Stories of Innovation

INNOVATING IN FINANCIAL SERVICES FOR MORE THAN 165 YEARS Founded in 1857, Northwestern Mutual, a FORTUNE 500® financial services company, embodies a unique culture dedicated to helping people achieve financial security. As a mutual company, Northwestern Mutual answers to its policy owners — not Wall Street. Through a comprehensive planning...

Productique Québec is Cégep de Sherbrooke’s centre for technology transfer. Our mission is to improve productivity and drive innovation in businesses by promoting the development of knowledge and expertise in digital technologies and quantum technology applications. When our centre was founded in 1986, our work mainly consisted in providing Quebec...

A startup usually starts with a simple vision. So did LIFT99, meant as a hub where startups take shape and founders can grow, connect and inspire one another. And like a startup itself, LIFT99 has grown to something much more powerful. LIFT99 stands today as one of the most influential...

2014 doesn’t seem like a long time ago, but the technology was very different back then. AI was just science fiction, the internet was much slower — and retail software was expensive and unnecessarily complex. This scenario led to ConnectPlug’s creation by computer engineer Rafael Hasson. Hasson, who has worked...

Services and ValuesEstablished in 1983, Consulgal provides an extensive range of services such as Engineering Studies, Design and Technical Consultancy, Project Management and Works Supervision, Operation and Maintenance. Being one of the largest and most prestigious Portuguese engineering consultancy companies, has developed its skills offering a wide range of specialized...

“Interning at Illuminate helped me row both as an individual and professional by giving me a platform to test my leadership skills, and most importantly by providing me with an invaluable network of connections at my disposal. Believe it or not, but the most important lesson I took from my...

Georgia Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing (Georgia AIM) represents a bold vision for the future of manufacturing in Georgia and serves as a blueprint for the nation. This future is inclusive, innovative, and impactful, propelling the state of Georgia into the forefront of AI-driven manufacturing. STATEWIDE REACH AND FOCUS At its...

Le Conseil de l’innovation du Québec a pour mission de dynamiser l’innovation au sein des entreprises et de la société québécoise. Son équipe multiplie les actions afin d’insuffler une culture de l’innovation plus forte, partout à travers la province. Qu’il s’agisse d’innovation sociale, d’intelligence artificielle, de développement durable, de prospérité...

In the vibrant heart of Antwerp, nestled within the enchanting Botanical Garden, dunden is revolutionizing healthcare innovation as Flanders’ dynamic epicenter for tech-driven startups and scale-ups. Blending historical charms with contemporary amenities, dunden isn’t just a workspace – it’s a curated tech community dedicated to impacting lives through groundbreaking healthcare...

Most Vicious Players is now the parent company of the Amateur Esports Union (AEU). But before the AEU was created, MVPs has been most well known for its individual players having live-streamed over 1000 wins in a row on YouTube, in which this live stream record has not been broken...

INNOVATION IN THE PORT SECTOR Innovate to Compete Transnet Port Terminals (TPT), a division of Transnet SOC Ltd is responsible for the operations of 16 port terminals across seven of South Africa’s ports. More than 9,000 employees work diligently every day to ensure that containers, cars, bulk, and break-bulk cargo...

Southeastern Freight Lines, a privately-owned company, has been a trusted name in South Carolina’s business community since its founding in 1950. Established in Columbia by W.T. Cassels, Sr., the company began with 14 trucks, 20 associates, and a $5,000 loan. From the very beginning, Cassels emphasized a simple yet powerful...

Artenso—a French acronym for art and social engagement—strongly believes that culture can be a vehicle for economic and social development within communities. Affiliated with Montreal’s Cégep de Saint-Laurent, our CCTT boasts cross-disciplinary expertise in the fields of public policy, artistic practices, digital culture and social innovation. Our interdisciplinary team carries...

Have you ever wondered what it takes to create content for games or interactive stories. The overwhelming number of 30+ tools you must juggle? What is the chance for you to succeed amidst the endless pool of published games? The team developing VIO, Oleg Sidorkin, CTO, xIBM Chief AI Architect...

Within a span of five months in 1997, a local pulp and papermill experienced the collapse and death of two employees on-site. It was determined that both employees suffered from Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA). The prospect of future deaths at the site was palpable, and preventative solutions were non-existent. This...

It would be hard to name a company that touches lives in more ways than Honeywell Advanced Materials.   Ready-now innovations from Honeywell Advanced Materials keep people comfortable in buildings and cars and food cool in supermarkets. Its products make it easier and safer to take life-prolonging medicines. Smartphones and...

Founded in Vancouver in 2011 by Beth Boyle, Katie Dunsworth-Reiach, and Sara Padidar, Talk Shop’s vision is to help it’s clients get known, and be understood. Under the leadership of the founding partners and Managing Partner Katie Stevens, Talk Shop has grown substantially to include more than fifty team members....

PROTEIN STRUCTURESProteins are key building blocks and fulfill many essential roles within all living organisms. They are involved in processes such as immunity, metabolism, perception, etc. As many diseases are the result of malfunctioning proteins, understanding what they look like and how they work is essential to develop better therapeutic...

ELEVATOR PITCH Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) is the largest co-located multi-disciplinary robotics research centre in the UK. It is a collaborative partnership between UWE Bristol and the University of Bristol and home to over 300 academics, industry practitioners, and researchers from all over the world. Together, they are world leaders...

In an industry often defined by numbers, Searcy Financial Services stands apart by focusing on people. Founded in 1976 and independently owned by second-generation leaders Jessica Kmetty, Marc Shaffer, John Fales, and Ryan Brooke, the firm has built a reputation not just for managing wealth, but for helping people make...

BUILDING THE FUTURE OF WORKWITH CONNECTED INTELLIGENCE. Founded in 2021 by David Shim, Robert Williams, and Elliott Waldron, Read AI brings together your meetings, emails, and messages and transforms them into collaborative partners, so that they talk to each other, share information, offer updates, find answers, and organize tasks through...

“Regenerative medicine is the future, and not only is it the future, it’s a branch of medicine that Canada and the province of Ontario are actually quite good at.” – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau When it launched onto the scene in 2011, there was nothing else like it. Even today, ten years...

Every morning, the sun rises over a small, unassuming building nestled near the shores of Myrtle Beach. From the outside, it could be anything—a warehouse, a power station, just another part of the city’s horizon. But inside, this facility is something extraordinary: a new kind of port, not for ships...

EUROPE’S FIRST INTEGRATED CREDIT INFRASTRUCTURE Mifundo provides European banks with cross-border credit data that allows consumer credit histories to move between countries. This technology removes one of the last remaining barriers to financial mobility in the European Union: fragmented data locked within national borders. For millions of people who live,...