Podcasts about velocity garage

This week, Ken gets a “taste” of social innovation at Simon Fraser University’s RADIUS incubator, speaking with co-director Shawn Smith and social entrepreneur Dylan Jones about their work. We learn how innovation requires bureaucratic flexibility, and Ken winds up at a loss for words with his mouth full of crickets!   For decades now, higher education has embraced the entrepreneurial incubator to promote the commercialization of software developers and research breakthroughs in engineering, chemistry and medicine. (10K covered the movement broadly in this episode on “Campus Incubators and Accelerators” https://youtu.be/kwMooswS_C8, and visited the University of Waterloo’s “Velocity Garage” https://youtu.be/lj1AnCfYRMk). But in recent years, a wave of incubators has begun appearing to support social enterprises, launched by a new generation of altruistic entrepreneurs and “changemakers,” focused on the so-called “triple bottom line.”    SFU’s Beedie School of Business established the RADIUS social innovation hub in 2013. (The name is an acronym for “Radical Ideas Useful to Society.”) Every year, RADIUS Fellows hosts emerging leaders in the social economy, and RADIUS ChangeLabs deliver extracurricular activities to SFU students. RADIUS’s Local Economic Development Lab (LEDlab) is working in Vancouver’s downtown eastside to build a more dynamic and inclusive economy (www.LEDLab.ca). They helped turn an informal group of wastepickers and recyclers into The Binners Project, with its own brand, marketing, and business model for R&D, cartsharing, and event services. (Learn more at www.binnersproject.org).   RADIUS Ventures delivers incubation support to startups at the business model validation stage, and acceleration support to growth-ready companies ready to attract venture capital. These social-purpose companies have potentially profitable business models, but also aim to improve society by addressing environmental sustainability, homelessness, and other social challenges. RADIUS “co-entrepreneurs” with the ventures, going deep and ensuring they provide a meaningful change in trajectory for the entrepreneur and the company.   One RADIUS venture was Zero Waste Market, Canada’s first package-free, zero-waste grocery store. (They changed their name literally days after this episode was completed, to Nada Grocery. Learn more at www.nadagrocery.com).   Another great example of a social enterprise incubated at RADIUS is Coast Protein, a sustainable energy bar and protein powder company (see www.coastprotein.com). Their products are all-natural, with no artificial sweeteners or preservatives, and very few ingredients – primarily Canadian-farmed cricket flour.  Cricket protein is far more sustainable and nutritious than beef or chicken, explains CEO Ryan Jones: per pound of protein, cows take 13x more land, produce 100x more greenhouse gases, and require 2,000x more water. And instead of 30% protein by volume, crickets are 65% protein, while also being high in iron, calcium, and B12 – an essential vitamin often missing in vegetarian diets. It’s still “the wild west of crickets right now,” Ryan explains, and most of Coast Protein’s marketing budget goes to consumer education. People don’t realize that the insect protein market is already about $200 million annually in North America, and expected to grow to about $1.5 billion by 2023. Or that crickets taste like “burnt roasted almonds with a hint of roasted mushroom.”   Shawn observes that innovation can sometimes be challenging within a bureaucratic environment like a major public university. Entrepreneurs need to respect boundaries and structures, while remaining adaptive and responsive in an emergent space. RADIUS functions like a “skunkworks” at SFU, where risks can be taken, failures go quietly, and lessons can be learned. Academic innovators need their “pockets of innovation” to be protected from needless bureaucracy, and depend on “bridging innovators” in a wide range of departments, particularly in finance, to make their innovation work possible. Shawn emphasizes that SFU has a lot of these people, but that “they don’t always get the recognition they deserve.”   On the upside, though, a university setting provides a wealth of expertise and cutting-edge researchers in a wide range of disciplines, and an endless supply of enthusiastic students who deeply care about social issues and want to make the world a better place. Social incubators like RADIUS need to bring people together from disparate perspectives, to “bite off problems that people haven’t quite figured out yet,” and universities are an ideal setting in which to do that.   Shawn Smith is Director of Social Innovation at Simon Fraser University, co-founder and co-director of RADIUS, and an adjunct professor in the Beedie School of Business. He earned an MBA in social entrepreneurship from the University of Oxford in 2010, and has spent 12 years working in social impact organizations, including Impacto Quito, Global Agents for Change, and Education Generation.   Special thanks to Shawn Smith, Dylan Jones, and the SFU videographers who made this episode possible. For more information about SFU’s RADIUS, please visit www.RadiusSFU.com.   Next week, Ken sits down with Bonnie Schmidt, founder of Let’s Talk Science, about how we can improve science education at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. To be sure you don’t miss it, take a moment to subscribe at http://eduvation.ca/subscribe/    And if you would like to host 10K at your campus, more information is available at http://eduvation.ca/twk/site-visits/

