About Idea Bank

At Length

1920s - 1950s

The GH – Build Trust Across Barriers Gordon H. Godsall was minding his own business in property management outside Montreal in August 1925 when a large black car with New York licence plates rolled up and asked “Do you know where I can find the Injins?” Gordon, known as The GH, began talking to the American and within 2 hours he had an agreement on an idea: The American was looking for a band of Indigenous people because he was told they were not afraid of heights and the American had a contract to build skyscrapers in New York City. The GH convinced him that he would organize a local team and become the American’s high steel foreman. Two weeks later, The GH was working 800 feet above Wall Street with his team. Upon his return to Canada 5 years later, The GH had another idea – he would transform small aircraft into float planes, starting by putting skis on the Cessna Crane. Many of his ideas were crazy. Some were the creative thoughts of others. The GH was known for his word being his bond. An old school handshake guy who built trust across cultural and economic barriers to make ideas come to life. The seeds of Idea Bank were born. Terry Godsall – Learn by Doing Terry Godsall was “never taught anything by The GH; he just put you into situations where you could learn.” In June, 1948, The GH invited Terry to fly a Cessna Crane from Toronto to Winnipeg to deliver some parts for The GH’s aircraft company. The pilot was a retired RCAF fighter pilot with 22,000 hours of flight time. Terry arrived with his Irish Setter named Rory and the fighter pilot did a quick weight calculation for the cargo, the kid and the dog and announced to The GH that they would not be able to fly. They could not clear the trees at the end of the runway on a stop they were scheduled to make in Kenora before flying to Winnipeg. Terry witnessed the clash between a deeply skilled technical character and a strong willed entrepreneurial character. The GH won the argument and they took off flying into the dawn morning sky. Terry could feel the tension as they rumbled down the runway. Terry was very good at math and had heard the calculations between the two men arguing. The GH’s argument was that the density altitude would be fine in Kenora and he had just taken the engine in to be cleaned - they would clear the trees at the end of the runway. The fighter pilot was not happy, but he pushed on. Terry and the dog looked out the window. Terry braced for a crash because the trees were coming at them fast. But then nothing. They seemed to fly through the trees. Upon arrival in Winnipeg, Terry and his dog saw the two men examine the plane. It had pieces of spruce treetops jammed into the wing, having decapitated at least 4 trees. “You see,” said The GH, “no problem.” It was a lesson in balancing the diversity of team skills and mindsets. Terry noted The GH was a risk taker. He would need to learn how to mitigate such risk-taking without killing the spirit of the entrepreneur, if he were to learn how to bring ideas to life. May, 1956, Terry wrote the Ontario Matriculation exam in physics. He had a perfect score, except he misspelled his last name, forgetting the second letter “L” in Godsall. “I couldn’t read or spell, so I had to rely on logic; I had to rely on diverse people to bring my ideas to life and to help others bring their ideas to life. I believed that if I could work with the right people, we could build things, measure the results, then keep improving them. By doing this, I could create projects that would make the world a better place.” June, 1956, Terry and his high school friend Joe MacInnis had an idea. Having just graduated from high school, they pitched the Bahamian government on the idea of sponsoring an underwater film company bringing to life the rich coral reef life of the Bahamas. Neither knew much about scuba diving, nor filmmaking, but the Bahamian government loved their enthusiasm and they wanted to promote their country’s nature tourism business. Joe and Terry made several films of underwater adventures, the climax of which was a 10 foot shark attempting to attack Terry as he tried to swim back to the boat to safety. As with many great ideas, Terry found a leader and built the idea around the leader’s strengths. Joe MacInnis went on to become one of the world pioneers in underwater exploration, discovery and filmmaking.

1960s

The Philosophy of Build, Measure, Improve A technical genius, his first idea was to redesign road grading equipment for Ontario’s highway building boom. Terry had worked in summer jobs at age 14 and 15 as a water boy for the 400 series of highways being built in Ontario. Terry loved machines – his idea was to convince the build crew he could operate the road building trucks during their lunch and coffee breaks. The work he did on those shifts in the summers gave him focus as an engineering student at the University of Toronto. His first venture after graduating was Churchill Falls, where he sold heavy truck and machinery to the project. Sales were fantastic, but Terry had a better idea – he thought he could sell his engineering designs for a large dump truck and a road grader to Euclid. Eventually the designs were accepted and used for decades by Terex. Another job Terry had was taking The GH’s Cessna fleet for cleaning at the Lockheed Martin facility in California. The job, described by Terry was to “clean off all the gunk that had built up and added weight from their radial piston engines”. As Terry watched the planes being cleaned and losing weight, he had an idea – why not create a lightweight race car using the same system? He had to find a partner, so he approached Roger Penske and created the Penske Godsall Lightweight which went on to become one of the most famous race cars of its time. Taking the car to the acid pool reduced its weight from 2920 pounds to 2550 pounds. The idea was controversial, but it won a lot of races and it allowed Terry to refine his skills as a venture catalyst arranging the people, strategy and money to bring an idea to life.

