Inaugural Software Niagara DemoCamp a success

September 19, 2012 Kevin Browne 0 Comments

Tonight I went to the inaugural Software Niagara (@softwareniagara) DemoCamp event at the On the Front Cafe & Eatery in Thorold, Ontario. The event was organized by Software Niagara founders Nickolas Kenyeres (@knicklabs) and Michael Mottola (@michael_mottola), and sponsored by Venture Niagara and Lakeside Electrical.

I spoke for a few minutes about what I’ve seen and learned from my activities in Hamilton’s technology community, but the event really kicked off with a keynote by Adam White (‏@adamwhite) of Upper Rapids (@UpperRapids) on “Building a Brand and Presence in a Local Developer Community”. The key takeaway from the talk was the benefit that can come from working together instead of competing or fighting, which is a good point to make at an event like this that is bringing many people together for the first time.

The demo line-up consisted of the following:

Niagara Here (@NiagaraHere) by Joe Peric, Furi and Kate Leathers
Markdown editor built on a JavaScript stack (NodeJS, Backbone.js, MongoDB) by Nickolas Kenyeres
Mulberry FingerPlays iPad App by Scott Teglasi, Mulberry Media
Interactive historic war claims database built on the Furi Web Platform (@thefuri) & backbone.js by Thomas Madej and Joseph Peric, Furi Enteprises Inc.
Custom .NET framework including CMS implementation by Aaron Clayton, Glacier Digital (@glacierdigital)
IceTime, Rails app for finding local pickup ice hockey games by Michael Mottola

The event attracted regular leaders and supporters of tech in the region like Joe Peric (@joeperic) and Steve Gruber (@sgrubes) of Venture Accelerator Partners, with a healthy community of about 50 or so showing up to give this new initiative in Niagara a great start. The demos were each followed by a good amount of Q&A discussions with some real depth beyond the standard “monetization question”, there was a lot of networking and card exchanging taking place, and the snacks were delicious! More events in the Niagara region are planned, a “TechJam” on October 17th I believe it was, and a 2nd DemoCamp in November – so follow Software Niagara for details on these events. Great job Nickolas and Michael!