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by Kevin Browne

2011 was great, let’s make 2012 even better

January 10, 2012 in Community, DemoCamp, Department of Computing and Software, Hamilton, Innovation Factory, Innovation Night, Mohawk, Open Data, Open Hamilton, Startup Drinks, Startup Weekend Hamilton

2011 was a great year for software in Hamilton!

The success of WeeverApps was one of the bigger stories of the year, especially after winning Lion’s Lair. In building a product based around the unfulfilled need of their clients at CartaNova to get on to the mobile web affordably, they may have demonstrated a path to creating a startup for other Hamilton entrepreneurs to follow. It wasn’t just Weever Apps though, a multitude of area startups received attention such as Athelink, Quant Interpretations, SnapPay, Verdant Analysis and more. Hamilton’s new RIC Innovation Factory helped to drive startup activity in Hamilton with their client services and events.

Mohawk College pulled off a very successful AppsForHealth conference and its IdeaWorks Lab continued to blend industry with academics. McMaster University’s Computing and Software outreach program and Gr8 Designs for Gr8 Girls event brought the fun and empowerment of understanding computer science to a new generation, a new software entrepreneurship course helped to foster a stronger startup culture, the computer science club was more active than in anytime since the 90s, and the Don Pether Incubation Centre was launched.

An exciting Open Data citizens group Open Hamilton held the first ever Random Hacks of Kindness in the city, and produced cool apps like Skate Hamilton. Hamilton’s hackerspace ThinkHaus re-opened after a move to 25 Dundurn Street North, and thanks to them we now have retro awesome lazzored key chains. Other groups like the Joomla! User Group South Western Ontario, Hamilton Linux User Group and CIPS-GH continued to meet regularly to learn, share and build connections.

At our first Startup Weekend in Hamilton, 20 of the 22 ideas pitched were dependent upon web or mobile software development. Software startups such as Sochi, GeoFresh and Caltrakr came out of the weekend. DemoCampHamilton took place regularly with demos from startups, students, an inventor, and established companies like Factor[e] and FluidMedia; offshoot pubnight StartupDrinks now occurs monthly.

 

Looking forward into 2012, we’ve got another exciting year ahead.

For starters we’ve got DemoCampHamilton5 on February 9th, the #TechTalk4HamOnt web series covering the community is set to launch February 14th, #Hack4HamOnt2 is taking place March 2nd-4th, StartupWeekend is taking place April 27th-29th, and AppsForHealth is taking place May 10th-11th. And that’s not including StartupDrinks, Innovation Nights, Lunch ‘n Learns and various other regular gatherings.

If we work together we can make 2012 even better for the community. We can talk about it, we can tweet, facebook, linkedin and blog about it, we can bring friends into it, individuals can organize more events to benefit it, and we can help each other without expecting anything in return.

If you go to AppsForHealth this year, or even if you don’t, you can help to create a storm of tweets about the conference so Hamilton and the entire eHealth world knows about it. If you go to Hack4HamOnt, you can bring an interested friend with you too. If you see local events on linkedin, you can share them with your network too. If you see a local startup with a cool product, you can blog about it. If you think that somebody could benefit from a connection, you can make it. If you can offer experience or advice to someone, you can have that coffee or beer with them. If you have the time to organize an event for the community, there are many different events other communities do that we do not.

Many little drops put together can make a big enough wave for the world outside Hamilton to take notice, and some people can see great things happening for us. Let’s go for it.

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Avatar of Kevin Browne

by Kevin Browne

DemoCampHamilton3 Recap: Crow Call

October 3, 2011 in Academic, CIPS-GH, Community, DemoCamp, Department of Computing and Software, Hamilton, Hamilton Economic Development, Industry, Innovation Factory, McMaster, McMaster Industry Liaison Office, Open Data, Open Hamilton, Outreach, Startup Drinks, Startup Weekend Hamilton

DemoCampHamilton3 took place in front of an estimated 200+ members of the community on Wednesday September 28th at the Twelve Eighty pub right on McMaster University campus. The largest ever attendance for a DemoCampHamilton event was double the previous record, mostly because so many McMaster students showed up for what was probably their first DemoCamp experience. DemoCampHamilton3 had excellent community sponsorship in the form of Innovation Factory, Hamilton Economic Development, McMaster Industry Liaison Office and the Department of Computing and Software.