1970s

Ottawa – The Union of Entrepreneurs Terry moved to Ottawa in the late 1960s. Canada had a new government with big plans for nation-building and Terry wanted to be in on the plans. He arrived in Ottawa welcomed by an established network of entrepreneurs having married the daughter of a respected Ottawa entrepreneur, Burke Doran. The GH and Burke knew each other as both were involved in the construction industry in the 1960s. Burke Doran aka “Dindo” was a pragmatist and master of risk-mitigation. He knew Terry Godsall was a big thinker and visionary, admired for his courage and ability to take risks. But Dindo had been forced quit university in 1929 due to his family’s needs in The Great Depression. He was more interested in risk mitigation than vision. He could see the 70s were a visionary time in Canada, but he advised Terry to keep one foot solidly in the local entrepreneurial community. The pragmatist, risk-mitigator lessons from Dindo would play a key role in establishing the values of Idea Bank. Burke’s son John Doran was an emerging entrepreneur. Terry became a mentor to John and a new generation of baby-boom entrepreneurs seeking to disrupt the way things were done. John launched Domicile Developments one of Ottawa’s leading developers over 50 years. Learning to Balance People, Engineering and Nature Terry’s time in Churchill Falls had made him wary of big engineering projects where skilled technical people calculate ways to conquer Nature without finding ways to work with local people who would face the consequences of massive change. When Einar Skinnarland approached Terry for help developing an idea to balance the interests of sustainable energy, local Cree people and Nature, Terry was excited. He could combine his experience in large engineering projects with his catalytic skills dealing with diverse types of leaders. The most important leader of the time was Cree Chief Billy Dimond. This was a different kind of venture for Terry, one with political conflict between Canada’s governments and the Crees of Quebec. It gave Terry a different perspective on how to play a silent role in catalyzing ideas with strong leaders and circulating benefits between big business, governments, local people and Nature.

1980s

The Dealmaking 80s In the 1980s, Terry moved back to his hometown Toronto and created a venture catalyst with a focus on backing Canadian entrepreneurs. Among the first entrepreneurs to support was Ed Crosby, a high energy young aspiring entrepreneur with an attitude. Terry knew strong leaders need strong support and Ed had a smart team with a crazy idea at the time – they wanted to buy garbage dumps, generate energy from the gas they produce and sell the energy to surrounding communities. It was an ideal venture for Terry’s engineering mind and his love of the entrepreneur. Comcor was created in 1985 and has since become a world leader in landfill gas management. By 1980, Toronto had branded itself Hollywood North and had become the third largest motion picture hub after LA and New York. By 1982, Jim Clark created Silicon Graphics using a geometric chip enabling motion on a computer screen. This evolved into a platform for converting analogue to digital motion picture. A combination of tech wizards wanted to create a system for transferring film to video and enabling special effects. Command Post & Transfer was born and became a catalyst for growth in Hollywood North. Terry kept his interest in heavy trucking in the early 80s with a proposal to Doc Seaman to invest in Western Star Trucks – “Doc was a fighter pilot who knew the value of safety to an operator of powerful machines. The death rate for truckers in mountainous areas was high and climbing, as Canada’s wood fibre industry was growing. We knew if we could get control of the heavy load trucking unit, we could dominate the mountain markets by selling a much safer and more predictable truck for heavy loads in mountains.” Terry described the production plant in Kelowna BC as the ideal culture for a Western Star strategy to dominate mountain markets. It was a strategic move for what Terry was planning - a shift for the trucking industry into hydrogen powered trucks in remote, rugged areas, which he knew well from his time in Churchill Falls. Terry worked with the team at Burrard Yarrows to create Versatile Pacific Shipyards, along with its failed attempt to develop the Polar 8 Project with a Canadian government contract. A large ambitious engineering project with strategic implications for Canada seemed the right thing to do for Terry, but the cost to build kept mounting and the culture of big engineering project management drove Terry nuts. Engineering culture seemed to be shifting from build to manage. “Too many managers.” When Terry found himself in a discussion with BC Ferries about their future plans to increase capacity in the fast-growing southern BC region, the idea of the Superferries was hatched. As with many projects, Terry’s presence was known among the key players and his impatience for results was legend. He shifted the project’s control into the hands of Dick Taylor... and the rest was history with the Superferries being built on time and under budget using what would later be described as Lean Startup culture. The key for Terry was to find the right leader in Dick Taylor, and then rally the support needed to create conditions for success. The Start of Idea Bank’s Global View During the 1980s economic boom, Canadian innovators approached Terry with the idea of air trucking using airships for cargo connecting areas without roads to ports and road networks. Several new concepts were being developed, but Terry did not see a leader who could carry a venture forward. Like The GH, Terry believed learning was more powerful than teaching and he challenged his son Jay to learn about airships. Jay was in high school in Ottawa and owned a property management business as a teenager. He was invited to an embassy lunch hosted by landlocked countries in Africa and the idea of a solar powered airship was born. During high school, Jay decided he would take a year off before going to university and he would travel around the world solo. He developed a series of ideas to finance this trip. Terry believed Jay should finance his global ambitions and symbolically gave Jay a TTC token as his contribution to Jay’s round-the-world adventure. Jay’s property management business was expanding with his partner David Henderson who was going to university, so they would need to sell the business if both planned to be away for nearly a year. Jay’s plans to travel around the world solo included a trip to Africa to visit Burundi and investigate the potential for solar powered airships. To finance this, he approached Dindo Doran with a property development idea. Dindo turned the idea into a much simpler and more pragmatic concept for selling existing properties in Canada’s famous Gatineau Park. Jay learned about the potential for developing properties in Nature and worked under the tutelage of John Doran selling enough property to bankroll his trip to the US, Asia, Africa and Europe. Upon his return, Jay went to McGill University and wrote an economics thesis on the potential for airship transport in Africa. The thesis was rejected as an insult to international development because it proposed to provide airship transport for African entrepreneurs, not governments. A war of words ended with his thesis advisor, Prof Dan Aronson, refusing to mark the paper and Jay promising one day to launch Solar Ship in Africa.

