Start-up Visa takes too long, a Canadian IPO coming soon, and the cloud 404s

Speaking at the Bloomberg Tech conference in London this week, Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez said he believes his company could hit the public markets “soon,” but didn’t know when his company would hold an IPO.

This week, Canada’s immigration agency increased the wait times for Start-Up Visa applicants to a staggering 35 years. Processing times for Canadian immigration applications have reached up to 50 years under some permanent residency programs.

A massive outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) disrupted apps and websites around the world Monday, including Canadian companies like Wealthsimple and Koho. AWS said the outage was linked to a Domain Name System error.

Tech blogger Michaluk and former Research in Motion Gadway are leading Bring Back BlackBerry, a campaign that aims to restore the “values BlackBerry stood for” in tech. The campaign website states these values include intentional design, mobile productivity, trusted security, and the right to privacy.

Jalalvandi said tax season is like “spring cleaning, with none of the benefits.”  After doing taxes for his family and friends, he built Ready Plan Go, an AI platform that aims to automate the grunt paperwork for accountants. The startup raised $750,000 in funding this week.

The open letter, which has over 1,500 signatures, advocates for the prohibition of superintelligence development. Superintelligence refers to a scenario in which AI surpasses human-level intelligence, a feat many tech companies like Meta are chasing.

Digital wellness festival Rally has spun up to unite teens around the idea that it’s ok to be offline. The festival, which took place in Toronto this week, convened students, parents, teachers, experts, policymakers, and cultural leaders to unpack how the next generation of Canadians can build healthy relationships with and without technology.