Media Releases

Scotiabank to Support Entrepreneurship and Business Design Initiatives at UofT’s Rotman School of Management

September 15, 2016

Toron­to, ON – A new gift from Sco­tia­bank will help the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment con­tin­ue to pro­duce the lead­ing man­age­ment tal­ent that com­pa­nies in Cana­da and the world need to oper­ate suc­cess­ful­ly in the dig­i­tal econ­o­my.

The gift of $1.75 mil­lion will cre­ate the Sco­tia­bank Dis­rup­tive Tech­nolo­gies Ven­ture at the Rot­man School of Man­age­ment and sup­port pro­grams and ini­tia­tives includ­ing:

  • The school’s Cre­ative Destruc­tive Lab;
  • Research and inde­pen­dent study in the sub­jects of machine learn­ing, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and behav­iour­al eco­nom­ics;
  • The cre­ation of a design think­ing intern­ship;
  • Intern­ships, research and inde­pen­dent study in the area of design think­ing; and,
  • Spon­sor­ship of the school’s arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence con­fer­ence.

“Suc­cess­ful busi­ness­es in the dig­i­tal econ­o­my are cre­at­ing new prod­ucts and ser­vices, and reimag­in­ing how exist­ing ones are deliv­ered. This requires a new gen­er­a­tion of tal­ent that has the knowl­edge to under­stand the pos­si­bil­i­ties of a dig­i­tal world and the skills to seize them,” says Tiff Mack­lem, Dean, Rot­man School of Man­age­ment. “This invest­ment by Sco­tia­bank will help us scale up our very suc­cess­ful expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing pro­grams in tech­nol­o­gy-based entre­pre­neur­ship and design think­ing.”

“Con­sumers expect the same fric­tion­less expe­ri­ence whether they’re pay­ing for a cof­fee, book­ing a hotel room, order­ing a taxi or sign­ing up for a cred­it card,” says Bri­an Porter, Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, Sco­tia­bank. “As we work to deliv­er the best expe­ri­ence to our cus­tomers, we rec­og­nize the tremen­dous val­ue of work­ing close­ly with post-sec­ondary insti­tu­tions and their stu­dents. Part­ner­ships like the Sco­tia­bank Dis­rup­tive Tech­nolo­gies Ven­ture at the Rot­man School of Man­age­ment sup­port the devel­op­ment of lead­ing tal­ent and dig­i­tal research. It also pro­vides stu­dents hands-on expe­ri­ence to pre­pare them for job oppor­tu­ni­ties in the dig­i­tal world. Scotiabank’s part­ner­ship with Rot­man is an impor­tant piece of our dig­i­tal strat­e­gy, and we are opti­mistic that it will pro­duce great results.”

Part of the gift will pro­vide five years of sup­port to the Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab, which is the pre­mier seed-stage pro­gram for mas­sive­ly scal­able, sci­ence-based tech­nol­o­gy ven­tures.

The nine-month pro­gram has two streams – one for sci­ence-based tech­nol­o­gy ven­tures and a sec­ond exclu­sive­ly for machine learn­ing and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence ven­tures. The Lab pro­vides par­tic­i­pants with men­tor­ship from lead­ing entre­pre­neurs and angel investors; oppor­tu­ni­ties to raise cap­i­tal; advice on tech­nol­o­gy roadmaps from the Lab’s Chief Sci­en­tists; and strat­e­gy and busi­ness devel­op­ment insights from Rot­man fac­ul­ty and MBA stu­dents.

Since its incep­tion, over 125 ven­tures have been accept­ed into the Lab of which 45 have grad­u­at­ed, with the ven­tures cre­at­ing a total equi­ty val­ue of CDN $300 mil­lion.

Sco­tia­bank will be the pre­sent­ing spon­sor of the Lab’s 2nd annu­al Machine Learn­ing and the Mar­ket for Intel­li­gence con­fer­ence, tak­ing place on Octo­ber 27. The con­fer­ence brings togeth­er investors with experts in var­i­ous fields includ­ing com­put­er sci­ence and eco­nom­ics, and focus­es on busi­ness insights into future indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions of machine learn­ing.

Fund­ing will also sup­port a sum­mer intern­ship pro­gram with Rot­man Design­Works, the school’s busi­ness design stu­dio. Busi­ness Design is a human-cen­tred approach to inno­va­tion. It applies the prin­ci­ples and prac­tices of design to help orga­ni­za­tions cre­ate new val­ue and new forms of com­pet­i­tive advan­tage.

Addi­tion­al fund­ing will be direct­ed to inde­pen­dent study projects for Rot­man stu­dents with­in the Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab, Rot­man Design­Works as well as the School’s Behav­iour­al Eco­nom­ics in Action Research group.

About the Bound­less Cam­paign

Bound­less: The Cam­paign for the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to is the largest fundrais­ing cam­paign in Cana­di­an uni­ver­si­ty his­to­ry. With a his­toric $2‑billion goal, the cam­paign is expand­ing U of T’s glob­al lead­er­ship capac­i­ty across crit­i­cal areas of knowl­edge and help­ing devel­op the tal­ent, ideas and solu­tions for the defin­ing chal­lenges of our time. Thou­sands of alum­ni and friends are sup­port­ing the cam­paign’s crit­i­cal pri­or­i­ties. The impact of this giv­ing is lift­ing every aspect of the Uni­ver­si­ty, includ­ing vital research and pro­grams focused on devel­op­ing the entre­pre­neurs and inno­va­tors of tomor­row.

About Rot­man

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment is locat­ed in the heart of Canada’s com­mer­cial and cul­tur­al cap­i­tal and is part of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, one of the world’s top 20 research uni­ver­si­ties. The Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables our grad­u­ates to tack­le today’s glob­al busi­ness and soci­etal chal­lenges. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

About Sco­tia­bank

Sco­tia­bank is Canada’s inter­na­tion­al bank and a lead­ing finan­cial ser­vices provider in North Amer­i­ca, Latin Amer­i­ca, the Caribbean and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, and Asia-Pacif­ic. We are ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing our 23 mil­lion cus­tomers become bet­ter off through a broad range of advice, prod­ucts and ser­vices, includ­ing per­son­al and com­mer­cial bank­ing, wealth man­age­ment and pri­vate bank­ing, cor­po­rate and invest­ment bank­ing, and cap­i­tal mar­kets. With a team of more than 88,000 employ­ees and assets of $907 bil­lion (as at July 31, 2016), Sco­tia­bank trades on the Toron­to (TSX: BNS) and New York Exchanges (NYSE: BNS). Sco­tia­bank dis­trib­utes the Bank’s media releas­es using Mar­ketwired. For more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it www.scotiabank.com and fol­low us on Twit­ter @ScotiabankViews.

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For more infor­ma­tion:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Tel: 416.946.3818
E‑mail: mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca

Fol­low Rot­man on Twit­ter @rotmanschool
Watch Rot­man on You Tube www.youtube.com/rotmanschool

Diana Hart
Pub­lic, Cor­po­rate and Gov­ern­ment Affairs
Sco­tia­bank
Tel: 416–866-7238
Email: Diana.Hart@Scotiabank.com