1990s

Terry joins Jay to create Savoka Jay moved to Toronto in January 1990, homeless, jobless, he approached one of Terry’s big thinkers for advice – Kit Vincent, Stornoway Productions. Kit was developing a series of documentaries on socialism in the developing world. Jay created a proposal for why neither socialism nor capitalism worked for the extreme poor. Jay moved to Toronto in 1990 and invited Terry to help him launch Savoka Ventures, a venture catalyst with a focus on developing ventures around the perimeter of Iconic Natural Areas. They set out with a focus on sustainable forestry, agroforestry, transport, real estate and hospitality services. The first target was Loblaws who had launched a new line of green products under the visionary management of Patty Carson. Jay pitched Patty on launching a new line called rainforest products and Patty agreed if Jay could bring the players together. Jay pitched WWF Canada’s marketing director Tony Barrett to secure their support and Tony agreed. Tony and Jay looked at the world’s most threatened areas and agreed Madagascar would be the ideal launch to the venture. Tony arranged for Jay to meet the WWF Madagascar team and Jay went to Madagascar in November 1990 where he met Dr Nat Quansah who organized a research mission for Jay to visit Madagascar’s major threatened areas. During the research mission, Jay learned the word Savoka meant second growth forest; it was used by local people to describe the rapid recovery of the forest. The idea for creating Savoka Ventures was born. During a visit to Manongarivo, Nat Quansah’s students from the University of Antananrivo organized an idea exchange between university students and local communities to develop ideas for Savoka Ventures. This process revealed that many local people had trouble creating idea pitches, as this was a foreign concept for them. They had ideas, some for profit, some not-for-profit, but how could they get these ideas out to the world? Jay agreed to create a non-profit organization called EVE. Savoka – launches Shortcut Editing Jay returned home and sought investors for Savoka. He was introduced to Bill Graham who agreed to invest if Jay could promise a prominent role for promoting Canada’s role in the world. Bill was running for federal politics in Canada and wanted his investment to reflect his values for promoting Canada, both profit and non-profit. The first project they launched was a national youth program inviting Chief Billy Diamond and future Prime Minister, Paul Martin. Jay, Bill, Billy and Paul launched the national program which has been running for 33 years. Savoka launched a series of projects around protected natural areas. It started with Wajax fire protection equipment in 1991. It worked with Hoax Couture and Denise Cléroux to develop a new line of clothing and hats from silk and raffia cultivated on the perimeter of protected areas. In April 1994, Jay raised money from the Canadian government for Hoax Couture to develop this venture and this required the team to travel with to South Africa to meet Canadian officials. The timing coincided with the election of the ANC. Jay and his team met with officials from the transitional team in the South African government and offered to create an idea tournament to design t-shirts for Nelson Mandela’s inauguration. The idea tournament produced Mayibuye t-shirts worn at the inauguration. This opened the door to building relations across political and cultural barriers created by apartheid. It created an IP knowledge sharing platform to predict, prevent and manage infectious diseases. While developing this venture, in April 1997, Jay contracted falciparum malaria and was misdiagnosed 3 times in Toronto’s major hospitals. He was 36 hours away from dying when Dr Kevin Kain saved his life. During his recovery, Jay asked Dr Kain how it was that he was misdiagnosed 3 times in one of the most advanced cities in the world for healthcare? Dr Kain explained that infectious disease diagnostics had not advanced in several decades, yet the threat of infectious diseases was rapidly rising. In April, 1998, Jay contracted returned from Africa with MRSA and found himself in the care of Dr Kain again. This time Jay was determined to launch a project with Dr Kain to fix the problem. Dr Kain agreed to work with Jay. He and Jay created a three-part plan: Create a media awareness campaign, starting with a TV documentary series; Create a knowledge sharing network connecting medical schools with Hot Zones; Develop a digital diagnostics system to barcode pathogens. Jay began recruiting partners for the documentary series and the knowledge sharing network. He secured a contract with Discovery Channel for a 13 part TV series with … He and Dr Kain developed a partnership with the University of Toronto, University of Melbourne, U Dar, U Tana, PNG Medical U Bangkok. The universities agreed to provide experts on specific diseases. Each would be featured in a documentary showing the threat, the impact on humanity and the hope for the future using technology and early warning systems.

