TORONTO, Nov. 24, 2017 /CNW/ - Giving post-secondary students the chance to learn in a hands-on work environment is part of the Government's plan to put Canada's greatest strength—its skilled, hard-working people—at the heart of a more innovative new economy.

The Honourable Kristy Duncan, Minister of Science, on behalf of the Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, today announced that the Government of Canada will work with MaRS Discovery District (MaRS) to provide students with work placement opportunities to help them develop their skills and gain valuable workplace experience.

In my role as advisor to small businesses, I often hear first-hand the challenges and failures of retail store owners who fear the advantages of online and feel the exodus to eCommerce, led by Amazon and Ebay. Ironically, the most common desire I hear from entrepreneurs selling wholly online, is the need for their entry into retail, as the next step in their growth strategy.

What neither group seems to fully comprehend is that retail needs to fundamentally change to succeed, far beyond the addition of an online component, to meet the experience expectations of today’s generation, an oversupplied global marketplace, and technology for instant pricing and distribution. Many pundits are already talking about a “retail apocalypse” that has already started.

Median home prices have risen in most major U.S. cities, including Pittsburgh, but when factoring in interest, taxes and insurance payments, how much would you really need to make to afford a home?

See the slideshow above to find out where Pittsburgh ranks, including where national numbers fit among them, according to HSH.com.

Only the Hartford, Conn., metro area saw a decline in median home values, while all others saw an increase. In 34 of the 50 markets, gains were 5 percent or more. With little new housing supply, affordability continues to be a problem, the researchers conclude.

Image: https://www.bizjournals.com

Six months ago I won the lottery — the H-1B visa processing lottery for skilled foreign workers. I called my thrilled parents and celebrated with friends. I’m from northeastern China and have an M.B.A. from Stanford, and was planning to stay in Silicon Valley to help start a company based on a promising new technology to improve the use of data. I was overjoyed because, historically, being selected in the lottery was a near guarantee that an applicant could remain in this country at least three more years.

But at the end of July, I received the dreaded Request for Further Evidence from immigration authorities. I provided the extra information that United States Citizenship and Immigration Services asked for. In September, I got another request. I complied again. Finally, on Oct. 11, half a year after my celebration, I learned I had been denied a visa.

CAMBRIDGE – Start-ups, incubators, accelerators, angel capital, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, a liquid stock market, techno-parks, a major university or two, and a group of specialized law firms. Many believe that once you have built up this ecosystem, à la Silicon Valley, you can become the next Route 128 in Massachusetts, the next Research Triangle in North Carolina, or the next Start-Up Israel.

Above each distant peak and skyward ship,

Fast-flowing streams of dust bombard the Earth;

Releasing beads of life from Newton’s grip,

Transporting them through space to bring new birth.

Damien Lee could be forgiven for taking a breather. The 51-year-old has served in the Australian special forces, built a succession of profitable businesses in Europe and down under — and twice survived cancer. But instead of putting his feet up, he is working hard to make his latest company a success.

“I love chilling out, but one week is enough,” said Lee. “You can get the tan, sip the cocktails and lie on the beach. After that, I’m climbing the walls.”

Image: https://www.thetimes.co.uk

Every entrepreneur and business leader waits too long before really working on the legacy that he wants to leave to society and his family. They realize too late that they don’t really want to be remembered for how many hours they spent on airplanes, how many emails they produced, or even how much money they made for the business.

If you disappeared today, what would your legacy show? What have you done for others? If you are not thinking in these terms, you may be making a mistake as a leader. Bill Gates will probably be more remembered in fifty years for the his Foundation to save lives in developing countries, than Steve Jobs for his “insanely great” consumer technology advances.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

I spent the majority of my adult life managing organizations and I always felt enormous pressure to innovate, but whenever I went looking for guidance, what I found was a confused jumble. Disruptive innovation, design thinking, open innovation, lean launchpads and on and on. Unlike marketing or finance, there wasn't any one clear framework.

So I spent nearly a decade on the research that led to my book Mapping Innovation and what I found is that innovation is at once more simple and more complex than most people give it credit for. It's more simple because ultimately, innovation is about solving problems and organizations that can identify new problems can usually innovate successfully.

What happens when you combine access to unprecedented huge amounts of anatomical data of brain structures with the ability to display billions of voxels (3D pixels) in real time, using high-speed graphics cards?

Answer: An awesome new immersive virtual reality (VR) experience for visualizing and interacting with up to 10 terabytes (trillions of bytes) of anatomical brain data.

