Category Archives: Hamilton

Hamilton and Thunder Bay DemoCamps in June

Leave a reply

DemoCamp Hamilton 12

When: Wednesday June 19th from 6:30pm – 9:00pm
Where: The Art Gallery of Hamilton @ 123 King St West
Register: democamphamilton12.eventbrite.com

dale

 

Dale Mugford

 

Co-Founder of BraveNewCode

 

Dale Mugford (@DaleMugford) is President of Design & Product Experience for BraveNewCode’s (@BraveNewCode) products and services. He also provides direction for company communications. For over 15 years, he previously designed websites independently, notably working on cutting-edge web experiences for Canadian recording artists, authors, and businesses before co-founding BraveNewCode with Duane. In his spare time Dale enjoys meeting up with other creatives, doing a little fishing, & spending time with his fiancée and her son.

BraveNewCode is a Hamilton-based startup that is demonstrating that you can make a global product right here. This month they released their WordPress plug-in WPTouch Pro 3 that powers the mobile version of over 25 million WordPress websites, or 39% of total WordPress websites worldwide. BraveNewCode is also leading the charge on organizing Hamilton’s first WordCamp event (@WordCampHamOnt) along with Orbital.

In addition to the keynote by Dale Mugford we’ll have a great line-up of demos from the Hamilton community including Factor[e] and FluidMedia!

 

DemoCamp Thunder Bay 1

When: Monday June 3rd @ 6pm
Where: Lakehead University, ATAC Building, Room 1010
Register: facebook.com/events/202305813250839

dctbayDemoCamp is a new type of event to Thunder Bay that will be of interest to technology and business innovators alike. This is a night of software demos, tech entrepreneur keynote speakers, followed by cocktails and apps at a local restaurant!

Keynote Speaker: Derek Szeto. Founder and President of Clear Sky Media (parent company of RedFlagDeals.com), CIBC Student Entrepreneur of the Year for Ontario in 2004, and Ontario Finalist for the 2007 Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Demos:

NLites: NLites, to be presented by Dr. Arnold Kim. NLites is a unique software platform that allows teams of healthcare providers to collaboratively maintain medical documents containing an up to date summary of the patient they are caring for, which is also machine readable. It is this machine readability that allows for endless possibilities of automation based on machine understanding of the impressions and intentions described within this long overdue overhaul of medical documentation.

Self-Balancing Robot: A collaborative demo of Sean Dunlop and Joshua Kim’s grade 8 science fair project which involved creating an NXT self balancing robot and rotating IR distance detector which are remotely controlled, along with remote data collection by an Android tablet using Bluetooth.

After demos, the group will re-convene at Naxos on Arthur St, for food and drink!

Sponsored by Northwestern Ontario Innovation Centre and Lakehead University Faculty of Business Administration.

DemoCampHamilton11 with Fraser Kelton

Leave a reply

Keynote Speaker

Fraser Kelton

COO @ GetGlue

Fraser Kelton (@fraser) is COO of GetGlue.com (@GetGlue), a New York based startup that won Mashable’s 2011 Breakout Startup of the Year award. GetGlue is a leading Social TV app, with 4 million users and 75 network partnerships. GetGlue’s vision is to create a deeply personalized, social and connected experience around television.

Prior to joining GetGlue, Fraser was a member of Trivaris, a seed stage investment firm. Fraser graduated from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, with a degree in Applied Economics.

When: Monday March 25th, 2012 from 6:30pm to 9:00pm 

Where: McMaster University – Twelve Eighty Student Pub

Register: democamphamilton11.eventbrite.com

The software startup surge in Hamilton continues, expect to see demos from up-and-coming startups like Groupnotes at this DemoCamp!

DemoCamp reboot survey + mHealth, Edmonton, Hamilton

Leave a reply

In case you haven’t seen it, David is seeking feedback about rebooting DemoCamp.

The first ever mHealthDemoCamp (@mHealthDemoCamp) took place December 13th at MarsDD, the event was hosted by Monolith Interactive and a summary of the event has been posted here.

There are also upcoming milestone-number DemoCamps in Edmonton and Hamilton next month:

DemoCamp Edmonton 20

When: Tuesday January 8th 2013 @ 6:45pm-9:00pm
Where: TELUS Centre 150, University of Alberta
Registration: meetup.com/startupedmonton/events/94507332

Drinks and networking to follow at Original Joe’s on campus!