This week, Ken gets a “taste” of social innovation at Simon Fraser University’s RADIUS incubator, speaking with co-director Shawn Smith and social entrepreneur Dylan Jones about their work. We learn how innovation requires bureaucratic flexibility, and Ken winds up at a loss for words with his mouth full of crickets!   For decades now, higher education has embraced the entrepreneurial incubator to promote the commercialization of software developers and research breakthroughs in engineering, chemistry and medicine. (10K covered the movement broadly in this episode on “Campus Incubators and Accelerators” https://youtu.be/kwMooswS_C8, and visited the University of Waterloo’s “Velocity Garage” https://youtu.be/lj1AnCfYRMk). But in recent years, a wave of incubators has begun appearing to support social enterprises, launched by a new generation of altruistic entrepreneurs and “changemakers,” focused on the so-called “triple bottom line.”    SFU’s Beedie School of Business established the RADIUS social innovation hub in 2013. (The name is an acronym for “Radical Ideas Useful to Society.”) Every year, RADIUS Fellows hosts emerging leaders in the social economy, and RADIUS ChangeLabs deliver extracurricular activities to SFU students. RADIUS’s Local Economic Development Lab (LEDlab) is working in Vancouver’s downtown eastside to build a more dynamic and inclusive economy (www.LEDLab.ca). They helped turn an informal group of wastepickers and recyclers into The Binners Project, with its own brand, marketing, and business model for R&D, cartsharing, and event services. (Learn more at www.binnersproject.org).   RADIUS Ventures delivers incubation support to startups at the business model validation stage, and acceleration support to growth-ready companies ready to attract venture capital. These social-purpose companies have potentially profitable business models, but also aim to improve society by addressing environmental sustainability, homelessness, and other social challenges. RADIUS “co-entrepreneurs” with the ventures, going deep and ensuring they provide a meaningful change in trajectory for the entrepreneur and the company.   One RADIUS venture was Zero Waste Market, Canada’s first package-free, zero-waste grocery store. (They changed their name literally days after this episode was completed, to Nada Grocery. Learn more at www.nadagrocery.com).   Another great example of a social enterprise incubated at RADIUS is Coast Protein, a sustainable energy bar and protein powder company (see www.coastprotein.com). Their products are all-natural, with no artificial sweeteners or preservatives, and very few ingredients – primarily Canadian-farmed cricket flour.  Cricket protein is far more sustainable and nutritious than beef or chicken, explains CEO Ryan Jones: per pound of protein, cows take 13x more land, produce 100x more greenhouse gases, and require 2,000x more water. And instead of 30% protein by volume, crickets are 65% protein, while also being high in iron, calcium, and B12 – an essential vitamin often missing in vegetarian diets. It’s still “the wild west of crickets right now,” Ryan explains, and most of Coast Protein’s marketing budget goes to consumer education. People don’t realize that the insect protein market is already about $200 million annually in North America, and expected to grow to about $1.5 billion by 2023. Or that crickets taste like “burnt roasted almonds with a hint of roasted mushroom.”   Shawn observes that innovation can sometimes be challenging within a bureaucratic environment like a major public university. Entrepreneurs need to respect boundaries and structures, while remaining adaptive and responsive in an emergent space. RADIUS functions like a “skunkworks” at SFU, where risks can be taken, failures go quietly, and lessons can be learned. Academic innovators need their “pockets of innovation” to be protected from needless bureaucracy, and depend on “bridging innovators” in a wide range of departments, particularly in finance, to make their innovation work possible. Shawn emphasizes that SFU has a lot of these people, but that “they don’t always get the recognition they deserve.”   On the upside, though, a university setting provides a wealth of expertise and cutting-edge researchers in a wide range of disciplines, and an endless supply of enthusiastic students who deeply care about social issues and want to make the world a better place. Social incubators like RADIUS need to bring people together from disparate perspectives, to “bite off problems that people haven’t quite figured out yet,” and universities are an ideal setting in which to do that.   