Business Link-December-2021

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ISSUE 12 | BUSINESS LINK

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Business Link Media Group 4056 Dorchester Road - Suite 203 Niagara Falls, ON L2E 6M9 Tel: 905.646.9366

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The Business Link is published 12 times per year and distributed digitally to businesses in Niagara region and beyond.

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE Dear Business Link Readers, Holiday Season is coming! I trust you are ready for the holidays.

In November, I had the chance to visit Expo 2020 in Dubai, UAE, the world’s largest International exposition. I have seen a plethora of prodigious artistic architectures in Dubai Expo. Digital presentation is widely utilized in every country to showcase their culture, technologies and communities.

From what I experienced, I can tell Dubai is ambitious in the digital economy development, especially in blockchain and AI on its conventional and new industries.

Dubai is a tourists’ destination city where international metropolitan cultures and ultramodern architecture attracts tens of million people.

As a prime touristic destination, I am proud to see our nature wonder of Niagara Falls is attracting millions of tourists from all over the world.

Hopefully, 2022 is a better year for every business!

Yours in business, Marilyn Tian M.B.A President & Co-publisher Business Link Media Group

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CONTENTS

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Publisher's Note

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On Your Mark, Get Set, Start, Grow, Succeed

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The Hidden Gem of Niagara - Rockway Vineyards

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Mission Possible

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The Great Update: What is the Metaverse?

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The Great Update: What is the Blockchain?

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Cold Days, Warm Hearts Charity Icewine Gala in Support of Pathstone Mental Health

January 15 2022

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INNOVATION INSIGHT

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re you ready to start or grow your innovation-based business?

Starting and growing a company can be overwhelming. Where do you start? How do you avoid making major mistakes that cost time and money? How do you make sure you’re creating a product your customer will need?

We’ll help you get your innovative business growing with all the tools and resources you need at any stage of development. Becoming a client is free and gives you access to our knowledgeable and experienced team of business analysts and executives-in-residence; networking and entrepreneurial training opportunities at little or no cost to you; a network of trusted service providers; and special programming opportunities.

Our mission is clear: we exist to support innovative entrepreneurs and companies from a variety of industries start, grow and succeed. Are you an entrepreneur? Here’s how we can help you: • • • • • •

Business Advice & Mentorship Workshops Market Intelligence Tech Incubation Connect & Collaborate Service Provider Network

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Business Advice & Mentorship Meet with business advisors and executives-in-residence to develop a strategic plan for success.

Receive support identifying and accessing funding sources to boost your new or existing business.

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decisions.

Tech Incubation Grow your tech company in a community of collaborative, innovative and like-minded tech entrepreneurs.

Workshops Enhance your entrepreneurial skills with specialized training workshops, courses and events.

Connect & Collaborate Expand your network and discover collaboration opportunities with other companies, and educational and industry partners.

Market Intelligence Access industry-leading reports on your target market; industry and tech trends; and market size and forecasts to make informed

Service Provider Network Access our trusted network of service providers to develop your business – legal, accounting, marketing, financial services, etc.

The impact these resources and experiences make on our clients shines through our client success stories. Andrews Moses, Co-founder and CEO, Tenantcube, and Jeff MacIntyre, Vice-President and Corporate Development, CASi Grow, share how they have driven their businesses forward taking advantage of various resources Innovate Niagara offers:

“Innovate Niagara has played a critical role in supporting CASi Grow and we can’t thank them enough for that support. Numerous times we reached out to Innovate Niagara with an obstacle, a need for subject matter expertise or an introduction and we received what was needed for us to move forward with our objectives. Introductions to industry and academic partners were so valuable and led to agreements and collaborations.” – Jeff MacIntyre, “Innovate Niagara has helped us Vice-President Sales and Corporate right from the start be it with vali- Development, CASi Grow dating the idea, guidance in formulating an execution plan, and even Our diverse and passionate team research. The most important thing understands what it takes to grow for me, as a founder during the pan- a successful business, and we have demic, was that Innovate Niagara the expertise and connections to helped me connect with the right guide you there. Meet with us to people. Whether it was industry find out how we can help your busiexperts, potential investors or cus- ness succeed. tomers, they were instrumental in Interested in meeting with us or regbringing recognition and resources istering for upcoming workshops to to Tenantcube.”– Andrews Moses, support your entrepreneurial jourCo-founder and CEO, Tenantcube ney? Visit innovateniagara.com. BL.

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COVER STORY

The Hiden Gem

of Niagr

“After spendig many years traveling abrod for work, as wel as the years spent livng in the Okang, I yearnd to retun to my family and friends” said Ardiel.

