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Public Services and Procurement Canada launches new Small Business Procurement Program measures to modernize federal contracting and boost access for Canadian businesses

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Reducing barriers, simplifying processes and increasing access to opportunities under the Buy Canadian Policy

TORONTO, July 6, 2026 /CNW/ – Small businesses are the backbone of Canada’s economy, driving innovation, creating good jobs, and strengthening communities across the country. That’s why the Government of Canada is taking concrete steps to ensure they have better access to federal opportunities.

Today, the Honourable Joël Lightbound, Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement and Quebec Lieutenant, and the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, announced a new set of targeted simplification measures that respond directly to concerns raised by small businesses about the complexity, cost and time required to participate in federal procurement.

In launching the first series of measures under the new Small Business Procurement Program (SBPP), the Government of Canada will work to remove long-standing barriers that have made federal contracting difficult for smaller firms, and to ensure they are better positioned to compete for and win government work. These changes will modernize procurement processes, improve access to opportunities for small businesses, and ensure they can play a stronger role in delivering federal priorities while supporting jobs, innovation, and a more resilient Canadian economy.

In concert with the SBBP, Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) will leverage the Innovative Solutions Canada (ISC) program, which will help connect federal departments to Canadian firms to develop, test and commercialize their innovative technologies.

The ISC program will create an innovation pathway into federal procurement to support innovation-focused procurement opportunities for Canadian small businesses and help the government meet its operational needs.  Bolstered by $79.9 million funding over five years, the ISC will help Canadian innovators develop, test and validate new technologies by providing opportunities to work directly with the federal government as a first customer. It will also expand support for Canadian small businesses to participate in federal procurement, making it easier for them to secure contracts, demonstrate their products at scale and build the track record needed to access new domestic and international markets.

Measures announced today respond to feedback from small businesses seeking to work with the Federal Government, and are designed to remove barriers and create a more accessible, predictable, and efficient procurement experience.

Building on PSPC’s procurement modernization initiatives that have been introduced since 2017, the SBPP and ISC programs will reduce complexity, shorten bid preparation times, and improve the ability of Canadian small businesses to compete successfully for federal contracts, and support the Government’s Buy Canadian Policy.

By giving more Canadian small businesses a fair shot at federal contracts, these measures will help unlock growth and create good jobs across the country. They will strengthen Canada’s industrial base by building more resilient domestic supply chains and ensuring that government purchasing power is working harder to support Canadian businesses and communities. At a time when Canada is focused on building a stronger economy, these measures will help more entrepreneurs turn opportunity into growth and success.

Quotes

“Small businesses are central to Canada’s economy, and today’s launch of the first measures under the Buy Canadian Small Business Procurement Program is a real turning point. We are simplifying procurement, reducing barriers, and expanding access so more Canadian firms can compete for and deliver federal contracts. This is about using government purchasing power to actively support Canadian growth and Canadian jobs.”

The Honourable Joël Lightbound
Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement and Quebec Lieutenant

 “Canadian small businesses are the engine of our economy, creating good-paying jobs and supporting critical industries across the country. By expanding Buy Canadian measures and investing through Innovative Solutions Canada, we are helping Canadian SMEs compete for federal contracts, create good-paying jobs, and grow here at home. As we build a stronger, more resilient economy, we are ensuring taxpayer dollars are invested strategically to support Canadian workers, businesses, and industries.”

The Honourable Mélanie Joly
Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions

“The launch of the Small Business Procurement Program is an important step for Canadian entrepreneurs and small businesses. By reducing barriers and making it easier to compete for federal contracts, these new measures will help more businesses access opportunities to grow, create good jobs, and strengthen their communities. At the same time, they will help build stronger domestic supply chains and ensure more federal procurement supports Canadian businesses and Canadian workers.” 

The Honourable Rechie Valdez 
Minister of Women and Gender Equality and Secretary of State (Small Business and Tourism) 

Quick facts

The Prime Minister announced the Buy Canadian Policy in September 2025 to protect and strengthen Canadian industriesThe Government of Canada began implementing the Buy Canadian Policy in December 2025 to prioritize Canadian suppliers, materials and content in federal procurement.The federal government purchases more than $37 billion in goods, services and construction each year. As of June 2, 2026, just a couple of months after its implementation, the Buy Canadian policy has already applied to a portfolio of solicitations valued at over $3 billion with $721 million worth of contracts awarded to date.Small and medium-sized businesses represent about 47.2% of private-sector Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employ 63.6% of the private-sector workforce. The Small Business Procurement Program aims to increase their participation in federal procurement and make it easier to navigate the federal procurement system.The Procura AI Chatbot was launched in April 2026 to help suppliers locate general information about the procurement process and how to do business with the Government of Canada. Today’s launch of the enhanced chatbot provides a larger information database while simplifying access to basic procurement information.Budget 2025 announced $9.4 million over five years, starting in 2026-27, and $2 million ongoing, for Public Services and Procurement Canada to develop and continuously improve the digital tools that will support the implementation of the Small Business Procurement Program under the Buy Canadian Procurement Policy Framework.Budget 2025 also announced $79.9 million over five years, starting in 2026-27, for Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) to position Innovative Solutions Canada (ISC) to support the SBPP by awarding pilot contracts to small businesses, including for emerging technologies, and awarding scaled procurement contracts for successful innovations through the program’s existing processes, including its Pathway to Commercialization.ISC is an existing government-wide innovation program led by ISED that connects federal departments and agencies with Canadian companies, including small and medium sized enterprises, and their innovative technologies. ISC supports Buy Canadian objectives by increasing the availability and maturity of Canadian-developed solutions and connecting these innovations with public sector organizations for validation and procurement. 

