If you have plans on Monday, cancel them. What you should be doing is heading over to DemoCamp7: where Ottawa startups demonstrate the next generation of tech products and services that will make the headlines.
Here are the details:
Democamp 7 will take place on Monday, January 28th from 7pm to 9pm at the Clocktower Pub on Bank Street just south of the Queensway.
Protecode Demo - demonstration of a tool that unobtrusively detects, logs, and identifies external content during software development. This tool is used to automatically create records of Intellectual Property ownership and licensing attributes of external code (eg Open Source modules or snippets) that enter a project.
Distributed Musical Instruments - Software that will allow MIDI files to be replayed on different sound modules. This will be a demo of an entry level process leading to a system creating a Virtual Musical Sound Studio.
The Traveler IQ Challenge - Demo of a viral marketing app gone wild. In June of 2007 the TIQ was launched on Facebook to promote TravelPod, since then it’s been launched on Friendster, TravelPod, TripAdvisor and virally on 4000 other syndicated websites. The TIQ has now taken a life of its own generating millions of monthly unique visitors and driving significant traffic to TravelPod.com.
JohnnyVoIP - Initial beta of a social communications platform tool that is currently available on Facebook allowing users to forget about downloading, installing, and finding their friends - just click on a link.
Internet Business Logic - A Wiki and SOA endpoint for business rules in open vocabulary, executable English. - Flash Demo Preview
iotum - iotum’s conference calling application for Facebook.
DemoCamp, as the name successfully demonstrates, is an event where startups can present their latest and greatest products/services.
Here are the details for the next DemoCamp in Ottawa:
* Date: Monday, January 28, 2008 from 7pm to 9pm
* Location: Clocktower Restaurant on Bank Street, just south of the Queensway.
* Format for 6 demos: 2 minute introduction, 8 minute demo, 5 minutes for Q&A and discussion
Well, the other day, thanks to the folks over at BluePrint ventures, a lot of us had a good laugh. The video below demonstrates a mockery of what life as a venture capitalist is really like:
I just love this video and I’m sure lots will get a laugh out of it. By the way, you can see the other videos from BluePrint Ventures here:
According to the TED website, “The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).” Essentially, TED is a conference where some amazing people get together and talk about their life experiences. The great news is that most of the videos from these talks are now available for viewing to the general public on the TED website. I strongly encourage everyone to check out the website. There is a great deal that can be learned by this inspiring group of people. For fun, I’ve linked to a talk on the TED website by one of my favorite people, Tony Robbins:
This is one of those topics that can be debated forever. Instead, what I’ll do, is link to the table below:
So, I suppose that is one end of the story… What about the other end? What if you’re over 50? Well, it turns out that Ray Kroc was in his 50’s when he started McDonald’s and that Colonel Sanders was 66 when he started KFC. Granted, the comparison is not exactly apples to apples, but I do think that age (either end of it) should not be an excuse for people to be afraid of trying something new. If up until this point, your excuse has been “I’m to old to do that” or “I don’t have enough experience to go into that field”, please stop using this as an excuse… just go out there and do it
This Saturday, I had the pleasure of listening to Austin Hill speak about Angel Investing and some facts about the venture climate in Canada. It was an interesting talk with some informative questions and answers that followed. What intrigued me more, though, was reading through Austin’s biography on his blog (http://www.billionswithzeroknowledge.com/). Austin was born in Ottawa and started out his entrepreneurial career at age 17 (impressive and not all too common in Canada - as much as we like to call ourselves in Ottawa Silicon Valley North)… Two of Austin’s many claims to fame include the acquisition of his company TotalNet and the raising of $75 million dollars in capital for his last company Zero-Knowledge (currently RadialPoint).
If you ever heard of the beginning of Apple and Steve Jobs, you’ll appreciate the significance of this news. Steve Jobs, since the very beginning, was looking to beat IBM. That moment has finally come. At the current stock price of $186 per share, Apple is worth $162 Billion, whereas IBM is worth $159 Billion. A true milestone in history indeed.
Watch the video above. Its the movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley.” Its an amazing movie that will give you some insights into the beginning of the personal computer (pc) as we know it…
One of my favorite bands, Seether, has a new album with the flagship song: “Fake It.” It’s an amazing song not just because it sounds great but because of the lyrics. I remember listening to Bruce Firestone (the Ottawa Senators Founder) when he mentioned that although from the outside, it seemed like he knew what he was doing all along, he was just making it up every step of the way. There are valuable lessons to be learned from Seether. Watch the video
The other day I had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Michael Cowpland, a renowned entrepreneur and businessman. Mike, as he likes to be called, is famous for his role in co-founding Mitelwith Terrence (Terry) Matthews and later on founding Corel(which we all know for its CorelDraw and Wordperfect products) and serving as its CEO through the best of Corel’s times. More recently Mike serves as the CEO of ZIM Corporationwhich is a leading player in the mobile entertainment business.
3 back to back home runs is not a matter of luck, you have to be good, and damn good, at what you do to be able to accomplish what Dr. Cowpland has accomplished. This man definitely has my respect.