2000s

In November, 1999, Terry agreed to merge Savoka with Idea Bank with Jay. Terry described the motivation driving Idea Bank: “Times of change call for changemakers. Nobody manages change better than entrepreneurs. Great entrepreneurs need support.” Terry would be in charge of developing energy and engineering. Jay would be in charge of global market development. Idea Bank was launched in January, 2000. In January, 2000, the CIA wrote a report on the future threats to the US. In this report, the CIA predicted the world would enter into a new era where pandemics would be a new normal and that a pandemic would kill 10 million people and wipe out 5% of global GDP. By March, 2000, Investing partners in the documentary disagreed on the content and sued Idea Bank for the right to produce the series on their own. Idea Bank won the lawsuit thanks to a brilliant young lawyer who understood the master plan and asked if he could introduce Jay to a client of his, Michael Greenberg, the pioneer of brain surgery. It took Jay 6 months to get a meeting with Michael, but Michael was intrigued. He was not available to start something, but he was interested. From 2000-2003, Idea Bank worked with a group of Canada’s most prominent family investment funds to develop the concept of a series of campuses around the world where university students could develop ideas to solve the biggest challenges in the world including: infectious disease, the shift to renewable energy, extinction, climate change, currency collapse, food system collapse. The idea was to create a global network of properties with Canadian standards of infrastructure and services, enabling global brainpower access to collaborate and solve global problems In 2001, Jay approached Bill Young to invest in Idea Bank, specifically to launch its new venture in infectious disease prevention and management. The idea started with a bloodbrowser, a handheld device driven by the vision of Dr Kain seeking to provide a blackberry type of platform for doctors and nurses. The plan was to barcode pathogens by shrinking a PCR into a device the size of a blackberry. Bill Young did not invest, but agreed to join Idea Bank’s team of advisors to catalyze the idea. What was missing was a leader capable of taking the idea from concept to reality. Jay went back to Michael Greenberg and began a recruiting campaign. In 2002, Jay, Michael Greenberg and Kevin Kain launched a concept for a company called Fio, short for fiovanana, a term referring to the Malagasy concept of fihavanana. Malagasy culture is protective of its names, but generous with its concepts. The concept of Fio was to offer point-of-care diagnostics at a low fee and share the data globally to prevent and manage the threat of infectious diseases. Dr Kain was in charge of the science. Jay and Michael developed a circulating value business model which they patented in 32 countries. Jay and Michael recruited the founding team and its initial investor, Robert Friedland, to launch the company. In 2005, Jay visited The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with Dr Sebastien Fournier to pitch the idea of partnering with Fio. During the meeting, a question was asked: once a positive diagnosis was confirmed, how would medical supplies be delivered to points of need during infectious outbreaks? Specifically in rainy season when roads were washed out, how would Jay and Sebastien propose to deliver cold-chain medical supplies such as blood and vaccines? Jay responded by describing a solar powered airship able to connect points of need with points of care. The more The Gates Foundation asked for details, the more Jay provided. Specifically, Jay presented a minimum flyable product able to connect the Ifikara Centre in Tanzania with the world’s most vulnerable malaria region, the Rufiji Valley. Jay and Sebastien left the meeting with a two part agenda: first, arrange a meeting for Fio’s CEO with The Gates Foundation leadership team; second, prepare a pitch deck for a solar powered airship as a mobile medical lab with an initial focus on Africa. In 2006, Idea Bank launched Solar Ship. 2003 - 2006, Idea Bank had a contract to design and develop a project for national parks in Canada and Africa. The challenge for national parks was to engage local communities in the greater parks ecosystems (GPEs) to help protect species-at-risk (SAR). The problem for local communities is their traditional economies were no longer providing basic needs and they were not able to participate in a new economy. Communities in GPEs had not incentive to help protect SAR. Idea Bank created an economic model for Greater Parks Economies with an agreement for Canada to invest in Africa’s national parks as part of a 10 year plan to prototype sustainable economies. From 2000 to 2005, Terry began developing Idea Bank’s projects related to the future of energy. Specifically, he was concentrating on micro hydro and the hydrogen economy. First Terry began assessing the car and truck industry for hydrogen comparing fuel cells with hydrogen internal combustion engines seeking to find the right partners to launch a line of hydrogen trucks and off road vehicles to service remote areas. This launched Idea Bank’s R&D on hydrogen production and propulsion systems. Terry and Jay began exploring the river systems flowing into Lake Ontario Terry studied the history of the region and had an idea – if he could use low head drop in rivers used for wood and stone mills, could one create a micro hydro company? He met local entrepreneur Jake Dupuis from the Salmon River Valley and the two launched the Salmon River Project. They bought 26 micro hydro sites and developed a US patent on micro hydro. Terry and Jake then set to work on building an energy self-reliant house as the model for energy self-reliant property development. In 2007, Idea Bank worked with early stage innovators to seek financing for a direct air capture technology (DAC) to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

2010s

In 2010 Idea Bank arranged financing with Bill Graham, John Eaton and David Daniels for Solar Ship to build its Caracal airship. From 2010 to 2014 Solar Ship built a series of electric delta wing aircraft able to take off and land from a soccer field. In 2014, Solar Ship arranged $43M in financing with Johnson Ko. From 2016 to 2019, Idea Bank developed the strategy and financing for a venture with Solar Ship with approved funding from the Canadian government to develop electric airship transport corridors connecting Canada’s north with its southern ports and connecting Africa’s interior with its ocean ports. In 2017-18, Canada’s military provided a contract for Solar Ship and Idea Bank to develop a strategy for protecting Canada’s northwest passage from military invasion. This involved creating a network of 300 self-reliant and mobile aerostats. The concept included wireless communication coverage over remote area communities and business in mining, tourism and forest protection in Canada’s north and in Africa. This led to contracts for Idea Bank to resolve conflicts between local communities and global business. June 2018, Canada was hosting the G7 Summit and the South African delegation invited to participate as observers could not get access to key powerful figures. Idea Bank worked with the South African team to organize a South African investment summit attracting many of Canada’s biggest investors and power brokers to give South Africa a platform. The theme was investing in brainpower. In 2019, Solar Ship launched a balloon in the stratosphere with a group of students from NYU and University of Toronto to test stratospheric balloon communications.

2020s

In 2020, Idea Bank and Solar Ship launched a project called Peace + Freedom inviting university students from around the world to design and build new ventures for climate adaptation. 2019-2022, Idea Bank used its decades of experience in infectious disease prevention and management to help countries in Africa and Asia prepare for COVID and mitigate its negative impacts. 2023-2024, Idea Bank began building its future model for change management.