DemoCamp Hamilton 10

When: Monday January 28th 2013 @ 6:30pm-9:00pm
Where: The Arnie pub @ Mohawk College
Registration: democamphamilton10.eventbrite.com

jannacameronThe keynote will be done by Janna Cameron, Usability / Accessibility Specialist @ Desire2Learn. A champion for accessible design in technology, Janna Cameron’s work has been focused on extending the reach of technology to a portion of the population that has been inadvertently sidelined. By working closely with developers, designers and engineers to develop a fuller understanding of how people with disabilities use the web, Janna has parlayed a passion for user research into a career that has helped remove barriers to education. She brings a sense of humor and optimism to her work, encouraging others to join her in making the web accessible to all.

Anybody in Ontario that’s interested is welcome to attend. There’s been a nice surge in student startups in Hamilton (e.g. TurnChannel, Groupnotes), expect to see others like OverAir demoed at this event.

November DemoCamps: Hamilton, Guelph and Niagara

Leave a reply

DemoCamp Hamilton 9

When: Tuesday November 20th 2012 @ 6:30pm-9:30pm
Where: Twelve Eighty pub @ McMaster University
Registration: democamphamilton9.eventbrite.com

Keynote by Carol Leaman (@CarolLeaman) CEO of Axonify (@Axonify). Axonify combines principles of behavioral science with the best qualities of gamified and social software to result in a new approach to e-learning and employee awareness—one that empowers organizations to train faster, retain information effectively and perform better. Carol brings more than 20 years of leadership and technology executive experience to the company as she has a history of building start-ups into multi-million dollar successes.

DemoCamp Guelph 20

When: Tuesday November 27th 2012 @ 6:30pm-9:30pm
Where: The EBar
Registration: guestlistapp.com/events/125868

DemoCamp Niagara 2

When: Wednesday November 28th 2012 @ 6:00pm-9:00pm
Where: Red Hot Chili Pepper
Registration: democampniagara2.eventbrite.com

Dr. Kevin Kee of Brock University’s Centre for Digital Humanities will present a keynote: The Future of the Past, or Why Historians Need to Work with Digital Media Developers.

Upcoming DemoCampHamilton events

Leave a reply

DemoCampHamilton5

When: Thursday February 9th 2012 @ 6:30pm-9:30pm
Where: The Arnie pub @ Mohawk College
Registration: democamphamilton5.eventbrite.com

Keynote: Ryan McGreal – Services-First: A Better Way to Build a Web Application

Ryan (@RyanMcgreal) will discuss design principles behind web service APIs and the possible value that can be unlocked when designing your web application in terms of web service APIs.

This will be followed by demos from FluidMedia, Nik Garkusha (@Nik_G), Mike Trpcic (@mtrpcic), Orbital (@GetOrbital), IdeaWorks, and Avaya web.alive (@joerigby1339).

DemoCampHamilton6

When: Tuesday March 20th 2012 @ 6:30pm-9:30pm
Where: Twelve Eighty pub @ McMaster University
Registration: democamphamilton6.eventbrite.com

Keynote: Joel Augé – Building a great gaming company

Joel (@joelauge) is the CEO and Co-Founder of HitGrab Inc, a leader in social gaming. In March of 2008, HitGrab created MouseHunt, which is now one of the most successful (in terms of user engagement) games on Facebook. HitGrab has also created LevynLight, a ‘light’ fantasy RPG that’s focused on simplicity, allowing you to jump in at anytime and have quick bursts of fun throughout the day!

The demo line-up has yet to be finalized, but expect to see at least one of the student startups that are starting to come out of McMaster (such as DormBooth). Normally DemoCampHamilton events are scheduled 2-4 months apart… but after seeing firsthand during instruction of a UI design course how skilled and passionate some McMaster students are about game development, and after Joel agreed to keynote the event, an exception had to be made!

The Hamilton tech scene is set to pick up some steam over the next few months. Michael Canton (@valleytownmedia) and Tim Miron (@TJMiron) are producing a web series (#TechTalk4HamOnt) to spotlight the community. Kik Messenger platform evangelist Yuriy Blokhin (@yblokhin) will keynote Leap into Startup Weekend on February 29th – the ticket sale launch party for next April’s Startup Weekend. The city’s Open Data movement is planning The Bay Hackathon for March 2nd to March 4th. The successful eHealth\mHealth focused AppsForHealth conference will repeat in May 2012. StartupDrinks is now occurring every month. At least a couple people at DemoCampHamilton5 are planning to step up to the mic between demos to try to get the ball rolling on Codeacademy meetups and other community activities.

Anyone in the Southern Ontario region interested in our DemoCamp or these other activities is always welcome to come to Hamilton!

DemoCampHamilton2 Recap: So hot we set off the fire alarm!