The event was kicked off with a keynote by the “godfather of DemoCamp” David Crow (@davidcrow) himself. Hamilton’s community is young and still learning, and David shared valuable advice about aiming higher, about the importance of “adding two zeros” to our entrepreneurial expectations. He challenged us to not to make excuses about things being easier in Silicon Valley, but to go there and do it if we thought so. David also talked about the strength of community not being in the number of nodes, but in the number of connections between the nodes. He also left us with a useful list of what to read. Thanks for coming down to Hamilton, David!

Jennifer Cameron (@JenniferVerdant) CEO of Verdant Analysis showed off their financial analysis software – the Cogent financial statement analysis tool and Forecast communication platform for the financial community. Verdant Analysis was actually a top ten finalist at the Lion’s Lair event which took place earlier in the month!

Next up was DemoCampHamilton stalwart supporters FluidMedia who did a demo of SkinnyBoard, web-based software that helps agile project teams collaborate to get work done. Somebody yelled out “I love SkinnyBoard!” before the demo could even begin, so they are doing something very right!

Gavin Schulz (@GsMaverick) and Brian Graham of Open Hamilton (@OpenHamilton) demoed the Dowsing app that helps people find the nearest public water play feature, swimming pool, or beach. Joey Coleman (@JoeyColeman) is the passionate leader of the Hamilton branch of the Open Data movement to have governments release or make open certain kinds of data in formats which afford themselves to the creation of apps like Dowsing. If you’re interested in developing Open Data applications, the group meets regularly on Thursday nights at Hamilton’s local hackerspace ThinkHaus.

Next up was the co-founders of another Lion’s Lair finalist, Brad Ross (@BradARoss) and Mike Saniga (@mikesaniga) of Quant Interpretations. They did a demo of their “QiiQ” consumer intelligence solution – a web-based interpretive solution that helps business owners and managers make better decisions: rich insights about consumers: where they live, how they live, how best to connect with them, and how to find others like them.

Alex and Ruxandra Bucataru then came up to demo their Enthuzr social marketing platform that makes word of mouth marketing easy, more viral, and truly measurable. In addition to giving attendees access to an Enthuzr beta invite, Enthuzr is also a sponsor for the upcoming Startup Weekend Hamilton event happening October 21st-23rd – way to support the community guys!

Finally we had Adrian Duyzer (@adriandz) and Martin Eckart of factor[e] design initiative up to demo HomeFinder, a site for finding new and resale homes that is similar to MLS but designed to be much easier to use. They also did a quick plug for a new web portal of the Hamilton Light Rail initiative.

Some people from ThinkHaus were handing out lazzored acrylic keychains in the shape of 8-bit era Super Mario – did you get yours?! If not ThinkHaus (@ThinkHausOrg) opens their doors on 25 Dundurn ST N every Tuesday at 7pm for an openhaus – why not pop in and check out what other cool stuff they have going on? We also had several other community event announcements. Pat Gaudet of CIPS-GH announced a talk by great Mohawk professor Duane Bender taking place at Mohawk College at 6pm this Wednesday October 5th on the state of electronic medical health records in Canada and what the future holds, reservations (required to attend) and details available here. Stephanie Shuster (@stephshuster) and Tammy Hwang (@tammyhwang) of the Innovation Factory talked about the upcoming Innovation Night taking place on the evening of Wednesday October 12th at the McMaster Innovation Park, details and registration here. One night later on Thursday October 13th starting at 6pm we will be having the first ever Startup Drinks Hamilton in the cool downstairs pub of the Kelsey’s at 875 Main Street West, register here.

Special thanks to Dwayne Ali (@interestica) for making our cool new logo, maybe you want to check out his equally well designed website Secret Hamilton that is all about exposing the “hidden gems” of Hamilton? ;-) Special thanks to Jim “microphone guru” Rudnick (@JVRudnick), Simon “unconference Yoda” Woodside (@sbwoodside), Brian Hogg (@brianhogg), Jessica Pavlin, Tammy Hwang and Stephanie Shuster.

It should also be noted that the sponsors for DemoCampHamilton3 aren’t just sponsors, they’re part of the community too, as evidenced by the Department of Computing and Software’s outreach program, the McMaster Industry Liaison Office’s STEM program, Hamilton Economic Development’s mentoring programs and networking events, and Innovation Factory’s Flight Program.

 

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