1920s - 1950s

The GH – Build Trust Across Barriers Gordon H. Godsall was minding his own business in property management outside Montreal in August 1925 when a large black car with New York licence plates rolled up and asked “Do you know where I can find the Injins?” Gordon, known as The GH, began talking to the American and within 2 hours he had an agreement on an idea: The American was looking for a band of Indigenous people because he was told they were not afraid of heights and the American had a contract to build skyscrapers in New York City. The GH convinced him that he would organize a local team and become the American’s high steel foreman. Two weeks later, The GH was working 800 feet above Wall Street with his team. Upon his return to Canada 5 years later, The GH had another idea – he would transform small aircraft into float planes, starting by putting skis on the Cessna Crane. Many of his ideas were crazy. Some were the creative thoughts of others. The GH was known for his word being his bond. An old school handshake guy who built trust across cultural and economic barriers to make ideas come to life. The seeds of Idea Bank were born. Terry Godsall – Learn by Doing Terry Godsall was “never taught anything by The GH; he just put you into situations where you could learn.” In June, 1948, The GH invited Terry to fly a Cessna Crane from Toronto to Winnipeg to deliver some parts for The GH’s aircraft company. The pilot was a retired RCAF fighter pilot with 22,000 hours of flight time. Terry arrived with his Irish Setter named Rory and the fighter pilot did a quick weight calculation for the cargo, the kid and the dog and announced to The GH that they would not be able to fly. They could not clear the trees at the end of the runway on a stop they were scheduled to make in Kenora before flying to Winnipeg. Terry witnessed the clash between a deeply skilled technical character and a strong willed entrepreneurial character. The GH won the argument and they took off flying into the dawn morning sky. Terry could feel the tension as they rumbled down the runway. Terry was very good at math and had heard the calculations between the two men arguing. The GH’s argument was that the density altitude would be fine in Kenora and he had just taken the engine in to be cleaned - they would clear the trees at the end of the runway. The fighter pilot was not happy, but he pushed on. Terry and the dog looked out the window. Terry braced for a crash because the trees were coming at them fast. But then nothing. They seemed to fly through the trees. Upon arrival in Winnipeg, Terry and his dog saw the two men examine the plane. It had pieces of spruce treetops jammed into the wing, having decapitated at least 4 trees. “You see,” said The GH, “no problem.” It was a lesson in balancing the diversity of team skills and mindsets. Terry noted The GH was a risk taker. He would need to learn how to mitigate such risk-taking without killing the spirit of the entrepreneur, if he were to learn how to bring ideas to life. May, 1956, Terry wrote the Ontario Matriculation exam in physics. He had a perfect score, except he misspelled his last name, forgetting the second letter “L” in Godsall. “I couldn’t read or spell, so I had to rely on logic; I had to rely on diverse people to bring my ideas to life and to help others bring their ideas to life. I believed that if I could work with the right people, we could build things, measure the results, then keep improving them. By doing this, I could create projects that would make the world a better place.” June, 1956, Terry and his high school friend Joe MacInnis had an idea. Having just graduated from high school, they pitched the Bahamian government on the idea of sponsoring an underwater film company bringing to life the rich coral reef life of the Bahamas. Neither knew much about scuba diving, nor filmmaking, but the Bahamian government loved their enthusiasm and they wanted to promote their country’s nature tourism business. Joe and Terry made several films of underwater adventures, the climax of which was a 10 foot shark attempting to attack Terry as he tried to swim back to the boat to safety. As with many great ideas, Terry found a leader and built the idea around the leader’s strengths. Joe MacInnis went on to become one of the world pioneers in underwater exploration, discovery and filmmaking.

1960s

The Philosophy of Build, Measure, Improve A technical genius, his first idea was to redesign road grading equipment for Ontario’s highway building boom. Terry had worked in summer jobs at age 14 and 15 as a water boy for the 400 series of highways being built in Ontario. Terry loved machines – his idea was to convince the build crew he could operate the road building trucks during their lunch and coffee breaks. The work he did on those shifts in the summers gave him focus as an engineering student at the University of Toronto. His first venture after graduating was Churchill Falls, where he sold heavy truck and machinery to the project. Sales were fantastic, but Terry had a better idea – he thought he could sell his engineering designs for a large dump truck and a road grader to Euclid. Eventually the designs were accepted and used for decades by Terex. Another job Terry had was taking The GH’s Cessna fleet for cleaning at the Lockheed Martin facility in California. The job, described by Terry was to “clean off all the gunk that had built up and added weight from their radial piston engines”. As Terry watched the planes being cleaned and losing weight, he had an idea – why not create a lightweight race car using the same system? He had to find a partner, so he approached Roger Penske and created the Penske Godsall Lightweight which went on to become one of the most famous race cars of its time. Taking the car to the acid pool reduced its weight from 2920 pounds to 2550 pounds. The idea was controversial, but it won a lot of races and it allowed Terry to refine his skills as a venture catalyst arranging the people, strategy and money to bring an idea to life.

1970s

Ottawa – The Union of Entrepreneurs Terry moved to Ottawa in the late 1960s. Canada had a new government with big plans for nation-building and Terry wanted to be in on the plans. He arrived in Ottawa welcomed by an established network of entrepreneurs having married the daughter of a respected Ottawa entrepreneur, Burke Doran. The GH and Burke knew each other as both were involved in the construction industry in the 1960s. Burke Doran aka “Dindo” was a pragmatist and master of risk-mitigation. He knew Terry Godsall was a big thinker and visionary, admired for his courage and ability to take risks. But Dindo had been forced quit university in 1929 due to his family’s needs in The Great Depression. He was more interested in risk mitigation than vision. He could see the 70s were a visionary time in Canada, but he advised Terry to keep one foot solidly in the local entrepreneurial community. The pragmatist, risk-mitigator lessons from Dindo would play a key role in establishing the values of Idea Bank. Burke’s son John Doran was an emerging entrepreneur. Terry became a mentor to John and a new generation of baby-boom entrepreneurs seeking to disrupt the way things were done. John launched Domicile Developments one of Ottawa’s leading developers over 50 years. Learning to Balance People, Engineering and Nature Terry’s time in Churchill Falls had made him wary of big engineering projects where skilled technical people calculate ways to conquer Nature without finding ways to work with local people who would face the consequences of massive change. When Einar Skinnarland approached Terry for help developing an idea to balance the interests of sustainable energy, local Cree people and Nature, Terry was excited. He could combine his experience in large engineering projects with his catalytic skills dealing with diverse types of leaders. The most important leader of the time was Cree Chief Billy Dimond. This was a different kind of venture for Terry, one with political conflict between Canada’s governments and the Crees of Quebec. It gave Terry a different perspective on how to play a silent role in catalyzing ideas with strong leaders and circulating benefits between big business, governments, local people and Nature.