3 Replies

DemoCampHamilton2 occurred Friday May 27th, 2011 at Mohawk College in conjunction with the AppsForHealth 2011 conference. The event was hosted by Software Hamilton and sponsored and supported by the great folks at Innovation Factory and Mohawk College. The combination of an excellent keynote, demos and audience turned out to be too hot for the fire alarms at Mohawk!

Mic Berman kicked off the event with an excellent keynote focused on sharing her startup expertise. The quality of the discussion the talk generated was one of the highlights of the evening, perhaps given the high level of interest in fostering a startup culture in the Hamilton software community. The talk was described perfectly in a #DCH tweet as “inspiring and grounding at the same time”.

Cristina Calder of FluidMedia started off the demos by showing us Rendering Exchange – a web-based, crowd-sourced platform that connects graphic designers with commercial interior manufacturers, architects and interior designers to provide high-quality, photo-realistic room scene images for use in sales and planning.

DemoCampHamilton audience favourite “mad inventor” Dan Zen took audience interactivity to new heights with his demo of Touchy – a smartphone game where two players, each with mobile devices, try to touch the other player’s screen while protecting their own. When two people play the game it creates a Twister-like physical spectacle that is as fun to watch as it is to play. Dan demoed Touchy by having the entire audience play “Touchy” at once by having us try to touch the business card of the DemoCamp-er sitting next to us while protecting our own!

Adam Caromicoli and Doris Bean of Indellient Inc. were up next to demo Inktronic – a Digital Pen based collaboration tool that simplifies workflow involving graphical content for the architectural, engineering and construction industries.

After a forced break for what was dubbed the “great fire alarm of DemoCampHamilton2″, Joey Coleman of Open Hamilton and Nik Garkusha of Open Halton talked about the Open Data movement occurring across Canada and demoed what software the Open Hamilton branch of the movement has developed thus far.

The final demo was done by two McMaster University computer science students, Gavin Schulz and Zaahir Moolla, who demoed their new service MealDeck which allows restaurants to easily create a cross-platform mobile website. Student entrepreneurism is something we want to see more of in Hamilton and the professionalism and courage these two showed by putting themselves and their service out there for criticism was widely praised – watch out for these guys!

The AppsForHealth 2011 conference itself was a huge success, you can check out the mobile apps that the students devised here. Expect the next DemoCampHamilton at McMaster in September, but in the meantime we will be having the first Software Hamilton Pub Night this June 28th.

Hamilton, Guelph and Toronto

Leave a reply

May and June are busy months. There are a few friends and colleagues that continue to leverage the DemoCamp brand to help engage entrepreneurs, developers, code monkeys, hackers, marketers and others. We borrowed the 6 minute format from Demo. Rather than a chinwag about new technology or industry happenings, what better way than to spend 6 minutes and have someone show you want they’ve built. It forces way from the keyboards and out into the real world. It is a strange mix of presentations, improv and being social. It’s about being connected, being proud of what you’ve been working, and having the opportunity to meet others in the community with similar interests.

The focus in Toronto has been on startups. Because this is my interest. Others are free to shape event and the format to their locale. The question of “what is your business model?” is such a silly question. Because some of the coolest presentations – hacking digital cameras – are closer to hobbies or performance art. I love the mix of new businesses, emerging technology explorations, and something closer to Maker Faire demos.

My advice, is if you are interested in seeing the great startups, hackers and makers in your city are doing you should make sure you check out a DemoCamp. And encourage Brydon and Kevin to keep doing this for their own entertainment and connection. Maybe you might want to help out ;-)

Hamilton

DemoCampHamilton2 will feature a keynote presentation by Mic Berman, acting COO at FreshBooks and Founder at Embarkonit, as well as demos by FluidMedia, Dan Zen, Indellient, Open Hamilton and MealDeck. It is happening in conjunction with Apps For Health 2011 conference at Mohawk College. You can show up around 5:00pm for a drink and some additional networking before heading over for DemoCamp at 7:00pm.

Guelph

The invited speaker is Mike McDerment, CEO and co-founder ofFreshbooks in Toronto. Mike’s a serial entrepreneur who spends a lot of time giving back to the wider community by speaking at various tech conferences as well as lecturing at Humber College. He is also a founder of Toronto based Mesh Conference. After the keynote there are 4-6 demos followed by a live band. This is a completely open event, however, there is a donation ticket to help out starving musicians and the cost of providing entertainment.

Toronto

The invited speaker is Howard Lindzon, CEO and cofounder of StockTwits in San Diego.  He was one of my favourite speakers at StartupEmpire back in 2008. Howard is sharing his love of startups and early stage entrepreneurs across Canada this summer. If you miss him at DemoCamp, make sure you catch him at StartupFestival in Montreal or Grow Conference in Vancouver. The demo lineup and tickets are being finalized this week.