Go Paperless, and Calgary’s eSchedule Will Plants Trees for You

With the growing popularity of hand-held devices, Calgary’s eSchedule is on a mission to completely eliminate paper-based schedules by providing multiple options for people to check and manage their schedules online. They recently celebrated Earth Day by announcing a new program in partnership with Tree Canada where each customer will have one tree planted annually for every print-free schedule managed online.

“Tree Canada has planted and is caring for over 77 million trees,” said Cale White, VP of Sales, eSchedule. “We’re already managing millions of scheduling changes online, so this initiative fits right in with our core values.”

Trees make communities livable for people – they add beauty and create an environment beneficial to our mental health, replenish the atmosphere with oxygen, fight the greenhouse effect, conserve water and save energy. However, the amount of trees Canada has lost over the past decade due to various reasons constitutes a serious problem for our ecosystem, so it is great to see tech startups incorporating green initiatives into their day-to-day business to support the environment.

Montreal Startup Festival to Award Top Startup $50K

The organizers of the International Startup Festival announced this morning that at this year’s event one deserving startup will leave with an investment of at least $50K.

And the award won’t be limited to one of the startups selected to pitch on a main stage; any startup present and badged for the event will be eligible to win.

A group of angels and VC investors, including the Festival’s Founders Phil Telio and Alistair Croll, Anna Goodson, Rory Olson, and Danny Knafo have banded together as equal partners to create the prize.

The prize will be an investment in a startup, in the form of an entrepreneur-friendly convertible debenture (reasonable interest rate with no cap on valuation). Terms and conditions with details of the prize will be posted online soon.

TechStars Founder: 'One Accelerator is Launching Per Day'

Just yesterday, we took a lot at the differences between incubators and accelerators. In the article, we noted that incubators were declining in popularity, while the accelerator space was growing rapidly.

Now, an industry veteran has put some numbers to this trend. David Cohen, the founder of TechStars - one of America's most prominent and longstanding accelerators - told Forbes that about one accelerator launches per day now. Stop and think about that for a moment.

Where Have All the Coders Gone?

I'm constantly talking to technology companies and they're echoing a similar refrain: there's a war for good technical skills that shows no signs of abating. Even more of a challenge is the ability to find people with a combination of engineering talent and strong people skills.

Since this talent is at the heart of the technology sector, it behooves us to understand the trends that are affecting the industry and to look at ways of trying to improve the situation. Here's what's going on.

Record Shattering: Pebble Now Doubles the Second Most Funded Kickstarter Campaign Ever

With nearly three weeks left to go, Pebble keeps on rolling. Now with an incredible 48,000 backers, the Canadian-born Pebble smartwatch has raised a staggering $7.2 million—more than double the previous record for a Kickstarter campaign. Can Waterloo's Allerta raise a legendary $10 million from an online crowdsourcing site? If it can, the Canadian startup will set a new precedent for how companies generate funds.

Okay, So What's the Difference Between an Incubator and an Accelerator?

Somehow, the words "incubator" and "accelerator" have somehow become interchangeable. They're not. They're two different things.

Business incubators have been around for decades—they're the original. Accelerators, the new kids on the block, started popping around the turn of the millenium.

Introducing This Is Our Stop, a Niche Social Network for Bus Riders

There's Facebook, with over 900 million users and the broadest mix of people and purposes possible. And then there's Vancouver's This Is Our Stop, a niche network designed for bus riders.

Vancouver developers Tylor Sherman and Todd Sieling have created a mobile-optimized social network in which users enter the five-digit code of their bus stop and are then presented with a map, arrival times, and a text box inviting them to "talk about this stop." It's an open-ended network; write anything. The founders liken it to a chalkboard hanging at the bus stop where anyone can grab chalk and write anything.

Legendary Nights Out with Electric Courage

The inception of Electric Courage began with a thrilling moment; in fact, it’s one that some (many) of us would be familiar with:

“The idea stemmed from one of the conversations we were having as a group. My teammate was telling us about a conference he was attending the week prior and how he locked eyes with a girl from across the room. He was dead sure that she also thought they had a moment but, by the time he had decided to go back and introduce himself, she was nowhere to be found. A few hours passed and he was on a flight back home. We realized that we'd all had moments like that in our lives and thought: why not see if we can figure out a way to solve this? Electric Courage was born,” explained Duncan Bays, a co-founder of Electric Courage.

Bays met his co-founders Holly Smith, JP Leroux, and Shahed Al-Haque at last year’s Next 36competition.

Get Me Listed Closes Successful Seed Round Led by Real Ventures

Montreal's Get Me Listed announced on Friday that they have successfully secured their seed financing round with hometown Real Ventures leading the way.