1980s

The Dealmaking 80s In the 1980s, Terry moved back to his hometown Toronto and created a venture catalyst with a focus on backing Canadian entrepreneurs. Among the first entrepreneurs to support was Ed Crosby, a high energy young aspiring entrepreneur with an attitude. Terry knew strong leaders need strong support and Ed had a smart team with a crazy idea at the time – they wanted to buy garbage dumps, generate energy from the gas they produce and sell the energy to surrounding communities. It was an ideal venture for Terry’s engineering mind and his love of the entrepreneur. Comcor was created in 1985 and has since become a world leader in landfill gas management. By 1980, Toronto had branded itself Hollywood North and had become the third largest motion picture hub after LA and New York. By 1982, Jim Clark created Silicon Graphics using a geometric chip enabling motion on a computer screen. This evolved into a platform for converting analogue to digital motion picture. A combination of tech wizards wanted to create a system for transferring film to video and enabling special effects. Command Post & Transfer was born and became a catalyst for growth in Hollywood North. Terry kept his interest in heavy trucking in the early 80s with a proposal to Doc Seaman to invest in Western Star Trucks – “Doc was a fighter pilot who knew the value of safety to an operator of powerful machines. The death rate for truckers in mountainous areas was high and climbing, as Canada’s wood fibre industry was growing. We knew if we could get control of the heavy load trucking unit, we could dominate the mountain markets by selling a much safer and more predictable truck for heavy loads in mountains.” Terry described the production plant in Kelowna BC as the ideal culture for a Western Star strategy to dominate mountain markets. It was a strategic move for what Terry was planning - a shift for the trucking industry into hydrogen powered trucks in remote, rugged areas, which he knew well from his time in Churchill Falls. Terry worked with the team at Burrard Yarrows to create Versatile Pacific Shipyards, along with its failed attempt to develop the Polar 8 Project with a Canadian government contract. A large ambitious engineering project with strategic implications for Canada seemed the right thing to do for Terry, but the cost to build kept mounting and the culture of big engineering project management drove Terry nuts. Engineering culture seemed to be shifting from build to manage. “Too many managers.” When Terry found himself in a discussion with BC Ferries about their future plans to increase capacity in the fast-growing southern BC region, the idea of the Superferries was hatched. As with many projects, Terry’s presence was known among the key players and his impatience for results was legend. He shifted the project’s control into the hands of Dick Taylor... and the rest was history with the Superferries being built on time and under budget using what would later be described as Lean Startup culture. The key for Terry was to find the right leader in Dick Taylor, and then rally the support needed to create conditions for success. The Start of Idea Bank’s Global View During the 1980s economic boom, Canadian innovators approached Terry with the idea of air trucking using airships for cargo connecting areas without roads to ports and road networks. Several new concepts were being developed, but Terry did not see a leader who could carry a venture forward. Like The GH, Terry believed learning was more powerful than teaching and he challenged his son Jay to learn about airships. Jay was in high school in Ottawa and owned a property management business as a teenager. He was invited to an embassy lunch hosted by landlocked countries in Africa and the idea of a solar powered airship was born. During high school, Jay decided he would take a year off before going to university and he would travel around the world solo. He developed a series of ideas to finance this trip. Terry believed Jay should finance his global ambitions and symbolically gave Jay a TTC token as his contribution to Jay’s round-the-world adventure. Jay’s property management business was expanding with his partner David Henderson who was going to university, so they would need to sell the business if both planned to be away for nearly a year. Jay’s plans to travel around the world solo included a trip to Africa to visit Burundi and investigate the potential for solar powered airships. To finance this, he approached Dindo Doran with a property development idea. Dindo turned the idea into a much simpler and more pragmatic concept for selling existing properties in Canada’s famous Gatineau Park. Jay learned about the potential for developing properties in Nature and worked under the tutelage of John Doran selling enough property to bankroll his trip to the US, Asia, Africa and Europe. Upon his return, Jay went to McGill University and wrote an economics thesis on the potential for airship transport in Africa. The thesis was rejected as an insult to international development because it proposed to provide airship transport for African entrepreneurs, not governments. A war of words ended with his thesis advisor, Prof Dan Aronson, refusing to mark the paper and Jay promising one day to launch Solar Ship in Africa.

