THIS WEEK IN TECTORIA

A community blog celebrating Victoria's booming tech sector

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Got a cool story about technology and creativity in Victoria? Email stories, tips, pictures, links and anything of interest to Tessa Bousfield at: tectoria@viatec.ca

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Think you Know your Victoria Geography?

November 22, 2013 by thestevehof

Can you tell us where these photos from days gone by were taken?

We’ve gone with five fairly easy ones this week, just to get off to a quick start….

Leave your guesses in the comments below, and try to guess the year as well.

Photo #1

Old Vic Pic 1

Photo #2

Old Vic Pic 2

Photo #3

Old Vic Pic 3

Photo #4

Old Vic Pic 4

Photo #5

Old Vic Pic 5

Like I said, these ones were pretty easy.  If anyone gets them all right, we’ll kick up the difficulty level a bit.

by Steve Hof

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: community, historic, history, pictures, tectoria, Victoria Trivia

Who Wants to Join VIATeC at SXSW 2014?

November 14, 2013 by thestevehof

sxsw_pic

Some of the Accelerate Tectoria VIATeC crew are putting together travel plans for SXSW 2014.  Before we start making travel plans, however, we need to know how many of you might be interested in joining us in Austin?

Last year Dan, Rob and Robbie from VIATeC pulled together several Victoria tech companies for the annual event in Texas and created Tectoria House.  Their crew included TicTalking, MediaCore, Yupiq and others, who blanketed the massive festival with good ol’ Tectoria charm, spreading the word about our Imagination Economy.

SXSW Interactive brings together some of the world’s most creative thinkers to talk about many of tomorrow’s most innovative ideas.  The 2014 edition, dubbed An Abundance of Innovation, has hundreds of confirmed sessions, and promises to be an unbelievable opportunity.

SOOOO, you don’t need to make a full commitment yet, but if you’re interested in joining the team in Texas this March, please either leave a comment on this post, or email Robbie Aylesworth in the very near future.

by Steve Hof

Tectoria House at SXSW 2013 Inside Tectoria House

The VIATeC Team at SXSW 2013

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: community, Event, event, Start-up, startup, sxsw, tectoria, Viatec, viatic

It’s the Thoughtful Gifts that Count

November 7, 2013 by thestevehof

Image

Ever tried to meet your hero? No? Well how hard did you really try? Local entrepreneur and proud Tectorian, Dylan Benson, decided he wanted to meet his hero.  His hero just happens to be Alexis Ohanian, and for those of you living under a rock this past decade, Alexis is the co-founder of reddit, one of the most successful and notorious websites in the world. Dylan, however, managed to combine just the right amount of moxie, skill and random acts of kindness to make the meeting a reality.

Roughly 3 ½ years ago Dylan started spending time on reddit, quickly becoming involved enough to create subreddits with his friend Aaron to showcase their favourite content.  As Dylan got more and more into the site, he realized its potential for social and community minded interactions.

Perhaps the most compelling of these social interactions came during Dylan’s first Reddit Secret Santa Experience.  What’s a reddit Secret Santa Experience you ask?  Well, Dylan was given a name, an address to send the gift to, and nothing else. Most people would have simply chosen a generic gift, and while he soon realized the difficulties involved with buying a gift for a complete stranger, he decided to press on.  Dylan spent an inordinate amount of time combing through years of posts this anonymous user had made.  Eventually, he came across one of this man’s posts detailing the childhood memory of losing his beloved Casey Jones action figure while out one day with his mom.  Perfect.  Dylan found the action figure online and quickly sent it along to his Secret Santa recipient.  He was proud to have found a somewhat relevant gift, but had no idea what was about to happen.

Not too many days later, Dylan received a phone call describing a tearful conversation the recipient had just had with his sister.  It turns out there was far more to this story than Dylan had been made aware of…..  The man’s mother had since passed away, but that day still held a strong memory for him, not as the afternoon he lost his toy, but rather as a testament of his mother’s love for him.  He could barely put into words how touched he was, and how much the small gift would forever mean to him.  That day, two people who had never met in person, sealed a lasting friendship.

The Secret Santa Story doesn’t end there, however.  During his quest to find a meaningful gift, Dylan came across numerous users who were frustrated with online gift giving sites.  The sites seemed to offer very little assistance in finding gifts appropriate and meaningful to those they were purchased for.  Dylan, an entrepreneur at heart, recognized the opportunity at hand.  That moment sparked the creation of SomethingInTheMail.com, a successful Tectoria based website owned by Dylan and his two partners that strives to produce ‘The Ultimate Secret Santa Experience – Year Round.’

