Feb 16, 2023

Discovery Centre CEO Dov Bercovici, left, with Tidal Ventures Managing Partner Ian Whytock Halifax’s Tidal Venture Partners has pledged to donate a portion of its profits to the Discovery Centre science museum, also in Halifax, in a move that looks to be aimed at least partly at increasing the talent pipeline for STEM jobs in the Atlantic Canada. The Discovery Centre mostly offers educational programming for children, and a frequent refrain from innovation economy observers is that the current shortage of skilled labour has its roots partly in a lack of recruitment efforts targeted at young people. Research from Purdue University, among similar studies by other institutions, has suggested that exposure to science, technology, engineering or math-related topics in early childhood dramatically increases kids’ likelihood of choosing technical careers. “There are two themes that are very prominent at Tidal; conviction capital, which means investing early in founders and founding teams; and transformative capital — capital that can have transformative effects not only for the companies that we invest int but also transformative for our communities,” said Managing Parter Ian Whytock in a statement. “We hope this partnership with Discovery Centre will build their capacity to continue to deliver positive community impact.” Tidal’s recent investment include New York- and Halifax-based education technology startup Pressto and Halifax’s Bright Breaks , which sells subscriptions for online fitness and wellness classes targeted at businesses looking to help their employees get active