Image: http://www.kurzweilai.net

You probably already know that eating whole foods and lots of colorful produce is important to staying healthy. But did you know that the ingredients you use in your salad or what sides you pair with your salmon can affect the absorption of vitamins and other important compounds in your meal?

We asked our Director of Food and Nutrition, Brierley Horton, MS, RD, to weigh in on the best foods to pair together for the most health benefits (because you should get bonus points for making healthy choices!). Here are the wholesome food duos she approves of.

When students begin graduate studies in philosophy, they're typically looking to explore the essence of existence — and suffice it to say, most are not getting on a path to riches.

But one of Silicon Valley's most influential billionaires, LinkedIn founder and Greylock Partners investor Reid Hoffman, received his masters degree in philosophy from Oxford in 1993. He was originally planning to go into academia, but decided that his desire to do nothing less than change the world would be more likely in the world of tech. That's not to say, however, that he abandoned the lessons he learned.

Image: Reid Hoffman said that he has been "greatly aided by the crispness of thinking that comes with philosophical training." Courtesy of Reid Hoffman

When it comes to the stories of entrepreneurs, often we only hear about the big wins. What we don’t see are the downturns, the losses, the belly-up ventures. The fact is, being a young entrepreneur is tough. It’s not for the faint of heart. And as much as we might be tempted to free ourselves of the monotony of our 9 to 5 jobs, there are many things to consider.

NASA Glenn Research Center has just reinvented the wheel, introducing a new tire that can get back to its original shape after having undergone deformation. This invention was possible thanks to a shape memory alloy based on nickel-titanium. 

No matter how many rocks it rolls over, this "Superelastic tire" will return to its pre-deformed shape like nothing ever happened. Originally created for future Mars missions, NASA researchers believe that this technology has the potential to someday revolutionize earth tires.

In a year when quantum computing made major leaps forward and using your face as a password became a reality, you’d be forgiven for being hard pushed to imagine just how much further technology can take us.

But 2018 will certainly be a year for driving even more innovation for the 50 up-and-coming companies chosen as City A.M. and Bird & Birds Digital Innovators (check them out here) only two of which - with your help - will soon be crowned winners.

Income inequality inspires fierce debate around the world, and no shortage of proposed solutions. As global billionaires bid up the price of a da Vinci painting on Wednesday, to $450.3 million, Congress debated tax reforms that many analysts said would give the largest benefits to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers.

Image: https://www.nytimes.com

The Mall of America’s terrazzo floors, glazed white like doughnut frosting, ribbon out in every direction, creating a vast mirror maze of consumerism with 520 glassy storefronts. Shoppers, who have escaped an endlessly gray Bloomington, Minnesota, sky on a Monday morning in October, drift through the largest mall in the United States like tourists at an Atlantic City buffet. A couple holding hands strolls into a Zales while buttery perfumes emanate from an Auntie Anne’s next door. Kids and some willing parents fling around on the SpongeBob SquarePants Rock Bottom Plunge roller coaster, one of 27 rides at the Nickelodeon-branded amusement park on-site. Distant echoes of saxophone Muzak clash with both elevator whirs and bubbly pop songs. Somewhere in this otherworldly commercial expanse are five Lids stores and four Sunglass Huts.

Image: https://www.fastcompany.com

A fine orator can make the world dance to his tune. With quick wit, a persuasive voice, and sharp twist to his words he can shift a room’s point of view.

Think about how some of world's greatest (and worst) leaders have swayed entire nations with their words. JFK convincing people that they could – indeed would – go to the moon. Winston Churchill entreating his countrymen to never retreat, never give up, and fight until the end. Abraham Lincoln declaring that all men and women deserve freedom.

Chris, a senior manager at a New York design studio can’t sleep. His mind is churning, thinking about the mountain of tasks facing him back at the office. Katrina, the production manager at a well-known publishing house is distracted by a work email at the dinner table. Her partner complains that she “never seems able to turn off.”

They’re not the only ones having difficulty disengaging from their jobs at the end of the workday. According to a seven-year study on workers’ performance, an inability to make this break between professional and personal time ranked among the top-10 stressful situations that people were least effective at handling. Technology has, of course, exacerbated the problem, offering both convenience and imposition, by putting our workplaces just a touch screen away.

If you want to be the CEO of a powerful company, choosing the right college major is an important place to start.

We took a look at the leaders of the top 11 companies in this year's Fortune 500, and by and large, they each majored in a field directly related to industry of their future employer. And nearly all of the CEOs obtained post-graduate education after getting their bachelor's degree.