THIS WEEK IN TECTORIA

In the last year they’ve hit four significant milestones:

• Reaching the 1,000 customers mark
• Hiring their 100th employee
• Winning Technology Company of the Year at the VIATEC Awards last month
• And being the Tectorian of the Week!

Latitude Geographics makes software to help people make better decisions about the world around them (no big deal). “Whether it’s responding to an oil spill, figuring out rain water rebates available to citizens, or tracking polar bears in the Arctic, we provide technology to get information in the hands of people,” commented Steven Myhill-Jones, CEO of Latitude Geographics.

Their team had a booth at the Esri User Conference in San Diego last week where they participated in Geocortex events and where they hosted an annual BBQ for over 400 people! Canadian politeness at its finest!

Just two days ago they unveiled Geocortex Insight, the long-anticipated successor to Geocortex Optimizer and they just opened registration for their Advanced Workflows: Foundation Course being held August 4-5.

Looks like Latitude Geographics will be continuing to make their mark on the Tectoria map this year! Let’s just hope they continue to hold BBQs and meetings on their rooftop deck overlooking the inner harbour 🙂

LlamaZOO Interactive is NOT a local zoo where you can ride Llamas. Just wanted to get that out of the way.

LlamaZOO Interactive is a local startup that just won the prestigious Startup of the Year Award at the VIATEC Awards last month.

Their product (currently code named “EasyAnatomy”), is a 3D app designed to help veterinary students learn animal anatomy and become better veterinarians. They do this by working with Universities in an effort to create the most relevant content and course material and use data from medical scans including MRI and CT to create the 3D models.

Screen capture of the application

These models are then bundled with written content, course material and quizzes to allow students to explore the full animal anatomy at their leisure.

In fact, founders Charles Lavigne and Kevin Oke, are currently on the road to Oregon State University.

“The veterinary department has invited us to pitch, demo, and discuss EasyAnatomy,” commented Lavigne. “The goal is for the department head to make a purchasing decision to buy licenses for all of their first year students. We’re also treating this meeting as a customer discovery opportunity. [We’re] trying to glean insights on the pain and challenges the individual anatomy professors are experiencing.”

After Oregon they’re next pit stop is Washington State University in Pullman where they’ve been asked to present their software at the American Association of Veterinary Anatomist Conference. “It’s a great opportunity for us to get in front of and meet with the leading anatomist in North America.”

Charles Lavigne started in the games industry by studying 3D animation and design, and later Game Design at the Vancouver Film School. He has 10 years of experience designing games and player experiences for companies including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft Montreal and Microsoft and consulting for smaller studios, startups and indie developers.

Kevin Oke has 9 years of experience. Most recently he worked as a design, production and business strategy consultant with Fox, Nickelodeon, Arnold Worldwide, The Chernin Group and many small startups on over 30 projects. Prior to consulting, Kevin worked at Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Next Level Games.

Together they have been dominating since 2014 with an idea that came from Kevin’s girlfriend practicing to be a veterinarian and identifying a lack of useful apps to help her study.

“As two recent transplants from Vancouver we’re blown away by this city and the local industry’s spirit,” commented Lavigne. “Most everyone is friendly, welcoming, and willing to help in one way or another. Plus there’s tons of good beer, food to eat, and activities to do year round, when one can find the time!”

You can find LlamaZOO’s office at Fort Tectoria or contact them by emailing hello@llamazoo.com. They’re currently seeking investors!

WOW! Did that actually happen? The VIATEC Team is still coming down from our adrenaline rushes and overjoyed emotions from the 2015 VIATEC Technology Awards that went down in history last Friday. It was a colourful, music-packed evening with special appearances from Shia Labeouf and Rick Astley 😉

Congratulations to all our award winners!

The VIATEC Awards started 14 years ago and it definitely wasn’t the production you see today. It started as an e-Commerce event with 110 attendees. In 2002 it officially became the VIATEC Technology Awards and 220 attended it at the Grand Pacific Hotel. In 2003 it moved to the Crystal Ballroom at the Fairmont Empress with 330 guests. In 2004 we made the move to Carson Hall with 450 guests. 2005 onward, we stayed at Carson Hall climbing into the 500’s, hitting an attendance of 600 in 2011 and reaching 700 last year.

Last week’s event brought out 750+ Tectorians, 1000 balloons (with 50 additional mini orcas squeezed in the nets), 50 BIG Orcas, 11 funky mirrors, 9 projection screens, 8 bubble machines, 7 interactive cube lights, 7 tower lights, 3 interactive mirror boards, 1 AWESOME Band with 1 Jesse Roper, 1 Spoken Word Poet (Jeremy Loveday) and 1 breathtaking, projected sculpture.