1990s

Terry joins Jay to create Savoka Jay moved to Toronto in January 1990, homeless, jobless, he approached one of Terry’s big thinkers for advice – Kit Vincent, Stornoway Productions. Kit was developing a series of documentaries on socialism in the developing world. Jay created a proposal for why neither socialism nor capitalism worked for the extreme poor. Jay moved to Toronto in 1990 and invited Terry to help him launch Savoka Ventures, a venture catalyst with a focus on developing ventures around the perimeter of Iconic Natural Areas. They set out with a focus on sustainable forestry, agroforestry, transport, real estate and hospitality services. The first target was Loblaws who had launched a new line of green products under the visionary management of Patty Carson. Jay pitched Patty on launching a new line called rainforest products and Patty agreed if Jay could bring the players together. Jay pitched WWF Canada’s marketing director Tony Barrett to secure their support and Tony agreed. Tony and Jay looked at the world’s most threatened areas and agreed Madagascar would be the ideal launch to the venture. Tony arranged for Jay to meet the WWF Madagascar team and Jay went to Madagascar in November 1990 where he met Dr Nat Quansah who organized a research mission for Jay to visit Madagascar’s major threatened areas. During the research mission, Jay learned the word Savoka meant second growth forest; it was used by local people to describe the rapid recovery of the forest. The idea for creating Savoka Ventures was born. During a visit to Manongarivo, Nat Quansah’s students from the University of Antananrivo organized an idea exchange between university students and local communities to develop ideas for Savoka Ventures. This process revealed that many local people had trouble creating idea pitches, as this was a foreign concept for them. They had ideas, some for profit, some not-for-profit, but how could they get these ideas out to the world? Jay agreed to create a non-profit organization called EVE. Savoka – launches Shortcut Editing Jay returned home and sought investors for Savoka. He was introduced to Bill Graham who agreed to invest if Jay could promise a prominent role for promoting Canada’s role in the world. Bill was running for federal politics in Canada and wanted his investment to reflect his values for promoting Canada, both profit and non-profit. The first project they launched was a national youth program inviting Chief Billy Diamond and future Prime Minister, Paul Martin. Jay, Bill, Billy and Paul launched the national program which has been running for 33 years. Savoka launched a series of projects around protected natural areas. It started with Wajax fire protection equipment in 1991. It worked with Hoax Couture and Denise Cléroux to develop a new line of clothing and hats from silk and raffia cultivated on the perimeter of protected areas. In April 1994, Jay raised money from the Canadian government for Hoax Couture to develop this venture and this required the team to travel with to South Africa to meet Canadian officials. The timing coincided with the election of the ANC. Jay and his team met with officials from the transitional team in the South African government and offered to create an idea tournament to design t-shirts for Nelson Mandela’s inauguration. The idea tournament produced Mayibuye t-shirts worn at the inauguration. This opened the door to building relations across political and cultural barriers created by apartheid. It created an IP knowledge sharing platform to predict, prevent and manage infectious diseases. While developing this venture, in April 1997, Jay contracted falciparum malaria and was misdiagnosed 3 times in Toronto’s major hospitals. He was 36 hours away from dying when Dr Kevin Kain saved his life. During his recovery, Jay asked Dr Kain how it was that he was misdiagnosed 3 times in one of the most advanced cities in the world for healthcare? Dr Kain explained that infectious disease diagnostics had not advanced in several decades, yet the threat of infectious diseases was rapidly rising. In April, 1998, Jay contracted returned from Africa with MRSA and found himself in the care of Dr Kain again. This time Jay was determined to launch a project with Dr Kain to fix the problem. Dr Kain agreed to work with Jay. He and Jay created a three-part plan: Create a media awareness campaign, starting with a TV documentary series; Create a knowledge sharing network connecting medical schools with Hot Zones; Develop a digital diagnostics system to barcode pathogens. Jay began recruiting partners for the documentary series and the knowledge sharing network. He secured a contract with Discovery Channel for a 13 part TV series with … He and Dr Kain developed a partnership with the University of Toronto, University of Melbourne, U Dar, U Tana, PNG Medical U Bangkok. The universities agreed to provide experts on specific diseases. Each would be featured in a documentary showing the threat, the impact on humanity and the hope for the future using technology and early warning systems.