Shawn Smith is Director of Social Innovation at Simon Fraser University, co-founder and co-director of RADIUS, and an adjunct professor in the Beedie School of Business. He earned an MBA in social entrepreneurship from the University of Oxford in 2010, and has spent 12 years working in social impact organizations, including Impacto Quito, Global Agents for Change, and Education Generation.   Special thanks to Shawn Smith, Dylan Jones, and the SFU videographers who made this episode possible. For more information about SFU’s RADIUS, please visit www.RadiusSFU.com.   Next week, Ken sits down with Bonnie Schmidt, founder of Let’s Talk Science, about how we can improve science education at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. To be sure you don’t miss it, take a moment to subscribe at http://eduvation.ca/subscribe/    And if you would like to host 10K at your campus, more information is available at http://eduvation.ca/twk/site-visits/

For over four years, Mike Kirkup was the director of Velocity—the startup incubator at the University of Waterloo. It's been a huge addition to the Waterloo startup community since opening in 2008. He stepped down just over a year ago to become CTO at Encircle—a Velocity graduate—and on this week's show looks back at lessons learned from Velocity's growth (and how a huge space for Velocity Garage quickly became too small). I also take a quick look at some new data on Canada's venture capital industry from a BDC report released last week, and catch up on the Canadian government's Innovation Superclusters Initiative (ISI) after attending a information session. Only five superclusters are going to be selected and the front runners seem pretty clear. Is there even any point for anyone else to apply? Press play to listen or subscribe with your favourite podcast app. Links: Velocity Velocity on Twitter (@UWVelocity) Mike Kirkup on Twitter (@mikekirkup) Encircle Velocity Fund Finals (Livestream archive) Innovation Superclusters Initiative (ISI): Frequently asked questions Canada’s Venture Capital Landscape (BDC) VC & PE Canadian Market Overview 2016 (CVCA)

Ten with Ken goes onsite at the University of Waterloo, home to the world's largest free business incubator, Velocity. The program's facilities include a campus Residence, Science facility, Start lounge, and the downtown Garage. In this extended episode, director Jay Shah gives us a tour of the Velocity Garage, explains the 3-stage model of business incubation, and introduces us to some exciting new companies: Maluuba, an artificial intelligence company recently acquired by Microsoft. Innovative Protein Technologies, which makes FrostArmour spray foam to protect crops from frost damage. Alchemy, which is creating nanotechnology films to protect windshields from impact damage. Vitameter, whose desktop device provides realtime analysis of the vitamins in your blood. Qidni Labs, which is developing an implantable artificial kidney, which could make dialysis obsolete. We learn about the tight connection between Velocity and Waterloo's longstanding co-op program, and the critical importance of mentorship and peer community as supports for startups. We hear about the funding model for Velocity, which charges companies no rent and takes no equity. (The Start-Up Pledge encourages companies to give back when they make it big.) Jay tells us what brought him back to Velocity after he sold BufferBox to Google: the exciting promise of major breakthroughs based on hard science. We also got the chance to interview 4 dynamic young entrepreneurs: Daniel MacKenzie, CTO of Health IM, which has produced software to help police officers record details of mental health crises and share them with community partners. (Full interview at https://youtu.be/GZUkzEOwjv4 ). Ian Tao, Founder and CEO of Sesame, which provides competency-based assessment software to primary, secondary, and tertiary education. (Full interview at https://youtu.be/rwc4Pd5es6I ). Rachel Thompson, Founder of Marlena Books, which publishes titles specifically designed for individuals with Alzheimer's and dementia. (Full interview at https://youtu.be/T5dbA0C5610 ). Steven ten Holder, CEO of Acorn Cryotech, which preserves your young cells so you can use them for life-changing medical procedures in the future. (Full interview at https://youtu.be/WAuS8ly2zD8 ). 3 of these CEOs never even contemplated entrepreneurship until they were immersed in the innovation culture at the University of Waterloo. They were surrounded by entrepreneurial role models, had the opportunity to work in startups as co-op students, and gained the confidence to launch their own ventures. Next week, Ken sits down with President & Vice-Chancellor Feridun Hamdullahpur, to discuss the broader innovation ecosystem at the University of Waterloo, and to explore just what other institutions might have to do to nurture entrepreneurialism on their own campuses.

