Entries from the 'Events' category
Cyberinfrastructure Summit in Banff
Cybera is hosting its 2nd annual Cyberinfrastructure Summit at the Banff Centre in Banff on September 29-30. Cybera Summit 08 will bring together cyberinfrastructure users, collaborators and innovators. The focus will be to build, strengthen and expand the cyberinfrastructure foundation in Alberta’s private sector and research community.
Summit Sessions:
Green IT / Clean Tech - It’s not that easy being green. In this session, we’ll look at the push for IT to go green. How can you ‘green up’ your IT operations? What are the cost benefits? Why is this important to your business?
Grassroots Innovation - DemoCampBanff - Where does innovation start? Demo Camp for one. These groups thrive on their ad-hoc organization and “no rules” rules. Talk about a fertile landscape for innovative ideas! Join us for a special Banff edition of Demo Camp.
Cloud Computing and Other Trends to Watch - The innovation landscape is constantly changing. In this session, we’ll focus on the top trends guiding this transition and what impacts these changes have on your business as well as your research and development activities.
Cyber-Venture Opportunities - Showing you the money. In this session, we’ll examine the business behind cyberinfrastructure – the venture capital and commercialization opportunities, as well as the new Alberta Action Plan: Bringing Technology to Market.
Disruptive Technologies - Blessing or bane? In this session, we’ll look at how disruptive technologies are changing the landscape, raising the bar and pushing the bounds of all that was possible in business and research.
Keynote Speakers:
- Bill Appelbe -Chief Executive Officer, Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing
- Paul Strong - Distinguished Research Scientist, eBay
- Nora Young - Producer and Host of Spark, CBC Radio
Who Should Attend?
- IT managers and executives
- Business strategy senior management
- Industry Researchers
- Small business and startups
- Technology advisors, CIOs, project managers, government ministry staff, graduate students
- Research community
This Summit will cater to anyone affiliated with the private sector, research organizations or academia that’s interested in cyberinfrastructure. It will also cater to those who have questions like, “How can I do my work more efficiently?” “How can I improve my business’s bottom line?” and “How can technology help me expand the possibilities of what I can achieve?” The Summit should also appeal to people looking to tap into Alberta’s innovative, forward-thinking community.
For more information and to register, visit the Cybera Summit 08 website.
Being a Director in the 21st Century
On Sept 29th the folks behind the Angel Forum are hosting Being a Director in the 21st Century - a confidential angel investor workshop for company directors and accredited investors. This unique workshop is designed for existing or future Board Directors and investors who want to upgrade their knowledge and interact with other active directors. Sorry entrepreneurs and service providers - you’re not invited.
What’s an accredited investor in BC? Individuals who have at least $1Million in financial assets (cash and securities) net of any debt and before taxes. Or individuals whose annual net income before taxes exceeds $200K (or $300K combined income with spouse).
Why is it confidential? This workshop is being held in a confidential setting so everyone will feel comfortable discussing real “war” stories. Since confidential examples will be used - local companies where boards changed CEOs, failed to block hostile takeovers and ruined promising companies - all registrants will be asked during the online registration process to accept a simple non-disclosure/confidentiality agreement and to sign the same agreement before the workshop starts. Unfortunately we won’t be live-blogging this one.
Who’s speaking? Techvibes favorite Angel Guest Contributor Basil Peters and high-tech entrepreneur Mike Volker. As always, Bob Chaworth-Musters is organizing the event and will keep thints rolling.
How much does it cost? Not much if you’re an accredited investor - only $275 if you register before July 31st.
The workshop goes all-day on September 29th from 8am to 4pm at SFU Harbour Centre.
IAB Canada presents MIXX Conference
Knowing that the interactive media advertising landscape is changing at a faster rate every year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada is gearing up for their MIXX Canada Conference Series (formerly Interactive to the Max) this fall. MIXX Canada is designed to keep marketers and advertisers ahead of the curve, by focusing on leading-edge speakers, from both within Canada and around the globe.
The speaker line-ups are taking shape and the Toronto event looks particularily strong with Jacque-Hervé Roubert, President and CEO of Nurun, serving as a keynote. Nurun is a Quebecor Media company specializing in Interactive communications and technology services.
Full-day conferences take place in Toronto on Monday, September 29th at the Carlu and in Montreal on Monday, October 6, 2008 at the Marriott Château Champlain. Half-day roadshows will make their way across Canada immediately after - Montreal (Oct. 7th), Halifax (Oct. 8th), Ottawa (Oct. 15th), Calgary (Oct. 16th), Vancouver (Oct. 17th) and back to Toronto (Oct. 20th).
Edmonton Flash User Group July Meeting Tonight!
The Edmonton Flash User Group is holding their July 2008 meeting tonight (22nd). Grant Skinner, the Chief Architect and CEO of gskinner.com, will be on hand to share some information about his design process and the tools he uses. Specifically, Skinner plans to focus on some of the new features in Flash that make it a useful design tool, and perhaps a better one than Photoshop for some projects.
If you’re doing something interesting with Flash, you’ll have an opportunity to share too:
After Grant’s session, we will be having an informal open-podium portion of the evening. This is an opportunity for you to share with the local community a cool project you’ve been working on, a sweet Flash feature/tip you’d like to share or simply show a stellar use of Flash you’ve experienced recently. Contributions are limited to 5 minutes max, and will earn you a ballot of some of our larger prizes of the evening.
The meeting takes place at The Billiard Club on Whyte at 7 PM. You can find out more information here.
BarCampVancouver goes September 27th
The event organizers have polled the Vancouver tech company and the people have spoken - BarCampVancouver08 is set for September 27th. It’s the third annual event for Techcouver and should be bigger and better than ever with the registration capped at 225. As always, registration is free, so be sure to sign up early to avoid disappointment.