Related products

Backgrounder: Simplifying federal procurement for Canadian small businesses

Associated links

Buy Canadian Policy
Selling to the Federal Government – Buy Canadian
News Release: Government of Canada implements Buy Canadian Policy to strengthen Canada’s economy and support homegrown industries
Buy Canadian – Backgrounder
Spring Economic Update 2026

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He Sold Everything and Moved to Colombia for Her. Then Built the Translator They Needed and Named It After Her.

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Nayerly, a patent-pending iPhone app, is the first translator both people can talk over at once. Fully offline, 22 languages.

EDMONDS, Wash., Aug. 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Michael Wilson sold everything he owned and left the US for Colombia to be with the woman he loved. They did not share a language.

Every translator they tried forced them to take turns: one speaks, stops, waits for playback, and only then can the other answer. It worked. It also turned every conversation into a transaction.

So he built his own, alone, and named it after her. Nayerly is now on the App Store.

Nayerly is full duplex, meaning it listens and speaks at the same time instead of taking turns. The app keeps listening while it is speaking, so you can talk over the translation, and it keeps listening when more than one person talks, so two people can talk over each other and it still works. No phone passed back and forth. It works like a personal interpreter sitting between you.

“Every other translator is a walkie-talkie. You talk, you stop, you wait,” Wilson said. “I built this so I could speak better with someone I love. That is the only way you make a real connection. It works so well you forget you are using it and start talking over each other.”

Everything runs on the device. All 22 language models download during setup, so it works with no Wi-Fi and no signal – on a plane, abroad, off the grid – and no audio ever leaves the phone. Hands-free works with any AirPods, not just the premium ones.

Key features:

– Full duplex: listens and speaks at the same time, so you can talk over the translation and over each other
– 100% offline in 22 languages, including Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and Ukrainian
– Hands-free with any AirPods
– Private by design: audio is never recorded or stored
– Free to download, 10 minutes of translation daily

Unlimited use is $1.99 per month during launch, billed annually. A one-time lifetime option includes Apple Family Sharing. New languages will be added in future updates at no additional cost to existing users.

Videos of Wilson and his girlfriend using Nayerly in Colombia, both speaking at once in English and Spanish, are on Instagram at instagram.com/nayerlyapp and TikTok at tiktok.com/@nayerlyapp.

Availability

On the App Store for iPhone now: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6762064110
More: https://nayerly.com 

About Nayerly
Nayerly is an independent iPhone app built alone by Michael Wilson and named for the woman he built it for. It exists so two people without a shared language can just talk.

Media Contact
Michael Wilson
Founder, Nayerly
421311@email4pr.com
425-220-5237

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/he-sold-everything-and-moved-to-colombia-for-her-then-built-the-translator-they-needed-and-named-it-after-her-302859030.html

SOURCE Nayerly

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Eleven GovTech Startups Named to Pitch at State of GovTech 2026

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Companies from across the country will pitch live to government and investor judges in Montgomery County, Maryland, September 9–10. Registration is free for government employees.

SILVER SPRING, Md., Aug. 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — CivStart today announced the eleven startups selected to pitch at State of GovTech 2026, the organization’s seventh annual national govtech summit, taking place September 9–10 at the Silver Spring Civic Building in Montgomery County, Maryland.

The selected companies span permitting, public safety, emergency management, grant administration, constituent services, and civic infrastructure finance. They will pitch live on the main stage to a judging panel drawn from local government, county technology leadership, and the govtech investment community.

The 2026 Startup Cohort

Appellate  (Bentonville, AR) — system of record for police towing and vehicle custodyAyla  (Washington, D.C.) — public-sector recruiting on a live government labor-market data engineCODICE  (Washington, D.C.) — no-code permitting, licensing, and inspections platformGostly  (Westminster, MD) — real-time command center for urban infrastructureGrantwell  (Los Angeles, CA) — AI grant management across the full lifecycleGreen Stream Technologies (Wake Forest, NC) — flood and weather early warning systemsGovstream  (Seattle, WA) — AI-driven permitting intakeLabrynth  (US, Australia, EU, UK) — AI-native regulatory intelligence for permittingManyBond — crowdfinancing for community-supported local investmentReadyly  (Connecticut) — agentic AI resolving resident inquiries across every channelSamora AI  (Bellevue, WA) — multilingual voice AI for citizen information lines

The Judging Panel

Hillary Orr, Deputy Director of Transportation, City of Alexandria, Virginia Rita Reynolds, Director of Public Sector, CAI Thao Hill, Co-Founder and CEO, Govinity Tom Spenger, CEO, SOVRA Eyal Feder-Levy, CEO, Zencity

The pitch competition is one part of a two-day agenda built around working sessions rather than passive programming. Attendees draft AI use policies, run live cybersecurity breach simulations, and bring unresolved problems from their own jurisdictions to work through with peers.