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Celebrating

20 Years of Vintages

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ockway Vineyards is known for its championship golf course, but the wine, food, and event space are quickly becoming the talk of the town. It truly is the hidden gem of Niagara.

As a brief backstory, Peter Warkentin decided to go after his dream of building a golf course and chose to clear land that was filled with pear trees and grapevines in 1988. The grapevines were none other than the unmistakable Concord grapes. He partnered with Bruce Strongman (Colour Your World), and the Rockway Golf Course opened in 1991.

Peter and Andre Pelletier, the golf superintendent, started making wine across the street in 2001 with Reif Winery bringing the juice from Vidal and Baco grapes, leaving the instructions on how to make wine, and driving away. The wine was then bottled by Reif Winery, and labeled the Rockway Glen Estate Winery, 2001 being their first vintage.

They decided to combine a farm vineyard property with the golf course

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property with a view to produce Rockway Glen Estate Winery wines. Jeff Innes became Rockway’s first official winemaker until 12

Stacie Domio took over as head winemaker from 2007 through to 2010. Dave Stasiuk enters the picture in 2010 and becomes the

winemaker until 2018. The torch has now been passed onto Simone Ardiel.

If you haven’t already heard of Simone Ardiel, let us introduce you to Rockway’s newest, and most promising, Head Winemaker. Ardiel’s diverse winemaking experience has taken her around the world, but she has ultimately settled back home in Ontario where she was born and raised.

“After spending many years travelling abroad for work, as well as the years spent living in the Okanagan, I yearned to return to my family and friends” said Ardiel.

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purits he n vdairey tg our swhingca ” cxelofn .

wines oprduc t is yRoackw fr vison “yM

Rockway Vineyards is nestled in one of the premium grape-growing regions of the world, Niagara’s Twenty-Mile Bench sub-appellation. Ardiel says she prefers the grape growing region of Southern Ontario, where cool-climate wines thrive.

“My vision for Rockway is to produce wines showcasing our great vineyard in the pursuit of excellence, and to further continue the evolution of quality in both the vineyard and winery” she said.

Rockway’s new Patio 19, and restaurant Windows on Rockway, overlook an 18-hole championship golf course and vineyards. It is the only winery and golf course in Ontario, and one of only two such properties in all of Canada. This allows Rockway Vineyards to offer three

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yR o ac k w

f or v is on “ y M

to produce wines yard in the pursuit

My vision for ockway unforgettable experiences in one unique destination. Wine.

Dine. Golf.

Head Chef Matt McDowell is bringing his exquisite talents to Rockway’s kitchen with extraordinary new dishes that pair perfectly with Rockway’s wines.

“Many people know Rockway Vineyards as a place to golf and enjoy beautiful views, but we want people to know that we are also a destination for wine and culinary experiences“ said Ardiel.

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Rockway Vineyards excels in varietals best suited to their unique place of origin, with an emphasis on Chardonnay, Riesling, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir and Syrah. The vast vineyard also includes a very small planting of Gewürztraminer, Vidal and, most recently as of spring 2021, Pinot Gris.

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Many of the wines have won gold and silver medals at national and international wine competitions.

Events Manager, Kim Hamerton, is already gearing up for a busy year of weddings and private events in 2022.

With more than 25 years of ex-

perience, she is looking forward to providing an exceptional experience for brides. Couples can find an enchanting space in Rockway’s Benchview Room, overlooking the Twenty-Mile Bench, to host their wedding receptions.

When you consider Rockway’s award winning wines, gourmet food, premium golfing, and beautiful event space, Rockway Vineyards really does offer something for everyone. It truly is the hidden gem of Niagara! BL.

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MISSIO POSSIBLE

EXPLORATION

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A Note From Dubai Expo 2020 UAE

by Marilyn Tian

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n November, I had the chance to visit Expo 2020 in Dubai, UAE, which is a World Expo held between Oct 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022. It was initially planned to be held in 2020, but it was postponed to 2021 due to Covid-19. I also visited the capital city of UAE, Abu Dhabi, and the garden city, Al Ain, where there is more culture, architecture and museums to explore.

About the Expo It is themed “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future” and sub-themed “Opportunity, Mobility, and Sustainability”.

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There are 192 countries participating in the Expo.

With its site expanding over 1000 acres and its duration of 6 months, it is the largest expo with an estimated 25 million visitors from all over the world. It certainly illustrates the connection and collaboration determination of the leaders in the UAE. The expo is a great collection of unique architecture, culture, creativity and innovation. Every country is demonstrating their uniqueness through a combination of physical showcases and digital presentations.