It’s going to be a busy week in Vancouver. BarCamp will also be playing host to two smaller mini-camps - WordPressCamp and PhotoCamp and Thursday, September 25th is National Digital Media Day which will wrap up with LaunchPartyVancouver5.
Recap: BarCampEdmonton1
Today was the big day - Edmonton’s first BarCamp! And I think it’s safe to say that BarCampEdmonton1 (BCE1) was a big success! About 100 people attended, and the schedule was packed with three tracks of 20 minute presentations separated by 10 minute breaks.
The event got underway at the World Trade Centre downtown at about 10 AM. We passed around sticky notes for people to write their topics on and then started to build the agenda for the day. After a few quick opening remarks and some thanks to sponsors TEC Edmonton and Nexopia, city councillor Don Iveson read a proclamation for BarCamp Day in Edmonton. The first sessions got going at 11 AM. You can see the schedule we came up with here. There was quite a range of topics - everything from Financing An Idea to Why Are Fundamental Programming Skills Second to Framework Knowledge.
Lunch consisted of sandwiches from Sunterra, and lots of beer from local brewery Alley Kat. The venue was excellent for this kind of event as it offered lots of little areas to break into discussions, and attendees definitely made the most of them. The afternoon’s sessions finished at about 4 PM, after which a bunch of us headed over to Pub 1905.
I presented my talk on Twitter and also presented a session on Wireless in Edmonton with Eric. The wireless for the event was powered by a bunch of Eric’s Open Mesh devices, and for the most part it worked quite well. I think our presentation was very well-received, and I hope it got people excited for wireless in our city.
I know there were a few people taking photos and recording video, so watch for those to appear over the next few days. Check out the tag BarCampYEG at Twitter, Flickr, and Google Blog Search. You can see a partial list of attendees on the wiki - feel free to add yourself if you’re missing.
If you have feedback on today’s event or if you’d like to get involved with upcoming events, please let us know. You can leave a comment here, or on the BarCampEdmonton blog. Or you can email or Twitter or otherwise message us - we’re fairly easy to track down!
Thanks to everyone who attended today, and of course to everyone who volunteered their time and helped to make BCE1 a success. We’ll likely have a few DemoCamps before the next BarCamp, but I’m already looking forward to it!
BarCamp Edmonton 1 Tomorrow
With over 100 people signed up and less than 20 spots left the excitement for BarCamp Edmonton has continued to grow. Taking place this Saturday (July 19) beginning at 10:00 BarCamp Edmonton will be a great opportunity to come out and meet some of the other people that are involved in Edmonton’s tech scene, and check out some of the cool things that they are working on. Come on out, meet some people, show something off, and join in.
If you would like to participate in, or check out, the online discussion we are asking everyone to tag any twitter, flickr, blog, or other posts with #BarCampYEG. You can follow this tag to see what’s going on, or post using this tag to let your thoughts be known.
For more information go to www.barcampedmonton.com and if you are interested in attending, please sign up here.
I hope to see you there…
Venture to Banff for VC Funds
The Banff Venture Forum (BVF) is a couple months away and they’re still hunting for worthy presenting companies looking for a VC audience. If you’re an early/growth stage company in IT, Energy Technology, or Life Sciences, this is your chance to join 35-40 companies and pitch your business. The investor audience is primarily early & growth stage VCs, other private equity funds, and venture debt firms.
Applicant companies must have raised a minimum of $250K in seed or angel funding as a base prerequisite, and most presenters will be seeking an A round. Some presenters will already be venture backed and will be seeking a B round. Application deadline is August 1st.
Wine meets Unconference in Vancouver
While wine and viticulture don’t qualify as part of the technology industry, the unconference concept definitely finds its roots in the tech world. VinoCampVancouver is happening next month at UBC’s Botanical Gardens and it sounds like a great way to celebrate wine and technology. Wine-bloggers unite!
This is definitely not the wine festival. In a more unstructured form than a standard conference, VinoCampVancouver brings wine, people and technology together in one place, making wine accessible, educational and fun. As a different type of conference, VinoCamp is designed for those interested in technology and wine, and people are expected to take photos of what’s happening, and to blog or tweet or message about their experiences.
Join us! Whether you’re speaker, sponsor, or a wine-drinker, our aim is to make this day memorable, fun, and interesting. You will learn more about wine and viticulture, meet interesting people, and enjoy yourself in one of Vancouver’s loveliest gardens.
VinoCampVancouver takes place on Saturday, August 16th and tickets are available for $50 here. Mission Hill’s Lori Pike (formerly of Sxip) is the lead organizer of VinoCampVancouver and Techvibes is a media sponsor.
Notes from FacebookCamp4 in Toronto
A few hundred people attended the last FacebookCamp in Toronto last week, but what was missing was the excitement, the buzz in the audience, which was a hallmark of previous such events. Is the Facebook platform on a downswing ? The organizers and the folks from Facebook thought otherwise. Facebook platform had 30,000 applications by February of this year, compared to 5500 in Oct ‘07 and continues to grow, according to the stats.
Rebecca Sawyer, who leads the monetization group at Facebook Inc, gave a presentation on advertising on Facebook. She went through on how to create an ad and target an exact audience. For example, on Facebook you can advertise based on criteria such as a user’s location, major, college, and gasp…even relationship status ! All that is there on a user’s profile can be targeted for advertising.
In a following talk, the upcoming re-design of users profile page was showcased. Most of the info from a user’s profile will be divided in separate tabs for: personal info, mini-feed, applications (called boxes), photos, among others. While it makes the user profile page more cleaner, I think it actually hurts developers as it puts their applications behind another button (in the boxes tab). It would be interesting to see if / how the users accept the new design.
The DemoCamp in Toronto tonight promises to be a bit more interesting.
