Last month a group of Canadian Expats living in Silicon Valley held a kickoff event for C100 - a non-profit member organization comprised of accomplished Canadian technology leaders in the Valley who are dedicated to supporting Canadian technology entrepreneurship. The inaugural event was a success with participation from more than 60 Canadian technology leaders in Silicon Valley and plenty of those interested in becoming charter members.
The C100 Executive Committee plans to formally launch in early 2010 with a membership of several dozen technology executives, startup entrepreneurs and venture capital investors. At that time, they will commence a year-round program to identify and mentor the most promising Canadian technology entrepreneurs, including hosting quarterly mentoring and business development events in Silicon Valley. In addition to creating a professional network for Canadians in the Valley, C100 will be organizing a series of member-only events featuring prominent visiting Canadian business and political leaders
No doubt there are plenty of Canadians living and working in the Valley that are under-the-radar. If you know of one that might be interested in becoming a Charter Member, throw their name into the comments so the C100 Executive Committee can track them down.
C100 is a non-profit, member-driven organization dedicated to supporting Canadian technology entrepreneurship and investment. C100 is comprised... [more]
A couple of Canadia
Chris Groves chris@centricsoftware.com
Andre Chartrand chartrand@cognigine.com
How about Jonathon Ehrlich at Facebook?
And Brian Wong at Digg?
These Canadians are so well-known they hardly classify as under the radar, but just in case:
Debbie Landa, CEO of DealMaker Media
Garrett Camp, CEO of StumbleUpo
Also, @Ron, I believe "Brian Wong" (Brian with an "i") is the way to spell his name. I just did an interview with him on my site, that's how I know. ;)
On a side note, I checked the C100 site and didn't find a vision or mandate for the group. Hopefully, it will be something along the lines of "How to keep Canadian talent from draining to Silicon Valley permanently and re-investing it back into Canadian High Tech Startups" ???
A man can dream of course...
Another canadian is Karan Mehandru. He was quite excited about the prospect of helping out.
karan@scalevp.com
let me guess, someone else who wants $500 a year from me in exchange for a once-a-year meet-and-greet over diet coke and coldcuts at the embassy suites in milpita
What a great idea. Canadians are everywhere. I wish this was around when I was living and working in the Valley. Its a crazy place to start a tech company. I wish C100 the best. Maybe I can come to a meeting next time I am down for a conference or meeting.
Tim
Vialect
(Windsor, Ontario)
I'm a Canadian that just moved to the Bay Area to work on getting my startup Viewpointr off the ground. I would love to be apart of the C100 Executive Committee. Glad to hear something like this exists.
Cheers,
Andre
Thanks for the nomination Ron! I'd love to be a part of this.
Ron,
Thanks for the post and very much appreciate the suggested members. We had some of them, but not all. Keep them coming!
Chris Albinso
Chairman C100
I suggest Mark Milinkovich of Cisco, please get a hold of me for contact information. He has been a huge help to Pythian in establishing a relationship with Cisco.
Would be glad to be part of this. euwyn@optask.com
Hmm, there already is such a group in Silicon Valley - the Digital Moose Lounge (http://www.digitalmooselounge.com/) operates events for Canadian ex-pats in Silicon Valley. While not specifically about encouraging/enable tech entrepreneurship in Canada, it would be a good place to start looking for people...
