This portmanteau word combining “nanotechnology” and “manufacturing” describes the process of product fabrication at the molecular level. Applications range from making golf clubs lighter and stronger and garments more water repellent to squeezing several billion transistors into a computer chip the size of a fingernail.
The global industry continues to grow, having exceeded about $20 billion last year, but, according to Geoffrey Ozin, a University of Toronto professor of chemistry and a pioneer in nanotech, Canada lags in “nanofacturing” compared to Korea, China, Singapore and Taiwan. Reasons include a lack of venture capitalist funding, high levels of risk aversion and a weak culture of innovation. “With the emerging nanotechnology revolution upon us, we have to make professors more aware of, and receptive to, entrepreneurial opportunities for themselves and their students,” says Ozin.
Recent Posts
We Need a Green New Deal for Canada
Linking climate action to job creation, living wages and equality reframes the debate as a win-win – though tough political choices remain
The Madam Who Shot the Mountie
How a brothel-keeper in 1880s Edmonton crossed the law – and won
Doing the Devil’s Work
The local bishop called her a heretic. The Criminal Code deemed her work illegal. But Dr. Elizabeth Bagshaw was more concerned with helping women at Canada’s first birth control centre
