Toronto is known for many things: its scrappy sports teams and questionable mayors, its sprawling film studios and robust financial sector. But there’s another side to the city – one that’s beginning to see some global recognition. Toronto is also, as the New York Times aptly puts it, “A quietly booming tech town.”

It’s not so far-fetched when you look at the hard facts. Toronto is the perfect storm of favourable circumstances for a tech revolution, and it’s home to some of the world’s leading disruptors and thought leaders.

In this article, let’s take a deeper dive into the Big Smoke’s burgeoning tech scene: how did it come about, and who are the central players?

Why Toronto? Why Now?

As with most burgeoning intellectual and creative scenes, Toronto’s tech scene owes its success to a confluence of favourable circumstances and inherent civic characteristics. You can point to the following as reasons for Toronto’s ascending star in the tech world:

• Open Immigration Policies: Toronto is among the most diverse cities in the world, attracting intellectual talent from all corners of the globe. While other countries and cities experience “brain drains,” Toronto is the benefactor of those drains, the meeting point for forward-thinking tech workers.
• Universities: UofT, Ryerson (read: Toronto Metropolitan), and Waterloo are renowned for their technology programs, receiving and generating talented tech thinkers.
• Centrality: Toronto is in a uniquely advantageous geographical and political position, near big tech cities like New York and Chicago, and the largest city in Canada.
• Big Tech Offices: Call it “precedent” or “leadership.” As more big tech companies (like Google, Apple and Shopify) opened offices in Toronto, the city carved out a name for itself in tech.
• The “Something in the Water” Effect: Lastly, you can’t discount that there might just be something in the water, some magic quality that makes residents particularly adept at all things digital and disruptive.

What’s Happening? A Short Guide to Disruptors and Thought Leaders

As an overview of tech disruption in Toronto, let’s focus on three industries: real estate, healthcare and education.

In real estate, you have Regan McGee – disruptor, thought leader and founder of Nobul, a real estate digital marketplace. McGee’s Nobul transformed the industry by giving power to consumers for the first time ever, leveraging a proptech platform and AI-powered algorithm to match agents to buyers/sellers. As McGee puts it to Toronto Life, “We’ve massively simplified the whole process… People think buying and selling real estate is complicated, but that’s a way for agents to justify their fees.”

In healthcare, Toronto is home to Kamran Khan, founder of BlueDot. The company made headlines recently as the first company in the world to identify the emerging risk from COVID-19 through advanced data analytics. His data-driven approach is challenging the traditional “top down policy process of governments” in dealing with crises.

Finally, Mike Silagadze and Mohsen Shahini are shaking up education with their company, Top Hat. The pair founded Top Hat to increase student engagement through dynamic, interactive software. The mission statement was simple: provide a better alternative to outmoded, rudimentary curriculum planning tools in an effort to reach a new generation of learners.

Toronto may never reach the size or exulted status of Silicon Valley, but its thinkers, innovators and tech-friendly environment are every bit as first-rate. It will be exciting to see what the city’s disruptors and thought leaders dream up next.

Since its October 2021 release, Josh Wardle’s Wordle seems to have become the internet’s most popular word game.

Each day, a new five-letter word is the answer to the challenge, and players need to guess it in up to six tries. The word is the same for all players on the same calendar day and there are no clues but the letters themselves, which change colors depending on where they are in the word—and if they are in the word at all.

While Wordle may be a simple challenge on most days, there are times when you could get stuck. Maybe you found two or three letters, but you have no idea what your next guess should be, either because you can’t remember any words with that specific combination or because there are too many options to choose from. If that is the case today and all you have is “AME” right in the middle of the word, you can check the list below for inspiration.

Five-letter words with “AME” in the middle to try on Wordle

• CAMEL
• CAMEO
• CAMES
• DAMES
• FAMED
• FAMES
• GAMED
• GAMER
• GAMES
• GAMEY
• HAMES
• KAMES
• LAMED
• LAMER
• LAMES
• MAMEE
• MAMEY
• NAMED
• NAMER
• NAMES
• RAMEE
• RAMEN
• RAMET
• SAMEK
• SAMEY
• TAMED
• TAMER
• TAMES
• WAMES
• YAMEN

There are not that many options, but you will still need to narrow down the list to get the answer right. The first thing you can do is check all the letters that appear gray in your previous guesses, then eliminate all words that contain any of them. A second tip is to avoid plural forms. They are valid guesses if you need them, but Wordle will never pick a plural form as the answer to the daily puzzle.

If you’re still unsure and don’t want to wait until Wordle resets at midnight local time, you can always look up the answer to today’s puzzle (which we update around 12am CT) to avoid losing your streak.

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The next champion coming to League of Legends is a powerful, menacing empress from deep within the heart of the Void. Bel’Veth, who Riot Games calls a ‘God of Oblivion,’ has debuted in her official cinematic trailer, and she is a terrifying and Lovecraftian monster capable of mimicking human features – but only as a lure, since her primary motivation is to consume everything and everyone.

The cinematic, which you can view below, begins with Daughter of the Void Kai’Sa alighting in the ruined city of Belveth, which is now completely overgrown with eerily luminescent Void flora. Led by a toy ship carried aloft by glowing butterflies, Kai’Sa enters a natural chamber – only to discover the walls are alive with Void-infused, skeletal arms.

Bel’Veth approaches her from a rift that opens behind Kai’Sa. “I am everything the Void has consumed,” she says ominously, striding forward. Bel’Veth is tall, and shrouded with a cape that wraps around her in tight layers. Two huge horns emerge from a piece of armour on her upper back. “Just as I devoured this city, I will devour your world.”

Here’s the cinematic.

Kai’Sa’s attacks are useless against Bel’Veth, whose face begins to peel apart to reveal a glowing fungal flower… which is positioned over her true face. It’s revealed as Bel’Veth’s cape opens: a monstrous maw lined with razor-sharp teeth. Terrifying.

You can read more about Bel’Veth’s background in the short story Pinwheel, written by Jared Rosen. It’s available on the official League of Legends site.

Leaks suggest Bel’Veth is an ability power/attack damage hybrid jungler champion, with her ultimate ability being her transformation into her ‘true’ Void form. However, none of that’s been confirmed yet, as Bel’Veth has yet to appear on the Leage of Legends PBE.

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