Ten with Ken goes onsite at the University of Waterloo, home to the world's largest free business incubator, Velocity. The program's facilities include a campus Residence, Science facility, Start lounge, and the downtown Garage. In this extended episode, director Jay Shah gives us a tour of the Velocity Garage, explains the 3-stage model of business incubation, and introduces us to some exciting new companies: Maluuba, an artificial intelligence company recently acquired by Microsoft. Innovative Protein Technologies, which makes FrostArmour spray foam to protect crops from frost damage. Alchemy, which is creating nanotechnology films to protect windshields from impact damage. Vitameter, whose desktop device provides realtime analysis of the vitamins in your blood. Qidni Labs, which is developing an implantable artificial kidney, which could make dialysis obsolete. We learn about the tight connection between Velocity and Waterloo's longstanding co-op program, and the critical importance of mentorship and peer community as supports for startups. We hear about the funding model for Velocity, which charges companies no rent and takes no equity. (The Start-Up Pledge encourages companies to give back when they make it big.) Jay tells us what brought him back to Velocity after he sold BufferBox to Google: the exciting promise of major breakthroughs based on hard science. We also got the chance to interview 4 dynamic young entrepreneurs: Daniel MacKenzie, CTO of Health IM, which has produced software to help police officers record details of mental health crises and share them with community partners. (Full interview at https://youtu.be/GZUkzEOwjv4 ). Ian Tao, Founder and CEO of Sesame, which provides competency-based assessment software to primary, secondary, and tertiary education. (Full interview at https://youtu.be/rwc4Pd5es6I ). Rachel Thompson, Founder of Marlena Books, which publishes titles specifically designed for individuals with Alzheimer's and dementia. (Full interview at https://youtu.be/T5dbA0C5610 ). Steven ten Holder, CEO of Acorn Cryotech, which preserves your young cells so you can use them for life-changing medical procedures in the future. (Full interview at https://youtu.be/WAuS8ly2zD8 ). 3 of these CEOs never even contemplated entrepreneurship until they were immersed in the innovation culture at the University of Waterloo. They were surrounded by entrepreneurial role models, had the opportunity to work in startups as co-op students, and gained the confidence to launch their own ventures. Next week, Ken sits down with President & Vice-Chancellor Feridun Hamdullahpur, to discuss the broader innovation ecosystem at the University of Waterloo, and to explore just what other institutions might have to do to nurture entrepreneurialism on their own campuses.

Governments invest in higher education hoping to see short-term economic benefits in the form of job creation, knowledge mobilization, and increasingly, the launch of entrepreneurial new start-up businesses. In this week’s episode, Ken Steele provides a quick overview of college and university research commercialization, from the first research parks to the latest business incubators and accelerators. In many ways, academic culture is antithetical to entrepreneurship. Scholars and scientists are often perfectionists, conducting exhaustive research, consulting their peers for input and consensus, and avoiding career-limiting risks. Academic culture is centred around credibility, caution, and certainty. Successful entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are often shameless self-promoters, confident or even arrogant, first to market regardless of quality control, and frequently keeping trade secrets from their competitors. Many question whether modern schools are the right environment in which to nurture entrepreneurs or innovators. Typically, higher ed researchers transfer intellectual property to the private sector for commercialization. Last year, UBC licensed a potential treatment for drug-resistant prostate cancer to Roche Pharmaceuticals for more than $120 million. Corporations have been partnering with research universities since the 1950s, in research parks like the Stanford Research Park, established in 1951. By the 1970s, it was home to some leading high-tech research facilities, like Xerox PARC, and it is often credited with being the spark that created Silicon Valley. Google itself was a spinoff of the research of 2 Stanford grad students, and Stanford still holds some lucrative Google patents today. The largest university research park today is the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, collocated to serve Duke University, UNC, and NC State. 50,000 employees and 10,000 contractors work at RTP for major corporations including IBM, Cisco, and GlaxoSmithKline. But today, R&D is no longer the exclusive domain of major multinationals. A student or two with a good idea can take their business global in mere months, as Mark Zuckerberg did in 2004 when he launched Facebook from a Harvard dorm room. That’s probably what inspired the University of Waterloo to establish a “dormcubator,” the Velocity Residence, and 5 other branches of the incubator program including the Velocity Garage, the Foundry, Velocity Science, and more. uWaterloo Velocity video: https://youtu.be/vEbKt6Ho9z0 As North American employment is increasingly shifting towards startups and freelancing, business incubators have been multiplying. In the US alone, there are more than a thousand. California’s Y Combinator has funded more than 1,000 companies now worth $65 billion, and admission to their program is more competitive than Harvard or Yale. UBI Global, headquartered in Sweden, looked at more than 1,200 university accelerators and incubators to arrive at its ranking of the top incubators of 2015. First place went to England’s SetSquared Partnership, a collaboration between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey. With 6 sites at the 5 research-intensive universities, SetSquared has helped more than a thousand companies raise over £1 billion, and create 9,000 jobs. The #2 incubator in the world is the Innovation Incubation Center at Chaoyang University of Technology in Taiwan. The top university incubator in North America, #3 in the world, is the DMZ at Ryerson University. The DMZ has launched more than 180 companies, creating more than 1,000 jobs, and attracting $70 million in seed funding. Politicians and the business community praise the DMZ for creating better quality jobs, and harnessing the innovative capacity of the nation. Ryerson has launched other incubation zones, including the Fashion Zone, Design Fabrication Zone, ZoneStartups India, the Transmedia Zone, the Legal Innovation Zone, and the Social Ventures Zone. Ryerson DMZ video: https://youtu.be/IGncBRPg1TI As we mentioned previously, colleges and universities are emphasizing experiential learning opportunities, and incubators are just one high-profile approach. Some academics question whether higher education should really be in the business of incubating businesses, but as more and more students graduate into a freelance and innovation economy, business incubators make sense as an extension of campus career services and research commercialization. If we want to prepare our students for successful futures and meaningful citizenship, they are going to require an entrepreneurial mindset.