Shortly after the Secret Santa experience, Dylan joined the Alexis Ohanian Fan Club.  And while he realizes how goofy it sounds for a grown man to join a fan club, Dylan did so because of how engaging an online presence Alexis was. (Often responding to fans, and involving himself in their conversations)  Dylan received his Welcome to the Fan Club email, and responded in a unique way, mentioning a past blog post of Alexis’ surrounding a grilled cheese sandwich.  Sure enough, Alexis responded to Dylan’s email personally.

Inspired, Dylan approached Alexis’ agent and began negotiating terms regarding a possible speaking engagement here in Victoria.  Dylan also reached out to VIATeC’s own Dan Gunn for assistance.  Dan was excited about the opportunity of bringing Alexis to Victoria for the Thinklandia festival, and swiftly stepped in to help.  Together they were able to secure Alexis as a speaker, and to top it all off, Dylan was given the honour of introducing him.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Dylan used the ten or so minutes he had with Alexis to pitch the Startup community here in Tectoria as an ideal extension of ‘Small Empires’ (the name of a show Alexis hosts.)  Needless to say, Alexis liked the idea and agreed to keep a dialogue going.  (Dylan continues to work with Brandon Gains on making this project a reality, and we’ll keep you posted with any new information.)

Dylan’s story showcases the benefits of perseverance, creativity, and ingenuity. Thankfully, however, the Tectoria community is chalk full of similar tales, so we encourage you to swing by this blog whenever your day calls for a little extra inspiration.

By Steve Hof

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Company profile, Event, Interview, News, reddit, secret santa, Start-up, tech, tectoria, Viatec

Your Free PR Opportunity Awaits

November 7, 2013 by thestevehof

what_is_your_story

Hello People of Tectoria!

Your friends at VIATeC have decided to start sharing all of the great stories that Tectoria has to offer. Whether you’re a startup entrepreneur, an Accelerator program mentor, a college student with a grand idea, a teacher with an inspirational tale, or simply a Victoria resident who’s been positively influenced by our number 1 sector, LET US KNOW!!!!

How do you let us know? Great question.  In a perfect world you’d type up a 150 – 650 word article, attach it and a few pictures to an email and send it to us.  From time to time, however, we will have time to interview people and write the articles for them.   Did I emphasize ‘from time to time’ enough?  But seriously folks, we want to promote you, your business, and how you fit into the Tectoria story.  YOU, however, have to take the first step.

So, if you’d like some free PR, please send your stories and pics to me, Steve Hof, at steve@pikomarketing.com.  PIKO does a lot of marketing work for VIATeC and our offices are actually here in VIATeC’s Accelerator Building at 2659 Douglas St.  So next time you’re in the neighbourhood, feel free to come introduce yourself and ask us any further questions you may have.

Cheers!  Now let the storytelling begin!

by Steve Hof

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: community, Company profile, Interview, marketing, News, pr, profiles, publicity, Social media, Start-up, startup, startup entrepreneur, tectoria, Viatec, VIATeC, viatic

Orcajam 4 begins September 6

August 22, 2013 by richardd

OrcajamGaming developers ahoy! The fourth annual Orcajam begins on September 6.

The event attracts developers, designers and producers from Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland and Washington State for two days of intense game creation. Around 80 people are expected to attend, reports the Victoria Times-Colonist.

It costs just $20, Bring your own computer but there will be food, prizes and access to brilliant minds. Orcajam is part of Thinklandia – a festival of imagination, which sounds intriguing.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Event, event, Gaming, gaming, microsoft

Royal Roads launches online archive for yearbooks

August 12, 2013 by richardd

Royal Roads is the other university in Victoria. UVic, with all its PR people, churns out story after story so it’s good to hear something from Royal Roads, which has launched an online archive of its yearbooks.

The yearbooks date back to the school’s early days as a military college. The digitization project was funded by a grant from the BC History Digitization Program and will interest history buffs as well as former students. I enjoyed flicking through the pages of several issues from the 1950s.

The yearbook is called The Log and the online archive provides access to every yearbook from 1943 until the college became a university in 1995. Around 7,000 pages were scanned and uploaded, so it was a considerable task.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: college, history, News, royal roads, university

Victoria’s techology sector celebrates with annual awards

June 28, 2013 by richardd

Dann Gunn at the awardsVictoria’s tech sector celebrated its great, its good, and old faces and new ones earlier this month at the annual VIATeC Awards. More than 700 folks were in attendance at the sold-out show to see Quester Tangent named as Technology Company of the Year.

