Montreal-based software company Lightspeed’s plan to go public on the Toronto Stock Exchange is being hailed a success story for Montreal’s tech industry.

On Wednesday, the company, which makes cloud-based payments software aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, filed a prospectus with securities regulators — a major step in the initial public offering process.

It would be the first notable IPO by a Montreal technology company since Stingray Digital, now Stingray Group, went public in 2015.

When is the last time you visited your local library? If it’s been a while, then you might want to take note of an initiative from Montreal’s NDG borough that’s bringing the books to you.

“It’s about promoting literacy through the book, the magical powers of the book,” said Helen Fortin, CEO and executive director of the Fraser Hickson Institute.

Fortin and her team of three have created the MINIBIBLIOplus program.

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder speaks with Harout Chitilian, who served as a city councillor of Montreal when the city won the Intelligent Community of the Year Award in 2016.

A Montreal program is trying to help get more women working in artificial intelligence.

Twenty-eight women, mostly senior undergraduate students, began the six-week AI4Good summer lab on May 14.

Almost none of the participants have any experience with AI or machine learning, said Doina Precup, one of the program’s creators.

Zayo Group Holdings (NYSE: ZAYO) says it will construct a dark fiber ring in the Montreal metro area for a global cloud provider Zayo didn't further identify. The 60-km dark fiber ring will run along the South Shore section of the city, which Zayo says is an emerging technology and data center hub.

The ring will connect multiple data centers for the client. Zayo asserts it won the contract due to "its leading fiber network in Canada, deep experience in building high-performance fiber network, and flexibility in planning for the customer's continued growth."

Google’s first Cloud Platform region in Canada is now open for business in Montréal.

The internet giant announced it would be adding a Canada-based region to its global cloud artillery way back in March last year, but now it’s officially available for businesses in the vicinity. The region, titled “northamerica-northeast1,” constitutes three zones and is the company’s fifth region in North America after Oregon, Iowa, South Carolina, and North Virgina, and its fifteenth region globally.

A Montreal tech company is hoping to inject a little modernization into one of Canada’s oldest games.

At first glance, there’s not much high-tech about curling – all it takes is some brooms, 40-lb rocks and ice, but that’s something that IntelliSports co-founder John Morris wants to change.

“Technology in curling has barely existed in the last five years. We’ve seen some innovation with the brooms but it’s scant,” he said.

Montréal International and Québec International have joined forces to promote Québec’s advantages and its Life Sciences and Health Technologies (LSHT) industry to foreign investors around the world. With Dominique Anglade, Deputy Premier of Québec and Minister of Economy, Science and Innovation, and Gaétan Barrette, Minister of Health and Social Services, in attendance, a new video highlighting the appeal of the sector was launched before 150 partners and key players from the LSHT ecosystem.

Facebook announced the creation of an artificial intelligence (AI) research lab in Montréal and plans to hire about thirty scientists over time to do R&D in AI and in machine learning.

“Greater Montréal is an AI hub. The city has the highest concentration of researchers in the world and it’s home to the largest and most distinguished group of deep learning researchers,” said Hubert Bolduc, President and CEO of Montréal International. “It’s really no surprise to see Facebook joining the other global giants in Montréal’s ecosystem.”

The world leader in AI, DeepMind, will be opening an international research laboratory in Greater Montréal, in close collaboration with McGill University.

Three months after opening its first laboratory in Edmonton, the British subsidiary of Alphabet – a conglomerate of several companies, including Google – is strengthening its commitment to the Canadian and Montréal AI community.