Village Gamer

Sage North America today released findings of the Sage SMB Hiring Outlook Survey, which examined the hiring trends of Canadian small and midsized businesses in 2013 and their perception of how measures introduced in the recent federal budget will impact their business. The survey found that of businesses surveyed, 19 per cent have hired or will hire in 2013. Of those businesses hiring, 77 per cent reported that a stronger demand for their company’s services or products is the driving force for their need to hire, followed by improved economic outlook (23 per cent) and the availability of a better pool of desirable candidates (11 per cent). Read the rest of this entry »

Skills, attitudes and behaviours of individuals are central to an organization’s ability to innovate, according to The Conference Board of Canada‘s Innovation Skills Profile 2.0 (ISP2.0), which was launched today. It identifies the skills needed to generate ideas, take calculated risks and be entrepreneurial, develop interpersonal relationships that support innovation, and implement ideas. The ISP2.0 is designed to be used by employees, employers, educators, students, governments, labour and communities to become more innovative. Read the rest of this entry »

Marcel Stewart, a respected arts educator, has joined the Talent INC Canada team to help prepare young actors for audition and networking opportunities. Marcel specializes in training youth for professional careers in the entertainment industry and comes to Talent INC with an extensive following. An up and coming actor, playwright, and arts-educator, Marcel performed in the Dora Award nominated production of Macbeth for the Classical Theatre Project, and the George F. Walker play Theatre of the Film Noir for Atlas Stage Canada,which toured throughout Poland and Austria in the fall of 2008. Read the rest of this entry »

The kids rush into the Palmerston Avenue School library in Toronto after school. “Are the T-shirts in?” they ask. A box of red, blue, orange and purple shirts with white mice on them, one thinking about pie and one thinking about pi, answers their question. It’s photo day at school, and the Thinking Skills Club gets its moment beside soccer, chess and Ultimate Frisbee. Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver Animation School has announced today the launch of its program advisory committee (PAC). The new committee will be directly providing feedback to ensure that the school and curriculum remains cutting edge and applicable to the rapidly changing needs of the animation industry. Read the rest of this entry »

The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) announced today the winners of its 13^th annual BDC E-Spirit Business Plan Competition. Gold, Silver, and Bronze were awarded to the “Kanata of Youth” team from Winnipeg, MB,  “Frisbis” team from Coldstream, BC, and the “Onimiki” team from Maniwaki, QC, at a ceremony held at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops. A total of 34 teams of Aboriginal students from across Canada participated in the competition. The three winning teams received cash prizes in the amount of $1,500 for Gold, $750 for Silver and $500 for Bronze. Nine Special Achievement awards were also presented with winners receiving iPads, Netbooks, and iPods. Read the rest of this entry »

Telefilm Canada is partnering with Vancouver’s CineCoup Film Accelerator, a reality-show style competition to provide a million dollars to fund a new feature film, as part of the funding agency’s newly minted New Ways of Discovering Canadian Talent marketing campaign. On Sunday, Telefilm presented CineCoup President of Distribution and Sales, Brad Pelman, to industry players and media during its Talent To Watch event at the Cannes Film Festival. Up next, Telefilm will partner with CineCoup to unveil the Top 5 films at the Banff World Media Festival in June, where filmmakers will pitch their projects in front of industry experts. Read the rest of this entry »

Ninety filmmaking teams from across Canada applied to CineCoup with a two-minute trailer as part of the CineCoup Film Accelerator: a disruptive new model for indie filmmakers to develop, market and finance their feature films. Over the course of 15 weeks, they have advanced through a competitive selection funnel by completing tough weekly missions that are designed to package their projects and build audience support on the CineCoup social web platform. The Top 10 projects were optioned for development.  Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists, engineers and students at universities across the country will receive significant support from the Government of Canada through the Discovery Grants, scholarships and fellowships. The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology) announced 3,808 research awards that will advance research in a full range of fields in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Read the rest of this entry »

Graphic designers provide an essential service for marketing and advertising activities in just about every industry. Operators develop visual displays, from product packaging to advertisements, across all visual media. Unfortunately for industry operators, a reliance on advertising expenditure has contributed to relatively slow growth in the five years to 2013. Read the rest of this entry »