Technology

Government of Canada invests $100 million in VITAL health data platform

Published

3 months ago

June 23, 2026

VITAL will securely connect hospital data to improve health services, accelerate research and support Canadian innovation

TORONTO, June 23, 2026 /CNW/ – Every day, Canada’s health system generates data that could help improve care, strengthen health services and accelerate medical innovation. But too often, that data remains fragmented across hospitals, systems and jurisdictions, making it harder for researchers, clinicians and innovators to use it responsibly for the benefit of Canadians.

Today, the Honourable Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, and Maggie Chi, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, announced a $100 million investment in the VITAL health data platform.

VITAL is building digital infrastructure for health data using near real–time clinical data from hospitals across Canada. By securely connecting de-identified electronic health data from across different systems, VITAL will create the largest hospital data network in Canada, providing researchers with near real–time access to health data for research and innovation. VITAL will significantly expand Canada’s capacity to support cutting-edge research that addresses health care’s pressing challenges, and it will support high-impact clinical trials and strengthen Canada’s leadership in health data and AI innovation.

This $100 million investment, announced as part of Canada’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy: AI for All, builds on significant prior federal support for VITAL. Through the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy announced in Budget 2024 and the update provided in the 2024 Fall Economic Statement, the Government of Canada committed up to $30 million over three years for the initial development of VITAL across three provinces: Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. Building on this momentum, in 2025, VITAL secured an additional $24.5 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) for a $68 million project to expand participation to rural hospitals, develop clinical trials software and integrate medical imaging data.

Together, these investments will enable VITAL to connect clinical data from more hospitals across Canada, break down data silos and help turn Canadian health data into better care, better services and Canadian-made innovation, while protecting patient privacy.

Quality data is also the foundation for responsible AI in health care. AI applications are already running across multiple provinces for tasks such as predicting heart disease and detecting sepsis. And more than 80 Canadian companies are working with health data and AI to improve triaging, remote monitoring and diagnostics. VITAL gives them a national platform to build on and will allow Canadians across the country to benefit from these innovations.

By investing in secure digital infrastructure and improving access to high-quality health data, Canada is supporting faster research, stronger clinical trials, better informed decision making and innovative tools that improve outcomes for patients.

Quotes

“Better health data can mean better health care. Every day, our hospitals generate information that could help researchers discover new treatments, improve services and build the next generation of Canadian health innovation. VITAL will help unlock that potential in a secure, privacy-preserving way. By investing in VITAL, we are building a sovereign health data ecosystem, governed in Canada and guided by Canadian values, so that data and AI can deliver better care for Canadians.”
– The Honourable Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario

Investments in initiatives like VITAL are helping create a secure, pan-Canadian platform that connects clinical data across the country, enabling researchers and healthcare providers to harness artificial intelligence responsibly, accelerate discovery, and unlock the full potential of health innovation and research.”
– Maggie Chi, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health

“VITAL positions Canada as an ideal place to develop health AI tools and advance discoveries that could save lives and make the health care system better for patients and families. The platform will help safeguard national data sovereignty by ensuring the population’s health data is owned and governed by Canadians, for the benefit of Canadians.”
– Dr. Fahad Razak and Dr. Amol Verma, co-founders of VITAL and physicians at St Michael’s Hospital, a site of Unity Health Toronto.

Quick facts

The first phase of VITAL connects 160 hospitals across Ontario, Alberta and Quebec, serving over 20 million Canadians.With this increased investment, the platform could expand to additional provinces and territories over the coming months.The VITAL platform is designed to be sovereign and secure. Each province and territory will maintain ownership and oversight of its hospital data. The data will be de-identified and managed under strict governance frameworks that comply with federal and provincial standards for health data protection. VITAL also incorporates Indigenous-led governance to respect data sovereignty and privacy of Indigenous data.

Associated links

Overview of Canada’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy: AI for All Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy Artificial intelligence ecosystem Canada Foundation for Innovation

Stay connected

Find more services and information on the Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada website.

Follow Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada on social media.
X (Twitter): @ISED_CA | Facebook: Canadian Innovation | Instagram: @cdninnovation | LinkedIn: Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

For easy access to government programs for businesses, download the Canada Business app.

SOURCE Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

Technology

Moonlock by MacPaw Wins Red Dot Award 2026

Published

45 minutes ago

September 7, 2026

Moonlock earns recognition in the Interface & User Experience Design category, proving that thoughtful design belongs in cybersecurity as much as anywhere else.

BOSTON, Sept. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — MacPaw is proud to announce that Moonlock, its antivirus and protection app for Mac users, has been named a winner of the 2026 Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design, recognized in the Interface & User Experience Design category. The award is an international mark of design excellence, judged on the strength of an idea, its execution, and its real-world impact.

