/innovation/taxonomy/term/351/all en /innovation/article/here-paternity <p>Disruption. If there is one buzzword in the modern economy, this is it. Every entrepreneur claims to be doing it, every investor is looking for it, but how many are actually capable of it? And what does it really mean anyway?</p> <p>The phrase ‘disruptive innovation’ has been bandied about since the late 1990s thanks to Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, who identified it as a process whereby a product or service takes root at the bottom of the market and eventually displaces established competitors.</p> Wed, 20 Nov 2024 19:24:10 +0000 Junji Nishihata 74667 at /innovation /innovation/channels/event/mif-lunch-learn-17-what-many-founders-forget-hidden-risks-skipping-insurance-and-hr-360670 <p>Launching a startup requires many elements to come together: a team, a business plan, customers but fail to consider safeguarding their venture with insurance and HR tools.</p> Fri, 25 Oct 2024 16:13:07 +0000 junji.nishihata@mcgill.ca 74598 at /innovation /innovation/channels/event/mif-summer-networking-session-2024-357123 <p>UPDATE: We have a speaker for the MIF Networking Session. Please join us for a fireside chat with <strong>Dr. Paul A. Kruszewski</strong>, a serial frontier AI entrepreneur with 3 exits.</p> Mon, 29 Apr 2024 20:47:54 +0000 junji.nishihata@mcgill.ca 74142 at /innovation /innovation/channels/event/mif-lunch-learn-15-finding-dilutive-funding-356174 <p>Before finding customers, many startup and spinoff businesses need to find funding.</p> Fri, 15 Mar 2024 15:55:48 +0000 junji.nishihata@mcgill.ca 74044 at /innovation /innovation/article/mif-team-search-unicorn-battery-technology Professor Philippe Ouzilleau and Yee Wei Foong are creating an alternative to lithium-ion batteries which is less environmentally costly, and simpler to both manufacture and recycle. With the help of the ����VR��Ƶ Innovation Fund (MIF) the team is getting closer to making this a reality. Fri, 15 Mar 2024 16:39:17 +0000 Charlotte Bawol 74046 at /innovation /innovation/channels/event/mif-lunch-learn-14-finding-non-dilutive-funding-355347 <p>In the early days of a spinoff or start-up business, <strong>securing </strong>adequate funding is critical. But in many cases, founders have to give up some ownership of their company to investors.</p> Mon, 12 Feb 2024 15:22:34 +0000 junji.nishihata@mcgill.ca 73978 at /innovation /innovation/article/matter-fact-it-rocket-science-iron-based-fuel-powered-mif New technology by ����VR��Ƶ entrepreneurs and their spinoff Altiro Energy uses iron as a fuel alternative to greenhouse gas producing fossil fuels. With support from the ����VR��Ƶ Iinnovation Fund (MIF), they aim to test the project on a commercial scale and decarbonize the future of energy. Thu, 01 Feb 2024 18:35:05 +0000 Charlotte Bawol 73941 at /innovation /innovation/article/dont-throw-nutrients-out-growing-water-making-hydroponics-more-efficient <p>If you go to the grocery store in Montreal, you will likely buy fresh produce. Let’s say, you get a pack of Driscoll strawberries. You may not realize it, but those strawberries are grown in California and had to travel over 4,500 km to get to you, polluting the environment every kilometer of the way.</p> Mon, 18 Dec 2023 20:50:10 +0000 Charlotte Bawol 73868 at /innovation /innovation/article/passing-torch-mif-welcomes-2nd-cohort <p>The ����VR��Ƶ Innovation Fund (MIF) officially entered its second year of operation with a kick-off event at the Faculty Club on Thursday, February 2<sup>nd</sup>. The two-part experience began with an advisor matchmaking session that brought together the ten recipient teams with a room full of experienced entrepreneurs, all of whom volunteered to attend the introductory workshop.</p> Thu, 09 Feb 2023 18:52:49 +0000 Junji Nishihata 64131 at /innovation /innovation/article/made-quebec/made-quebec-building-better-future-one-cmu-time <p>There is simply no escaping the fact that 2022 has started out with a completely different sound than a resounding and joyful ‘bang!’ Perhaps we can charitably say it began with a dull, familiar thud – likely caused by the simultaneously slapping of foreheads across the world when the latest wave of pandemic restrictions were announced. As the famous baseball player and manager Yogi Berra once said, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”</p> Wed, 23 Feb 2022 15:38:57 +0000 Junji Nishihata 33348 at /innovation /innovation/article/made-quebec/made-quebec-illuminating-hidden-brain-cancer-cells <p>It's a scene that plays out daily in operating rooms around the world: a surgeon removes a malignant brain tumour. But rather than registering the satisfaction of having saved a patient’s life, hanging in the air is an all-too-real statistic; in 99.5% of these operations, unseen cancer cells remain. That hidden cancer will eventually grow and spread, and the operation will have become only a short reprieve for the patient and their family.</p> Wed, 17 Nov 2021 14:47:24 +0000 Philip Fine 23923 at /innovation /innovation/channels/event/mif-graduate-info-session-360658 <p>Attention graduate and post-doctoral students! Did you know that the ����VR��Ƶ Innovation Fund (MIF) is the largest entrepreneurial competition at ����VR��Ƶ? And did you know it can be a springboard into a career as a startup founder?</p> Thu, 24 Oct 2024 18:48:18 +0000 junji.nishihata@mcgill.ca 74593 at /innovation /innovation/article/shake-it-no-longer-future-energy-absorbers With the support of the ����VR��Ƶ Innovation Fund, a team of ����VR��Ƶ researchers are seeking to develop and commercialize a multistate lightweight shock absorbing technology that could transform safety equipment, reduce concussions, and contribute to sustainability. Fri, 12 Jan 2024 16:20:24 +0000 Charlotte Bawol and Junji Nishihata 73917 at /innovation /innovation/article/longer-cell-life-paves-way-drug-discovery <p>We should all be thankful for the advances of modern medicine, particularly over the last decades. Cancer, for example, once considered a death sentence, is steadily being beaten back. Since 1991 mortality rates from this disease have <a href="https://www.cancer.org/research/acs-research-news/facts-and-figures-2022.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">declined by 33% in the US.</a> Much of this improvement is due to the development of new drugs. </p> Wed, 06 Dec 2023 21:20:29 +0000 Charlotte Bawol and Junji Nishihata 73828 at /innovation /innovation/article/better-coating-better-implants <p>Ever since the first pacemaker was implanted into a human body back in 1958, the use of medical devices has grown to the point where it is now a routine affair. In Canada, there were over 700,000 surgeries to implant some kind of device into a patient in 2018-19. And in the US, it is estimated that as many as 10% of Americans have some kind of medical device implanted in their body. With our society aging and requiring things like hip and knee replacements, this trend is set to continue.</p> Thu, 16 Nov 2023 16:02:52 +0000 Charlotte Bawol and Junji Nishihata 73798 at /innovation