In addition to spectacular architecture characteristics, technology, culture, community, and collaboration are approximately the same themes from each country.

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Architecture I am truly fascinated by many unique architectural developments, aside from religious mosques, cultural museums, or modern commercials. It seems that each building is trying to make its own manifestation to the world, from the world-highest building, Burj Khalifa (at the top), Burj Al Arab (Sail Building) to the man-made Palm Islands.

Tourism Creating something world-class from nothing in a desert itself has already amazed many people longing for visiting the UAE. Dubai has many artificial islands, one of which is the famous Palm Island. It also has the Global Village (the largest in the world) with 92 countries that own their unique showcase centers for shopping, entertainment, leisure, and tourism.

It has broken 25 Guinness’s World Records.

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Businesses Dubai represents itself a global hub for services industries such as IT and finance after forming the Dubai International Financial Centre in 2004. (Source: https://www. dubai.com/v/economy/) When I visited Dubai, I witnessed a great potential digital economy has been booming.

Digital advertising in many creative ways

makes content more appealing and informative. I watched the local TV interview with a 31-year old Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, who stated in the show that he would focus on high-tech solutions such as AI and blockchain in enhancing infrastructure.

I visited its several free zones, such as Dubai Internet City, Dubai Media City, and Knowledge City, etc., which provide different business investment incentives.

Art Art is everywhere in Dubai from roadside advertising, commercials, and bazars etc. There are many art, culture, and historical museums in the UAE, in which I visited the Louvre Abu Dha-

bi where artworks, displays, antique and relics from Asia to Europe starting from 4000 BC to now were displayed. It is said to be their vision to fill in the gap between Eastern and Western art.

The Louvre building itself is an artistic architecture with 3900 panels of ultra-high-performance concrete. It is one of its miracle buildings risen from the sand.

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Closure

Food Dubai is unquestionably a foodie haven, particularly for those seeking the great taste of traditional Arabic cuisine, Persian food, and Lebanese delicacies. Grilled meat, fresh naan, and stewed soup are my favorite. Spice has been always the most essential component in their daily life, for food, for perfume, and for essential oil etc.

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I am truly inspired by their perseverance and determination to produce so many wonders from the dust. Hope is my big takeaway from this trip as well as appreciating their great mindset of collaborating for bigger and innovating for better.

This place can entertain people who live an extremely lavish lifestyle, living in the world’s only 7-starred hotel and enjoying a 24K golden signature coffee, or you can also afford a life with two big boxes of grapes for less than 3 dollars from Carrefour and a box

POSIBLE

MISON

of washing powder for 75 cents in a street convenience store.

English as an official language makes it much easier to communicate in every aspect. It sits in the crossroad from East to West near the Persian Gulf where international import and export trade businesses are active.

In my personal view, there are many business opportunities development in tourism, real estate, import and export businesses, and IT and financing service industries in UAE. Please feel free to contact me in visiting Expo 2020 or opening a business in Dubai free zones. BL.

OSSIBLE

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METAVERSE

TheGreat U pdate What is the Metaverse?

There has been a lot of hype around the metaverse ever since Facebook announced that will be changing its name to Meta in October 2021. However, despite the media attention given to the name change, details remain fuzzy about what the metaverse really is.

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Section 1: The Metaverse vs Virtual Worlds Many of the so-called metaverse projects out there are better described as virtual worlds. These virtual worlds are computer generated realities where people can interact, socialize and have fun. Examples of virtual worlds abound in the video game industry. Ambitious virtual worlds often spoken of as a “metaverse” include Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite. However, these virtual worlds stop short of being a metaverse if they remain insolation.

The metaverse is the seamless integration of the myriad virtual worlds. This integration includes a common virtual identity across virtual worlds and the ability to move digital assets from one world to another. Despite what some media might lead you to believe, the metaverse does not necessarily have anything to do with VR or living in the matrix.

No business can build the metaverse on its own. Rather, businesses need to build their virtual worlds using blockchain so that assets from one virtual world can

be used in another virtual world. By consciously building with this interoperability in mind, the metaverse will slowly take shape.

For example, Fortnite is one of the largest of these virtual worlds. Fortnite has even hosted virtual concerts on its platform, which you needed to buy tickets for in order to attend!

Despite the sophistication of virtual worlds like Fortnite, the purchases you make in game stay in Fortnite’s virtual world. For example, if you buy a cool gun in Fortnite, you cannot use that gun in another game like CSGO. This is where blockchain technology comes into play. Blockchain has the power to connect these worlds and transfer digital assets between them. For the metaverse to take shape, businesses need to build their virtual worlds using blockchain so that they can interact with each other in a meaningful way.

