MaRS Discovery District is a not-for-profit corporation that was founded in Toronto in 2000. Although the MaRS acronym stands for Medical and Related Sciences and the orgnaization’s initial purpose was to transform life-science research into profitable products and companies, it has now expanded to include social innovation, information technology, communications and entertainment, and physical science and engineering. Its mission is to drive economic and societal prosperity by harnessing the full potential of Canadian innovation. On its website, MaRS describes its function as to: 1) equip innovators and organizations alike with the entrepreneurship skills required to complete in the 21st century, using methodologies that transcend traditional learning; 2) help startup ventures grow and scale to the point at which they have the greatest economic and societal impact; and 3) work with partners to make our work and learning, health and energy systems more receptive to innovative new ideas, products and companies.
The Education Technology section of the MaRS Library includes a compilation of reports and links related to the business of education, education technology trends, education technology statistics and tracking the latest developments in education technology. Through this site, entrepreneurs in educational technology can access accelerator and incubator companies and links to funding and training opportunities. And as a classroom teacher, I appreciate that I can access numerous trend reports and articles on innovation in one location. All of the links that I tried are operational and FREE! The titles and descriptions are clear and concise making it easy to quickly scan and identify sources of interest. A complaint, however, is it that some of the educational trend reports are now a few years old and that the Education Technology page is dated March 31, 2014. I hope that they are continuing to update it as they are with their other pages.
Lastly, posts on the MaRS Blog highlight new ventures, tips for start-up companies, and emerging markets. Some of these posts, such as Feedback for Impact: How Kaizena is Changing the Culture of Classrooms, are directly related to classroom teaching. The posts are current and interesting.
I would recommend this resource to entrepreneurs and to educational technology enthusiasts who want to stay informed of emerging ventures and trends. This was my first time hearing about MaRS. I would love to get other people’s opinion of the corporation. For those Ontarians in the course… have you heard about MaRS before?
Jaclyn
Sources
MaRS. (2015). The MaRS Story. Retrieved from http://www.marsdd.com/about/story/
MaRS. (2015). Education Technology. Retrieved from http://www.marsdd.com/mars-library/education-technology/
MaRS. (2015). The MaRS Blog. Retrieved from http://www.marsdd.com/news-and-insights/