Langley, BC – Are you a problem solver, a techie, an innovator, someone who is super creative? Great, because if you have some technology skills, the Township has a fun opportunity to challenge you and maybe, you can even win a prize.

Beginning on January 14, the Township has been accepting registrations for a virtual codathon in conjunction with the 2021 Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) virtual Smart21 conference co-hosted by the Township of Langley and the City of Maple Ridge from February 22-24, 2021.

MONTREAL, Jan. 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- GlobalStep, a leading global provider of Technology Services to the Games Industry, today announced its new Center of Excellence for testing, deployment and the complete lifecycle management of games, located in the heart of Montreal's Mile End neighborhood. The opening aligns with GlobalStep's commitment to additional rapid growth and expansion in the region.

The 17,000 sq. ft. facility has been custom designed and is home to GlobalStep's Center of Excellence for Games QA, Localization, and Localization QA lines of service, as well as AR/VR testing. Located at 5800 Saint Denis, the space lays the foundation for GlobalStep to build closer ties and provide greater global support to its growing customer base.

Innovation.  It’s a popular, misunderstood and kind of squishy term that nonetheless plays a big role in today’s world.  A Google search on it will earn you 1.65 billion hits. 

There’s a reason for that.  Economist Robert Solow won the Nobel Prize more than 30 years ago for proving, for the first time, that 80% of all growth in the economy comes from the introduction or use of new technology. So, if you are engaged in creating or putting to use a new way of doing things, you have a shot at your share of 80% of growth.  If you are devoted to doing the same old things, you can hope for a share of the 20%.  Which would you rather have?

The second roundtable discussion in the How Does Taiwan Do It? series explores how Taiwan has a variety of smart healthcare solutions to contribute to global community in the face of COVID-19 pandemic. It is moderated by Dr. Norman Jacknis, Senior Fellow of the Intelligent Community Forum and a faculty member at Columbia University.

The first roundtable discussion in this series looks at how government responds to citizens’ needs, particularly when dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. It is moderated by Louis Zacharilla, a co-founder of the Intelligent Community Forum.

With the right investments in technology, rural communities could use this moment to remake their futures. One small town shows how.

Signs direct visitors to Mitchell, S.D., for hundreds of miles around. The town, which is a bit more than an hour west of Sioux Falls along Interstate 90, is home to the Corn Palace, a classic roadside attraction that in a non-pandemic year attracts about a half-million visitors. Enticed by the endless string of billboards, weary travelers pull off the interstate to take a look at the palace’s onion-shaped domes and corn-colored murals depicting bison, Mount Rushmore and George McGovern, the late senator and long-ago presidential candidate who was a native son of Mitchell.

Mitchell Technical College and Lake Area Technical College in Watertown are going to be beneficiaries of more than $4 billion of giving from philanthropist and novelist MacKenzie Scott, it was announced Wednesday.

The amount of the gift for the colleges was not stated in the announcement. Scott, who is deemed the richest woman in the world with a net worth of more than $60 billion, has committed $4.15 billion in philanthropy, much of it directed toward supporting those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

While most people think of Silicon Valley as the leading tech hub in the world, Estonia is quickly becoming a top player on the world stage for entrepreneurship and technology. Famed for its innovation, Estonia boasts a vast community of over 1,000 startups – famously dubbed the #EstonianMafia on Twitter – including a varied mix of established names such as Skype, to newer innovators such as unicorns including Pipedrive, Transferwise, and Bolt.

With its disruptive startup ecosystem, progressive government policies, and digital nomad education initiatives, it is fast becoming a more attractive alternative to Silicon Valley’s crowded ecosystem.

Owing to a quirk of history, many of the nation’s liberal arts colleges are located in small towns and rural areas. Many of these schools were founded in the nineteenth century as denominational colleges, when a college education was as much about teaching religious devotion, morality and good character. The belief among their founders was that this education could not happen if the college were located in proximity to the vices and temptations of the city.

By the 1920s, the United States was a majority urban-dwelling nation. At the same time, early twentieth century philanthropies, as a condition for their support, insisted that institutions be ecumenical and open to science, rather than denominational in outlook. The Rockefeller and Carnegie organizations, especially, worked to secularize American higher education. Thus by the early twentieth century, many of these denominational schools were losing enrollment, as well as their reason-for-being. To survive, these small rural colleges were forced to reinvent themselves.

FREDERICTON – Ray Harris, the owner of Data Wazo, is putting Fredericton businesses on the map with his Shop Local Fredericton web application. The project was created to act as a resource for people looking for local businesses to shop from during the holiday season and beyond.

“People think there’s a certain item they just can’t get in the city and because of that they immediately go online. If we can make that information a little more readily available, it might encourage people to spend their money in the city,” said Harris.