Since launching in October 2025, Moonlock has taken a different approach to cybersecurity, reflected in every detail of the app. Its intuitive interface, plain-spoken copy, and hand-drawn illustrations replace the cold, technical tone common to security software. The result is a security app making protection feel easy and stress-free for everyone, expert or not.

Clear, human, beautiful products are a core MacPaw value, and the company pays attention to every detail, from aesthetics to user experience. Moonlock is no exception: it was built to make cybersecurity accessible to everyone, whatever their background — and design is central to that mission.

“Cybersecurity has a reputation for being intimidating — all alerts and jargon, with the sense that you need to be an expert just to stay safe. We built Moonlock to change that,” said Oleg Stukalenko, Head of Product Management at Moonlock by MacPaw. “From the start, we wanted it to feel human and welcoming, so that online protection becomes a natural part of everyday life rather than something people worry about. We think of design as everything someone actually experiences with us, not just the screen in front of them. Having the Red Dot jury recognize that work means a lot to the whole team.”

The Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design celebrates the craft behind how a product looks, feels, and speaks to the people who use it. Held since 1993, the competition is open to established and emerging designers, agencies, and companies across 18 categories. Each year, an international jury of 30 experts from design, science, media, and consultancy evaluates the entries, bringing a wide range of professional and cultural perspectives to every decision.

With this win, Moonlock continues MacPaw’s legacy of design excellence. It is the company’s fourth Red Dot Award: in 2017, Gemini 2 became the first macOS application to win the honor, followed by CleanMyMac in 2021 and CleanMy®Phone in 2024.

About Moonlock

Moonlock is a part of the MacPaw ecosystem that offers simple, approachable, and stress-free Mac protection and antivirus capabilities.

About MacPaw

MacPaw is a global technology company founded in Kyiv, Ukraine, with offices in Boston, MA and the EU, creating a digital ecosystem for Mac users. Combining capabilities such as system care, cybersecurity, app discovery, and more, the ecosystem aims to unite MacPaw’s suite of software, third-party tools, and AI solutions to collaborate on behalf of the user. Through Eney, an AI-powered assistant and the interface of the ecosystem, MacPaw aims to help users and developers within their workflows, driving the next generation of human-computer interaction.

Contacts

pr_team@macpaw.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/moonlock-by-macpaw-wins-red-dot-award-2026-302870478.html

SOURCE MacPaw

Technology

DBGallery Delivers “AI Knowledge Layer for Visual Assets,” Bringing Automated Enterprise DAM to Organizations of All Sizes

Published

45 minutes ago

September 7, 2026

Automated AI metadata converts photos and videos into structured organizational knowledge, transforming digital chaos into a strategic advantage without the manual effort.

TORONTO, Sept. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — DBGallery today announced the expansion of its visual intelligence capabilities, formally positioning its platform as an AI Knowledge Layer for Visual Assets for organizations and teams of all sizes. By replacing manual keywording with automated AI metadata analysis, DBGallery converts raw photos, graphics, and video into rich, structured organizational knowledge the moment they are uploaded.

For years, visual assets lost value because nobody had the bandwidth to tag them. With an automated metadata layer, that changes completely. Visual media becomes instantly discoverable, creating compounding, multi-year value, and puts DAM within reach of more organizations.

Historically, Digital Asset Management (DAM) was reserved for large media organizations with dedicated archiving staff. Resource-constrained teams across tourism boards, municipalities, higher education, non-profits, and marketing teams across numerous industries were locked out by the sheer labor required to manually tag thousands of files—turning vast digital asset libraries into unsearchable “file graveyards.”

DBGallery’s AI Knowledge Layer changes that economic equation by shifting DAM from a labor-intensive requirement into an automated, accessible workflow hub.

“For years, visual assets lost value over time because nobody had the bandwidth to tag them properly,” said Glenn Rogers, Director of Product and Project Management at DBGallery. “When you introduce an automated metadata knowledge layer, that changes completely. Visual media becomes instantly discoverable through structured context, custom prompt targeting, embedded OCR text, and interactive video transcripts. The metadata doesn’t just solve today’s search, it creates compounding, multi-year value for the entire organization, and brings DAM within reach to more organizations.”

Key Capabilities of the DBGallery AI Knowledge Layer include:

Automated Auto-Enrichment: Extracts OCR text from images and PDFs, identifies objects and faces, and summarizes photo and video content upon upload or subsequent batch analysis.Custom AI Description Prompts: Admins and users can tailor global or image-specific prompts to extract structured domain data—ranging from architectural style identification and brand compliance to social media captions and emotional tone analysis—and can be outputted as HTML or JSON for direct ingestion into websites or ERP systems.Interactive Video Transcription & Timelines: Generates time-stamped, sentence-by-sentence spoken transcripts aligned with video playback, allowing teams to click any transcript line to jump instantly to that exact moment in the video.Non-Spoken Scene Analysis: Automatically inserts AI visual scene descriptions into pauses in speech or non-verbal video clips, ensuring complete visual context alongside spoken transcripts.

