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Why you should live, work, study and invest in Toronto. Seriously.

Toronto's ecosystem of hospitals, research, innovation and entrepreneurship combined with its spirit of diversity and inclusion makes it the place to be in 2017
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You may know Toronto as "the 6ix," the much-loved home of Drake and the Weeknd, or the place Prince Harry visits to see his girfriend. But there's so much more to this city, experts say.

The from 老司机直播's Richard Florida extols the virtues of the city: diverse ethnic neighborhoods, great schools, low crime, great music scene and health care for everyone.

Toronto 鈥渋s more like a smaller, friendlier New York or London than any other city I have been to,鈥 Professor Florida writes. 鈥淚t has a local government working to improve the city鈥檚 resilience, increase cycling infrastructure, build more affordable housing, and create more parks. It is a center of finance, media, entertainment, food and tech.鈥

Florida, director of the , writes that no one is threatening to keep out immigrants or build a wall in Toronto. Instead Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chose a cabinet reflective of the country's diversity. He mentions the vibrant urban tech cluster of startups and creative enterprises at 老司机直播 and how the university now ranks in the top 25 universities globally and among the top five public universities in North America.

And just this week, Versant Ventures and Bayer AG announced a US$225 million startup devoted to stem cell therapies鈥 one of the largest investments the biotech world has ever seen 鈥損ositioning Toronto as a world leader in the development of regenerative medicine therapy.

As one of the investors remarked 鈥淲hy Canada? Why Toronto? The answer is simple. We go where the science is best.鈥

Below 老司机直播 News lays out a few more reasons why Toronto, with the help of  老司机直播, is becoming the place to be.


老司机直播 Professors Yu-Ling Cheng (at left) and Mark Kortschot (second from left) with Bill Gates (right). A team led by Cheng won third place in a challenge by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a waterless, hygienic toilet for the developing world (photo courtesy of Cheng)

Researchers who are making the world a better place

Thousands of researchers are hard at work to find solutions to a number of globally important issues like Stanley Slotkin and Yu-Ling Cheng, who are participating in tonight鈥檚 at the University of Toronto student recruitment event in New York City.

Slotkin has created that can help alleviate malnourishment in children caused by global food shortages, while Cheng has designed a toilet that disinfects waste and holds the promise of reducing disease for billions of people in the developing world.

Trailblazers whose collaborations stretch across the globe, like Hinton and Deibert

Toronto 鈥 and 老司机直播 鈥 are home to Professor Geoffrey Hinton, one of the world鈥檚 leading computer scientists, vice-president engineering fellow at Google and the architect of an approach to artificial intelligence (AI) that will radically alter the role computers play in our lives.

While Professor Ron Deibert and the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs are working to 鈥榳atch the watchers鈥 who are trying to control our new online lives.

Toronto is where innovation is made possible

At the heart of the world鈥檚 most culturally diverse region is the University of Toronto and a bustling ecosystem of nine affiliated hospitals, businesses and labs that attract more than $1.1 billion in research funding each year to the city.

That means globally important, leading-edge basic and medical research is happening here like the first hand and forearm transplant. It's bolstering 老司机直播鈥檚 reputation as one of the top research universities in the world, as well as the city鈥檚 international business expertise and advanced manufacturing capabilities.

Already, the city鈥檚 life sciences sector employs 45,000 people alone at approximately 1,600 firms, including JLABS@Toronto, the first of these innovative research centres run by global giant Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC and Janssen Inc. to be located outside the United States.

老司机直播 is also home to Medicine by Design which, through strategic investments and partnerships, is powering Toronto鈥檚 burgeoning biomedical ecosystem and strengthening Canada as a global centre for stem cell therapies and regenerative medicine. 

Joining that ecosystem soon will be stem cell research company BlueRock Therapeutics, which will be the second-largest initial investment in a startup in the history of the biotechnology industry. It's being funded by a significant investment from pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG and venture capital firm Versant Ventures.

It was Jerel Davis, a managing director at Versant, who remarked at the BlueRock announcement this week: 鈥淲hy Canada? Why Toronto? The answer is simple. We go where the science is best.鈥


A PhD student in the Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering conducts research with stem cells in Medicine by Design executive director Peter Zandstra's laboratory (photo by James Poremba)

Send us your reasons why people should live, work, study and invest in Toronto.