mississauga.The network will focus on new ways to support healthier urban populations and will draw on Uof T’s leading expertise in public health research and education programs to impact the global fight against diabetes and other serious chronic diseases.Novo Nordisk’s$20-million donation will be matched by Uof Twith afurther$20 million in financial and in-kind contributions.The investment will support the network’s innovative new research,catalyze existing research projects,strengthen partnerships in the health care and public health spheres,and encourage community outreach activities.The network partners aim to find solutions that address the root cause of rising type 2diabetes and other serious chronic diseases,and develop interventions to prevent their unsustainable rise and their impact on individuals and health-care systems. 查看详细>>

The products and services we use in our daily lives have to abide by safety and security standards,from car airbags to construction materials.But no such broad,internationally agreed-upon standards exist for artificial intelligence.And yet,AI tools and technologies are steadily being integrated into all aspects of our lives.AI’s potential benefits to humanity,such as improving health-care delivery or tackling climate change,are immense.But potential harms caused by AI tools–from algorithmic bias and labour displacement to risks associated with autonomous vehicles and weapons–risk leading to alack of trust in AI technologies.To tackle these problems,a new partnership between AI Global,a nonprofit organization focused on advancing responsible and ethical adoption of artificial intelligence,and the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society(SRI)at the University of Toronto will create aglobally recognized certification mark for the responsible and trusted use of AI systems.In collaboration with the World Economic Forum’s Shaping the Future of Technology Governance:Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning platform,the partnership will convene industry actors,policy-makers,civil society representatives and academics to build auniversally recognized framework that validates AI tools and technologies as responsible,trustworthy,ethical and fair. 查看详细>>

The University of Toronto will play akey role in anew National Research Council of Canada(NRC)advanced research materials facility focused on clean energy.The new research facility,the NRC’s first in Greater Toronto,will serve as aCanadian clean energy hub that supports research into advanced materials and transitions them to industrial use.It will bring together companies,governments and universities to work on clean tech projects.The NRC Mississauga facility will also be home to the new Collaboration Centre for Green Energy Materials(CC-GEM)–a partnership between Uof Tand NRC.“Tackling the reduction of the environmental footprint of Canadians is agrand challenge that requires bold ideas and collaboration across disciplinary boundaries to solve,”Derek Newton,U of T’s assistant vice-president,innovation,partnerships and entrepreneurship,said during avirtual ribbon-cutting ceremony that took place Monday on Zoom.“The University of Toronto looks forward to collaborating with the NRC to accelerate the work of Uof T’s researchers and training students to achieve new discoveries and apply them to further reduce the environmental impact of the electricity that powers the businesses,homes and vehicles of Canadians and people around the world.”The CC-GEM joint initiative will be co-led by:U of TProfessor Dwight Seferos in the department of chemistry in the Faculty of Arts&Science;U of TProfessor Timothy Bender in the Department of Chemical Engineering&Applied Chemistry in the Faculty of Applied Science&Engineering;and Michel Dumoulin,the NRC’s vice-president of engineering. 查看详细>>

The University of Toronto and Japan’s Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd.have agreed to renew,for three years,a partnership that seeks to advance innovative computing research projects with wide-scale applications.The partnership extension was marked this week by atransglobal videoconference that included Fujitsu CEO Hirotaka Hara and Uof TPresident Meric Gertler,as well as other senior leaders and researchers.The group discussed the progress of the partnership–which launched in 2018 and involved the establishment of the Fujitsu Co-Creation Research Laboratory at Uof T’s Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation&Entrepreneurship–and what can be achieved in the future.“Fujitsu is one of the world’s most admired companies and Fujitsu Laboratories is amajor engine of research and development in leading innovation clusters around the world including Beijing,Silicon Valley,London and now,of course,Toronto,”President Gertler said during the videoconference.“The University of Toronto and our department of electrical and computer engineering both enjoy very high rankings globally,and we are the academic anchor of an impressive innovation ecosystem here in the Toronto region.”Since its launch,the Fujitsu Co-Creation Research Laboratory has been credited with such major advancements as the advent of the Digital Annealer,a computing architecture that is inspired by quantum principles and can carry out operations beyond the scope of conventional computers,opening up potential applications in health care,drug discovery,finance,logistics,transportation and more.Fujitsu also launched an R&D centre in Toronto in 2017 as part of its partnership with the university.President Gertler said the collaboration between Uof Tand Fujitsu is testament to the richness of Toronto’s technology and innovation ecosystem. 查看详细>>