State of GovTech 2026 is expected to draw more than 200 attendees, split roughly evenly between public sector leaders and the entrepreneurs, investors, and industry practitioners who serve them. The venue sits directly on the Washington Metro, and registration is free for government employees. Full agenda and registration at civstart.com/sogt26.

About CivStart

CivStart is a govtech organization connecting government leaders with the technology solutions and entrepreneurs solving public sector challenges. Through its accelerator programs, industry events, and products including Clarity and GovFit, CivStart helps state and local governments define their challenges and find partners equipped to solve them. State of GovTech is CivStart’s flagship annual summit, now in its seventh year. Learn more at civstart.com.

Media Contact:

Nick Lyell

Co-Founder & COO

421351@email4pr.com | 608.234.2166

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/eleven-govtech-startups-named-to-pitch-at-state-of-govtech-2026-302859026.html

SOURCE CivStart

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Goodix Unveils New Generation Touch Screen Controllers for Medium and Large Displays

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SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Goodix has launched its new-generation GT9976 series of high-performance touch screen controllers for medium and large displays, targeting premium flexible OLED tablets, foldable smartphone main screens, and other smart devices. Delivering major upgrades in gaming control, touch performance in challenging environments, and active stylus support, the series enables device makers to create differentiated large-screen products for gaming, work, and learning.

As an early commercial deployment of the series, Lenovo’s latest Legion Y700 Wuji gaming flagship tablet and Tab Pen Pro 2 integrate Goodix’s innovative portfolio, including the GT9976N touch screen controller, an active stylus driver chip, and an ultra-narrow side-key capacitive fingerprint sensor, to deliver a more responsive and immersive user experience.

Faster Response for Smoother Large-Screen Interaction

High-refresh-rate displays used in competitive gaming place greater demands on touch response and data processing. The GT9976 series features Goodix’s proprietary full-screen parallel sensing architecture, which achieves a higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) within a shorter scan time — significantly accelerating finger-signal capture and processing efficiency.

Supporting 7- to 9.5-inch flexible OLED displays, the new series delivers industry-leading touch report rates and instant sampling rates. From everyday browsing and app switching to sudden stops, sharp turns and rapid multi-taps in high-frame-rate games, the GT9976 series ensures smooth, precise, and highly responsive touch interaction.

Reliable, High-Precision Touch Performance in Demanding Conditions

To address the noise interference from flexible OLED panels under heavy system loads, the GT9976 series adopts an industry-leading high-noise-suppression analog front end (AFE) sampling architecture that doubles SNR over the previous generation. Combined with Goodix’s proprietary gaming algorithms, the controllers accurately identify valid touch signals even in complex noise environments, delivering stable, precise coordinate data at all times.

In demanding scenarios such as FPS, MOBA and rhythm games, the GT9976 series combines a higher SNR, high-speed scanning and sampling, and enhanced real-time noise monitoring with frequency-hopping technology to enable faster tap response and stable multi-finger control without jitter or drift. This improves responsiveness and tracking accuracy for pixel-level actions such as flick aiming, recoil control, combo execution and movement.

The series also integrates advanced dual-mode self- and mutual-capacitance sensing with complementary algorithms to improve palm rejection, effectively reducing false touches caused by grip and edge contact. Dedicated optimization for sweaty hands, wet fingers and gaming finger sleeves helps maintain sensitive and stable touch performance under challenging real-world conditions.

Enhanced Active Stylus Support for Productivity and Creativity

For mobile productivity, education and professional drawing, the GT9976 series also delivers significantly enhanced active stylus performance. When paired with Goodix active stylus driver chip, the solution supports a 360Hz pen report rate. Together with Goodix’s proprietary stylus anti-interference algorithm, it achieves outstanding linearity and precision — accurately reproducing every stroke for tasks such as note-taking, fine annotation, sketching, and handwriting practice.

For flagship OLED tablets with large screens, Goodix also offers the GT7A series, which supports display sizes ranging from 10 to 14 inches while delivering the same high overall performance, further strengthening its portfolio for mid- to large-size touch applications. Both the GT9976 and GT7A series have been validated by leading device brands and display panel manufacturers, and are set to be adopted in foldable smartphones, gaming tablets, and slim flagship tablets — enabling smoother, more precise, and more reliable large-screen interaction.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/goodix-unveils-new-generation-touch-screen-controllers-for-medium-and-large-displays-302859395.html

SOURCE Goodix

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