2000s

In November, 1999, Terry agreed to merge Savoka with Idea Bank with Jay. Terry described the motivation driving Idea Bank: “Times of change call for changemakers. Nobody manages change better than entrepreneurs. Great entrepreneurs need support.” Terry would be in charge of developing energy and engineering. Jay would be in charge of global market development. Idea Bank was launched in January, 2000. In January, 2000, the CIA wrote a report on the future threats to the US. In this report, the CIA predicted the world would enter into a new era where pandemics would be a new normal and that a pandemic would kill 10 million people and wipe out 5% of global GDP. By March, 2000, Investing partners in the documentary disagreed on the content and sued Idea Bank for the right to produce the series on their own. Idea Bank won the lawsuit thanks to a brilliant young lawyer who understood the master plan and asked if he could introduce Jay to a client of his, Michael Greenberg, the pioneer of brain surgery. It took Jay 6 months to get a meeting with Michael, but Michael was intrigued. He was not available to start something, but he was interested. From 2000-2003, Idea Bank worked with a group of Canada’s most prominent family investment funds to develop the concept of a series of campuses around the world where university students could develop ideas to solve the biggest challenges in the world including: infectious disease, the shift to renewable energy, extinction, climate change, currency collapse, food system collapse. The idea was to create a global network of properties with Canadian standards of infrastructure and services, enabling global brainpower access to collaborate and solve global problems In 2001, Jay approached Bill Young to invest in Idea Bank, specifically to launch its new venture in infectious disease prevention and management. The idea started with a bloodbrowser, a handheld device driven by the vision of Dr Kain seeking to provide a blackberry type of platform for doctors and nurses. The plan was to barcode pathogens by shrinking a PCR into a device the size of a blackberry. Bill Young did not invest, but agreed to join Idea Bank’s team of advisors to catalyze the idea. What was missing was a leader capable of taking the idea from concept to reality. Jay went back to Michael Greenberg and began a recruiting campaign. In 2002, Jay, Michael Greenberg and Kevin Kain launched a concept for a company called Fio, short for fiovanana, a term referring to the Malagasy concept of fihavanana. Malagasy culture is protective of its names, but generous with its concepts. The concept of Fio was to offer point-of-care diagnostics at a low fee and share the data globally to prevent and manage the threat of infectious diseases. Dr Kain was in charge of the science. Jay and Michael developed a circulating value business model which they patented in 32 countries. Jay and Michael recruited the founding team and its initial investor, Robert Friedland, to launch the company. In 2005, Jay visited The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with Dr Sebastien Fournier to pitch the idea of partnering with Fio. During the meeting, a question was asked: once a positive diagnosis was confirmed, how would medical supplies be delivered to points of need during infectious outbreaks? Specifically in rainy season when roads were washed out, how would Jay and Sebastien propose to deliver cold-chain medical supplies such as blood and vaccines? Jay responded by describing a solar powered airship able to connect points of need with points of care. The more The Gates Foundation asked for details, the more Jay provided. Specifically, Jay presented a minimum flyable product able to connect the Ifikara Centre in Tanzania with the world’s most vulnerable malaria region, the Rufiji Valley. Jay and Sebastien left the meeting with a two part agenda: first, arrange a meeting for Fio’s CEO with The Gates Foundation leadership team; second, prepare a pitch deck for a solar powered airship as a mobile medical lab with an initial focus on Africa. In 2006, Idea Bank launched Solar Ship. 2003 - 2006, Idea Bank had a contract to design and develop a project for national parks in Canada and Africa. The challenge for national parks was to engage local communities in the greater parks ecosystems (GPEs) to help protect species-at-risk (SAR). The problem for local communities is their traditional economies were no longer providing basic needs and they were not able to participate in a new economy. Communities in GPEs had not incentive to help protect SAR. Idea Bank created an economic model for Greater Parks Economies with an agreement for Canada to invest in Africa’s national parks as part of a 10 year plan to prototype sustainable economies. From 2000 to 2005, Terry began developing Idea Bank’s projects related to the future of energy. Specifically, he was concentrating on micro hydro and the hydrogen economy. First Terry began assessing the car and truck industry for hydrogen comparing fuel cells with hydrogen internal combustion engines seeking to find the right partners to launch a line of hydrogen trucks and off road vehicles to service remote areas. This launched Idea Bank’s R&D on hydrogen production and propulsion systems. Terry and Jay began exploring the river systems flowing into Lake Ontario Terry studied the history of the region and had an idea – if he could use low head drop in rivers used for wood and stone mills, could one create a micro hydro company? He met local entrepreneur Jake Dupuis from the Salmon River Valley and the two launched the Salmon River Project. They bought 26 micro hydro sites and developed a US patent on micro hydro. Terry and Jake then set to work on building an energy self-reliant house as the model for energy self-reliant property development. In 2007, Idea Bank worked with early stage innovators to seek financing for a direct air capture technology (DAC) to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

2010s

In 2010 Idea Bank arranged financing with Bill Graham, John Eaton and David Daniels for Solar Ship to build its Caracal airship. From 2010 to 2014 Solar Ship built a series of electric delta wing aircraft able to take off and land from a soccer field. In 2014, Solar Ship arranged $43M in financing with Johnson Ko. From 2016 to 2019, Idea Bank developed the strategy and financing for a venture with Solar Ship with approved funding from the Canadian government to develop electric airship transport corridors connecting Canada’s north with its southern ports and connecting Africa’s interior with its ocean ports. In 2017-18, Canada’s military provided a contract for Solar Ship and Idea Bank to develop a strategy for protecting Canada’s northwest passage from military invasion. This involved creating a network of 300 self-reliant and mobile aerostats. The concept included wireless communication coverage over remote area communities and business in mining, tourism and forest protection in Canada’s north and in Africa. This led to contracts for Idea Bank to resolve conflicts between local communities and global business. June 2018, Canada was hosting the G7 Summit and the South African delegation invited to participate as observers could not get access to key powerful figures. Idea Bank worked with the South African team to organize a South African investment summit attracting many of Canada’s biggest investors and power brokers to give South Africa a platform. The theme was investing in brainpower. In 2019, Solar Ship launched a balloon in the stratosphere with a group of students from NYU and University of Toronto to test stratospheric balloon communications.

2020s

In 2020, Idea Bank and Solar Ship launched a project called Peace + Freedom inviting university students from around the world to design and build new ventures for climate adaptation. 2019-2022, Idea Bank used its decades of experience in infectious disease prevention and management to help countries in Africa and Asia prepare for COVID and mitigate its negative impacts. 2023-2024, Idea Bank began building its future model for change management.

About

About

About

Model

Model

Model

Prediction

Prediction

Prediction

Role in the World

Role in the World

Role in the World

Approach

Approach

Approach

Culture of Improvement

Culture of Improvement

Culture of Improvement

People

People

People

Jay Godsall

Chair

Stephanie Sitzberger

Team Building

Michel Rugema

Africa

Matt O'Leary

Product Management

Andrew Leinonen

Design

Deborah Prenger

Marketing

Tim Godsall

Brand

Mataka Nkhoma

Africa Entrepreneurship & Finance

Dr. Nat Quansah

Health & Environment

Network

Network

Network

Idea Bank's network spans nearly the entire world:

Idea Bank's network spans nearly the entire world:

Idea Bank's network spans nearly the entire world:

Learn more about our markets.

Learn more about our markets.

Learn more about our markets.

Africa Network Map

Africa Network Map

Africa Network Map

Network of Partners and Affiliates

Tier 1: Registered = 8

Tier 2: Affiliates = 11

Network of Partners and Affiliates

Tier 1: Registered = 8

Tier 2: Affiliates = 11

Network of Partners and Affiliates

Tier 1: Registered = 8

Tier 2: Affiliates = 11

Responsibility

Responsibility

Responsibility

Idea Bank manages responsibility in three areas:

Idea Bank manages responsibility in three areas:

Idea Bank manages responsibility in three areas:

Health

Health

Health

Safety

Safety

Safety

Respect

Respect

Respect

History

History

History

In Brief

In Brief