Governments invest in higher education hoping to see short-term economic benefits in the form of job creation, knowledge mobilization, and increasingly, the launch of entrepreneurial new start-up businesses. In this week’s episode, Ken Steele provides a quick overview of college and university research commercialization, from the first research parks to the latest business incubators and accelerators. In many ways, academic culture is antithetical to entrepreneurship. Scholars and scientists are often perfectionists, conducting exhaustive research, consulting their peers for input and consensus, and avoiding career-limiting risks. Academic culture is centred around credibility, caution, and certainty. Successful entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are often shameless self-promoters, confident or even arrogant, first to market regardless of quality control, and frequently keeping trade secrets from their competitors. Many question whether modern schools are the right environment in which to nurture entrepreneurs or innovators. Typically, higher ed researchers transfer intellectual property to the private sector for commercialization. Last year, UBC licensed a potential treatment for drug-resistant prostate cancer to Roche Pharmaceuticals for more than $120 million. Corporations have been partnering with research universities since the 1950s, in research parks like the Stanford Research Park, established in 1951. By the 1970s, it was home to some leading high-tech research facilities, like Xerox PARC, and it is often credited with being the spark that created Silicon Valley. Google itself was a spinoff of the research of 2 Stanford grad students, and Stanford still holds some lucrative Google patents today. The largest university research park today is the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, collocated to serve Duke University, UNC, and NC State. 50,000 employees and 10,000 contractors work at RTP for major corporations including IBM, Cisco, and GlaxoSmithKline. But today, R&D is no longer the exclusive domain of major multinationals. A student or two with a good idea can take their business global in mere months, as Mark Zuckerberg did in 2004 when he launched Facebook from a Harvard dorm room. That’s probably what inspired the University of Waterloo to establish a “dormcubator,” the Velocity Residence, and 5 other branches of the incubator program including the Velocity Garage, the Foundry, Velocity Science, and more. uWaterloo Velocity video: https://youtu.be/vEbKt6Ho9z0 As North American employment is increasingly shifting towards startups and freelancing, business incubators have been multiplying. In the US alone, there are more than a thousand. California’s Y Combinator has funded more than 1,000 companies now worth $65 billion, and admission to their program is more competitive than Harvard or Yale. UBI Global, headquartered in Sweden, looked at more than 1,200 university accelerators and incubators to arrive at its ranking of the top incubators of 2015. First place went to England’s SetSquared Partnership, a collaboration between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey. With 6 sites at the 5 research-intensive universities, SetSquared has helped more than a thousand companies raise over £1 billion, and create 9,000 jobs. The #2 incubator in the world is the Innovation Incubation Center at Chaoyang University of Technology in Taiwan. The top university incubator in North America, #3 in the world, is the DMZ at Ryerson University. The DMZ has launched more than 180 companies, creating more than 1,000 jobs, and attracting $70 million in seed funding. Politicians and the business community praise the DMZ for creating better quality jobs, and harnessing the innovative capacity of the nation. Ryerson has launched other incubation zones, including the Fashion Zone, Design Fabrication Zone, ZoneStartups India, the Transmedia Zone, the Legal Innovation Zone, and the Social Ventures Zone. Ryerson DMZ video: https://youtu.be/IGncBRPg1TI As we mentioned previously, colleges and universities are emphasizing experiential learning opportunities, and incubators are just one high-profile approach. Some academics question whether higher education should really be in the business of incubating businesses, but as more and more students graduate into a freelance and innovation economy, business incubators make sense as an extension of campus career services and research commercialization. If we want to prepare our students for successful futures and meaningful citizenship, they are going to require an entrepreneurial mindset.