Notables - November 28, 2018

  By Craig Bamford

StatsCan study suggests more businesses are embracing innovation

Welcome to Notables for November 28, 2018!

First this week: StatsCan's take on Canadian innovation.

Late last month, Statistics Canada (StatsCan) published a comprehensive survey of innovation and business strategy between 2015 and 2017. As innovation has been a key focus for both the federal government and many provincial governments, and as innovation has been diffiicult for Canadian business in the past, these reports are key to understanding how to move forward. The findings were summarized on StatsCan's website.

StatsCan found several key trends that suggest positive movements in Canadian innovation between 2015 and 2017. The percentage of innovative enterprises - firms engaging in one or more of the four major types of business innovation -  has noticeably increased, raising 12.5 percentage points to 79.3% of all Canadian companies. StatsCan suggests that this is due to Canadian businesses taking advantage of increasingly affordable and accessible technological innovation solutions.

Medium-sized enterprises showed the greatest gains, rising 23.4 percentage points; and the gains at all levels were broad-based, with surprisingly large increases in innovation rates from 56.7% to 85.1% in wholesale trade. The report also found that the Atlantic region is posting big gains, rising over 23% over the course of two years, and the gains occurred across all four types of innovation: product, process, organizational, and marketing.

Canada History Week focuses on

science and innovation

Second this week: Canada History Week celebrates science, technology and innovation!

This has been a banner year for celebration of Canadian science and innovation, as we've highlighted here in Innovation This Week. Last week's Canada History Week is no exception: the 2018 focus is "Science, Creativity and Innovation". The page for Canada History Week points to a variety of resources related to Canadian science history, including Historica Canada, the Canada Science and Technology Museum, the University of Ottawa's Canadian Archive of Women in STEM, and the National Research Council.

The highlight, however, is a completely interactive digital magazine related to science and technology's history in Canada. The magazine explores, highlights, and links to information about Canadian scientific achievements: including "11 Inventions to Celebrate", the work of Dr. Irma Le Vasseur, Joey Angnatok's work combining cutting-edge climate research with traditional Inuit communities' knowledge, and a series of Young Citizens' videos about science and technology, including many others. It's appropriate for both kids and adults, and links to a wide variety of resources.

Go check it out!

Quantum luminaries discuss future

of quantum computing

Finally this week: quantum computing.

Many of the luminaries in the Canadian Quantum Computing space are meeting today at 5:30 at the RBC WaterPark Place Auditorium for "Futuremakers Talks: The Reality of Quantum Computing". Quantum computing is a rapidly-advancing field, especially after the previously-announced opening-up of quantum computing resources to the wider world, but there is still a lot of confusion about its current state and its promise. This talk aims to nail down a few of those concepts, discussing where quantum computing is, where it's going, and how it can affect fields like pharmaceuticals and cybersecurity.

The speakers include: Amir Feizpour, Senior Manager of Data Science and Analytics at the Royal Bank of Canada, who will be explaining the evolution of quantum computing over the years; Razieh Annabestani, Quantum Application Scientist at Xanadu, who will be presenting a talk on the problems that hybrid quantum-classical algorithms could solve; Tommy Moffatt of The Knowledge Society, whose presentation also focuses on hybridized algorithms and their potential with pharmaceuticals and "metamaterials"; and Cordell Grant and Jennifer Elliott, co-founders of QEYnet Inc, who will be discussing the potentially critical importance of Quantum Key Distribution as a necessary security improvemment when quantum computing threatens to obsolete traditional cryptography.

The talks will be preceded by an optional 5:15 tour of RBC's Innovation Lab at WaterPark Place, and followed at 7:45 by an open networking event.

Notables is a weekly collection of interesting science, technology, investment and innovation reports, press releases and other news bytes from around the web. Notables are curated and written by Craig Bamford.

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The views and opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of RE$EARCH MONEY.