This AI framework is integrated directly into DBGallery’s production-proven platform, capable of scaling to millions of assets and thousands of users. Designed specifically for multi-user team collaboration, the platform combines Single Sign-On (SSO) and granular action-level permissions with full audit trails, custom metadata fields, usage analytics, and cloud or on-premises deployment options.

By combining cutting-edge AI automation with a secure, highly scalable foundation, DBGallery allows organizations of any size to deploy enterprise-grade digital asset management without adding administrative headcount or compromising on data governance.

To explore the AI Metadata Value Chain or learn more about DBGallery’s enterprise AI capabilities, visit https://dbgallery.com/ai.

About DBGallery

DBGallery is a leading Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform trusted by over 100+ brands across more than 25 countries, ranging from non-profits and educational institutions to global enterprise organizations. By combining scalable SaaS or on-premises architecture with powerful AI metadata automation, DBGallery empowers teams of any size to organize, discover, and turn visual media into structured, searchable business data. Learn more at https://dbgallery.com and https://dbgallery.com/ai.

Media Contact

Glenn Rogers, DBGallery, 1 8888080381, grogers@dbgallery.com, https://dbgallery.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prweb.com/releases/dbgallery-delivers-ai-knowledge-layer-for-visual-assets-bringing-automated-enterprise-dam-to-organizations-of-all-sizes-302867426.html

SOURCE DBGallery

Technology

Coda Launches Fresh Coda.co Website, Built for Publisher Growth

Published

45 minutes ago

September 7, 2026

SINGAPORE, Sept. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Coda today launched a revamped Coda .co website, creating a more comprehensive destination to explore Coda’s products, pricing, insights, and global capabilities.

The new Coda.co has been rebuilt to meet the needs of Coda’s B2B audiences, with gaming remaining at the heart of Coda’s business and expertise. The site also reflects how Coda is bringing that experience to a growing range of digital commerce businesses across entertainment, education and other verticals.

Designed to make it easier to evaluate opportunities with Coda, the site brings together practical information on market dynamics and local payment preferences alongside richer product pages, case studies and pricing.

The new Market Guides provide a country-level view of consumer behavior, payment preferences, and growth opportunities across 49 markets, while the Payment Guides go deeper on 94 individual payment methods worldwide, covering reach, adoption, and integration considerations.

Coda has also introduced a dedicated Pricing page that offers greater transparency into standard and custom pricing options, payment method coverage, and other commercial considerations. This sits alongside an expanded repository of case studies, white papers, and blog posts, providing deeper insight into why businesses choose Coda and how they use its Merchant of Record service and broader product suite to grow revenue, enter new markets, and build stronger direct-to-consumer channels with ease.

Shane Happach, CEO of Coda, said, “Publishers and brands are making decisions across more markets, payment methods and channels than ever. Our job is to bring clarity to that complexity. The new Coda.co provides a sharper view of the commercial opportunities we see and how Coda’s products and services help our partners turn that potential into meaningful growth. Gaming remains central to Coda, and the expertise we’ve built in the industry continues to shape how we help partners grow across digital commerce.”

The new Coda.co launch marks another milestone in Coda’s evolution as a global digital commerce leader, with a site designed to grow alongside its products, partnerships, and ambitions. The website will be available in Japanese, Chinese, and South Korean languages by the end of the year.

Learn more at the new www.coda.co

About Coda

Coda is a global leader in monetization, distribution, and commerce, trusted by the biggest names in gaming, entertainment, and technology, including Activision, Electronic Arts, Riot Games, Ubisoft, and Moonton. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Singapore, Coda operates with 670+ employees worldwide, with core hubs in Asia and Europe. Coda combines payments, commerce, distribution, and rewards to drive global revenue growth for brands and publishers.

Coda’s products include Codapay, which provides access to 400+ payment methods across 80+ markets through a single API integration; Coda Webstore, which powers fully customized direct-to-consumer storefronts; Coda Consumer Platforms, including Codashop, Recharge.com, and Startselect.com; Coda Distribution, which extends reach through a network of commerce partners; and Giftcloud, a UK-based rewards business serving enterprise customers across Europe.

Coda is backed by Apis Partners, Insight Partners, Smash Capital, and GIC, and has been named an APAC High Growth Company (2023) by Financial Times, one of Granite Asia’s NextGenTech 30 (2024), a payments leader on Fortune’s Fintech Innovation Asia list (2024), and listed among The Straits Times Fastest Growing Fintechs (2024). For more on Coda, visit coda.co.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/coda-launches-fresh-codaco-website-built-for-publisher-growth-302871333.html

SOURCE Coda