Section 2: Where is the metaverse now?

The most well-developed parts of the metaverse are not owned by major corporations. Rather, the virtual worlds that are best integrated with the metaverse are relatively small tech start-ups.

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The most advanced virtual world in the metaverse is a projected called Decentraland. This virtual world is built using the Ethereum blockchain and its in game currency, MANA, can be bought and sold on exchanges off the game itself.

Users can own their own plot of land in Decentraland. What’s more, they can monetize the land however they want, whether that be an art gallery, advertising or even a virtual casino. Like Fortnite, Decentraland has also hosted music concerts. However, what is unique about Decentraland is that the transactions in its digital economy (like all that land) are worth real money.

The deeds to ownership of the land in Decentraland take the form of an NFT, which is a new type of digital asset made possible by blockchain. NFT’s can be trad-

ed at will between users as long as they have a valid wallet (similar to an account) on the Ethereum blockchain. Since all items in Decentraland’s virtual economy are NFTs, they are scarce, have real value, and can potentially be used in other virtual worlds connected to the Ethereum blockchain.

For the so-called metaverse projects like Horizon Worlds, Fortnite or Roblox to succeed they will also need integration on blockchain. Otherwise, their virtual economies will not have real value and they will be isolated from the rest of the metaverse.

Section 3: What challenges do businesses face?

The main challenge facing the development of the metaverse is speed.

Blockchain runs significantly slower than the traditional internet. This is because of the extensive verification process required for each transaction which we described in the first article in the Great Update series.

However, this is further complicated by the broad definition of what is consid-

ered a transaction on blockchain. Transactions are not limited to changing ownership of NFTs or trading cryptocurrency. Rather, in the metaverse everything a user does is considered a transaction. This including texting, commenting, walking, attacking, etc. This seriously limits the scalability of current metaverse projects. There simply is no blockchain capable of supporting a userbase in the hundreds of millions.

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For perspective, Ethereum, the blockchain used by Decentraland, can perform 25 transactions per second (TPS). This means even high-end gaming computers will experience significant lag. If large corporations like Facebook want to enter the metaverse, they will need a blockchain with a TPS in the millions.

Currently the fastest blockchain, Solana, is only capable of 5000 TPS. In conclusion, there is lots of work to be done before mass adoption of the metaverse is possible.

Currently, there are no blockchains available that can meet the speed requirements of hundreds of millions of users. However, over time the speed problem will be solved.

When it is, we will see the gradual integration of many virtual worlds on blockchain. And it is this integration that will be called the metaverse. BL. Joe Lioce is works in client relations at UTU.ONE. He began his journey in blockchain thanks to advice from his mentor, Marilyn Tian. He is fluent in English, Mandarin and French and knows a bit of Vietnamese and Japanese. He enjoys practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in his free time.

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BLOCKCHAIN

TheGreat U pdate What is the Blockchain?

by Joe Lioce

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uring the COVID Era, most of the mainstream news has been nothing but depressing. But, lurking behind the headlines of most major media companies, the foundations for a technological and economic revolution are being laid. We are entering an era defined by blockchain.

At its simplest, blockchain is a record of transactions which is verified by a large network of independent computers. This record is called a leger. It is a simple tool that can be used to solve a variety of complicated problems, many of which we will cover in future articles.

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Key to understanding how blockchain works is this network of computers verifying transactions. Every time you send cryptocurrency to someone, this transaction must be rigorously verified to ensure the integrity of the blockchain. The owners of those computers are not doing this for free. They are given rewards for their work and these rewards are in cryptocurrency.

Some older blockchains call this process mining while newer blockchains call it staking. For the average business owner or investor, the key thing

to know is this, staking tends to be faster and better for the environment than mining.

A reader would with a sharp eye would have noticed that I said “blockchains” – plural – in the previous paragraph.

That’s because there are many different blockchains out there!

Linking these blockchains has been a major challenge for the industry since they are not easily interoperable.

For example, there is bitcoin, the original blockchain and cryptocurrency that launched this whole revolution.

However, what people do not know is that Bitcoin is actually a very simple blockchain in our new reality.

Whereas Bitcoin is simply a ledger of who owns how many Bitcoins, other projects such as Ethereum (the second cryptocurrency by market-cap) have already disrupted entertainment industries such as art, music, and sports. Cardano (another project like Ethereum) has even partnered with governments in developing countries!

In this series we will explore the myriad ways that blockchain will disrupt the internet. We will demystify keywords such as the Metaverse, DAOs, NFTs, and tokens.

We will have a new article about the Great Update every week. So, keep your eyes peeled and keep up to date on trends in this new and growing industry. BL.

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