In less than three years,biomedical firm BenchSci has gone from four people sitting around atable to a50-strong operation that’s backed by Google and counts some of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies among its clients.It’s been aheady rise for the University of Toronto startup,which uses machine learning to help scientists scour,select and purchase antibodies for their experiments,saving time and money.To date,BenchSci has raised over$27 million from investors.That includes Google’s Gradient Ventures,which last year made BenchSci its first investment outside the United States before topping up its investment this past June.The idea behind BenchSci was birthed from frustrations experienced by chief scientific officer Tom Leung back when he was working on his PhD in epigenetics at Uof T.Like many other researchers in the life sciences,Leung saw experiments fail because his antibodies were unable to detect levels of target proteins.“It becomes frustrating because,after weeks of preparing and growing cells and collecting samples,the experiment would fail–not because Idid something wrong in the procedure,but because the antibody wasn’t good at detecting the protein Iwas looking for,”Leung says.“That really prompted me to think that there has to be abetter way for scientists to assess the quality of an antibody product before buying it.” 查看详细>>

LG Corp.is expanding its investment in University of Toronto artificial intelligence research to focus on business-to-business applications.Executives from Seoul-based LG and Uof T‘s Christopher Yip,associate vice-president of international partnerships,made the announcement today in Toronto at the Collision tech conference,one of the world‘s largest and fastest growing tech conferences.“The extensive joint research with LG will secure research capacity,nurture top artificial intelligence experts and add practical values to the research done on campus,”Yip said in astatement.“This will ultimately improve the experiences of end users,customers,and companies alike.”LG Electronics,the largest company under the LG umbrella,signed amulti-million dollar research agreement with Uof Tlast summer to support AI research with the goal of improving the functionality of its products,from TVs to smartphones.At the same time,LG founded an AI research centre in Toronto,joining ahost of other top Canadian and multinational companies that are investing in Toronto‘s vibrant AI ecosystem. 查看详细>>

Roberto Cervantes and his team at CryptoNumerics are keen to take advantage of next week’s giant Collision tech conference to put the startup co-founded by University of Toronto alumni on the map.One of the world’s fastest-growing and most influential technology conferences,Collision’s arrival in Toronto speaks to the rising importance of the city’s thriving tech and startup scene–not to mention the support it has received from Uof Tand its various innovation partners.The three-day affair,which has relocated to Toronto from New Orleans for the next three years,will feature over 600 speakers as well as exhibits catering to the startup and tech sectors.It kicks off on Monday and wraps up on Thursday.“We’re going to use Collision to talk to people and spread the word about who we are,”said Cervantes,a co-founder of CryptoNumerics,which uses artificial intelligence,or AI,to help companies in the financial and medical sectors crunch people’s data without compromising privacy. 查看详细>>

Alexander Olowookeri,a Grade 11 student at Downsview Secondary School,initially found the University of Toronto daunting when he visited the downtown Toronto campus Tuesday–until he learned about anew partnership between Uof Tand the Toronto District School Board(TDSB).The program,called Support,Engage,Experience Uof T,or SEE Uof T,is designed to bring students from two schools in Canada’s largest school board–Downsview Secondary School and Runnymede Collegiate Institute–to the university for asemester-long course,co-op placements on campus and other experiential learning activities.The program is an effort to provide apathway for students who are under-represented on campus,allowing them to see Uof Tas aplace where they belong and can thrive.The first group of 30 students,expected to arrive in the fall,will have the choice of signing up for one of two interdisciplinary courses offered through Woodsworth College.They will earn ahigh school(4U)credit,co-op credits and aU of Thalf-credit to put toward auniversity degree.“It reduces barriers in the sense that once you see people that look like you in acertain place,you start to have hope you can be just like them,”says Olowookeri,who hopes to study biomedical engineering. 查看详细>>