VIATeC’s Dan Gunn told the Times-Colonist:

“Quester Tangent is one of those really great stories for Victoria — a company working in a certain area that through strong management and strategy managed to double their organization in a short period of time and find a real niche for themselves. It’s also a great story to see a three-decade-old company have a strong surge 25 years in. That’s a good example to all established companies of what is possible.”

Quester Tangent is an electronics manufacturing firm with a pedigree of almost 30 years in the market. It began by developing ocean mapping gear and now creates monitoring units to provide detailed diagnostic data for rail systems.

Colin Lennox Award for Technology Champion – Clayton Stark
VIATeC Member of the Year – Race Rocks 3D Inc.  
Emerging Technology Company of the Year – Tutela Technologies
Team of the Year – Vancouver Island Health Authority  IMIT PDM
Employer of the Year – Edoc Systems Group Ltd.
Executive of the Year – Stuart Bowness, MediaCore
Innovative Excellence – 3DA Systems Inc.
Online Strategy of the Year – Tap for Tap
Product of the Year – Latitude Technologies, IONode Flight Data Monitoring Device
Tech Company of the Year – Quester Tangent 
Education Champion – Dave Shortreed

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: awards, Event, News, Viatec, viatic, Victoria

Finalists announced for 2013 VIATeC Awards

May 10, 2013 by richardd

The finalists for the 12th annual VIATeC awards have been announced with 38 companies and individuals listed in nine categories. A gala event is scheduled for June 20 at the Victoria Conference Centre.

Clayton Stark, who opened a gaming studio called Kixeye, will receive the Colin Lennox Award for Technology Champion, while the VIATeC Member of the Year award will be RaceRocks 3D. Lots of fantastic companies listed below.

Technology Company of the Year

FTS – Forest Technology Systems
Quester Tangent
RevenueWire
Unit4 Business Software

Emerging Technology Company of the Year

MediaCore
Race Rocks 3D Inc.
Red Brick Media
Tutela Technologies

Executive of the Year

Nadine Harrison – HP Advanced Solutions
Stuart Bowness – MediaCore
Andrew Wilkinson – MetaLab

Innovative Excellence

3DA Systems Inc.
Applied Brain and Vision Sciences
Holografyx Canada Inc
Race Rocks 3D Inc.
Procura

Online Strategy of the Year

Atomic Crayon
Caorda Web Solutions
Tap for Tap

Product of the Year

Heartcheck PEN Handheld ECG Device from Cardiocomm Solutions
IONode Flight Data Monitoring Device from Latitude Technologies Corporation
Learning Content Management System from Udutu

Team of the Year

FCV Interactive
ParetoLogic
RewardsDen
UNIT4 Business Software
Vancouver Island Health Authority – IMIT

Employer of the Year

CloverPoint
Edoc
itgroove Professional Services Ltd.
Prototype Equipment Design
Red Brick Media

Start-up of the Year

A.O.E. Accumulated Ocean Energy Inc.
Go2Mobi
Rewards Den
CrowdContent
SendWithUs

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: awardsm Victoria, Event, gala, News, technology, Viatec

SendtoNews signs NASCAR highlights deal

April 26, 2013 by richardd

Sendtonews screenshotThe Times-Colonist reports on Victoria-based SendtoNews. The three-year-old company has announced a deal with NASCAR for the exclusive rights to distribute online video highlights of races.

“It sets a new standard,” said CEO Greg Bobolo. “It really is that validation and it has accelerated all of our other discussions. “NASCAR was brutally invasive to make sure we were the right company. Now with everyone else we are talking to on that tier-one sports landscape, there is a confidence level. They think ‘if NASCAR is OK with them …’”

SendtoNews is a cloud-based distribution platform that connects content from major organizations with the media. The report adds the company is housed in a new downtown office and has “22 employees, 15 of them in Victoria. The rest are in bureaus in Vancouver, San Francisco, New York and Toronto and later this summer they will open a London office.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: News

No.1 for page load speed

April 19, 2013 by richardd

If you are operating a website that depends on heavy internet traffic, then the speed your pages load are pretty important. Keynote recently conducted research into page load speed at 47 online retailers. Guess what? A Victoria-based technology company was ranked No.1.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: bc, ecommerce, News, online retailer, Software, Victoria

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