Thank you VERY much for being a part of the madness and celebrating with Tectoria. We look forward to squeezing in a few more tables next year!

• Image gallery
• Video recap
• Finalist videos

Click here for a special message from Dan Gunn!

A special thanks to the following…

• FCV Interactive
• Shaw Business
• Thompson Cooper LLP
• Hemlock Printers
• Vecima Networks (And the Vecima Virtuosos band!)
• Corporate Traveller
• Farris Vaughan, Wills & Murphy LLP
• KPMG
• Reed Pope
• UVic
• Capital Magazine
• The Zone @91.3
• Grant Thornton
• AbeBooks
• BMO
• Corporate Recruiters
• Cox Taylor
• RBC
• Alacrity
• Freeman Audio Visual
• Our hard-working volunteers
• EMP Interactions
• Innovate Imageworks
• UberDave.com
• Vic42
• Annika Lavigne
• Jeremy Loveday
• Jesse Roper
• Greg Miller Photography
• Limbic Media
• The Social Media Team led by @SocialMediaSean
• Pacific School of Innovation & Inquiry
• Upstairs Cabaret
• The Duke Saloon
• Decorate Victoria (Huff ‘N Puff)
• Atomique Productions
• Four Seasons Musical Theatre
• Monk Office Interiors
• Island Print Group
• Victoria Conference Centre
• Fairmont Empress

In 2013, Brendan Iribe introduced Oculus Rift to the world via kickstarter, made virtual reality a reality and in 2014 it was purchased by Facebook for $2 billion.

This past week Microsoft announced that the Xbox One will support Xbox 360 game streaming to Windows 10… and the Oculus Rift.

But what does this all have to do with Dave Neufeld?

Dave, along with local developer Carson Book and the support of VIATEC, hosted their first Virtual Reality (VR) Meetup at Fort Tectoria on March 2nd. VR meetups are popular in Vancouver and Dave saw a gap here in Victoria.

“Since that meetup, the conversations and projects have begun to blossom. We are completing UI/UX experiments and hacking together hardware to build interesting experiments,” commented Dave. “I had a chance to try the Oculus at a friend’s house a few months back and I was blown away. I immediately purchased my own (and a laptop with enough graphics power to drive it) and started experimenting.”

Dave was inspired to build a Virtual Racing Car platform to help demonstrate what it’s like to use the Oculus Rift with Car Racing Software. It’s off to a great start and it will be available for demos next month. Or, as soon as Dave is done playing with it.

Dave is a software engineer (B.Sc. Comp. Sci. From the University Of Calgary), who has been fortunate enough to have worked with a lot of innovative companies.  When he’s not working as a Software Development Manager or Quality Assurance Lead, he’s building projects like this in his home workshop.

“Victoria is a fantastic city (I spent most of my life in Calgary, just for context). The weather is amazing and the local tech community is great. Having a chance to use the Fort Tectoria space during my last parental leave has been a real blessing.”

The next VR Meetup is in the works and details will be announced in the fall. The hope is to meet every 8 weeks and build the VR community.

“Life is short. If you have an idea that you want to try, or a technology you want to play with, give it a go. And, if you have the chance, give back to others by sharing your knowledge and skills. Oh, and have fun.”

If you are interested in joining the local Oculus Rift/ VR community, contact  oculus@daveneufeld.com

Jason Long created Engenuics 15 years ago in Calgary, without even realizing it.

Engenuics innovates custom hardware and firmware for companies all over the world and they’re based in Victoria, right beside CAMACC Systems and Schneider Electric off Keating Cross Road.

Just after the “Y2K” frenzy at the millennium mark, Jason (Founder and President of Engenuics), began trying to learn what wasn’t being taught in electrical engineering programs; the exciting, practical, hands-on stuff. He decided to start teaching for free in Calgary to peers as a way to be accountable so he couldn’t throw in the towel easily. The room started to fill up and before he knew it, 10 years had gone by.

In 2010, he officially incorporated Engenuics. In 2012 he was full time with the company and won a prestigious engineering award for his mentorship. In 2013, he moved to Victoria, found VIATEC and Engenuics became a finalist for Startup of the Year at the VIATEC Technology Awards.

“The orca we scored is hanging from the ceiling in the office,” reflected Jason. “We started to get to know the VIATEC team while working hard to build relationships with people on the island, and we were lucky enough to get a couple of nominations. Prepping for [the award] was a great experience and working with VIATEC to do the video was awesome. For a little company like Engenuics, that nomination really was significant and we were able to leverage it. It was humbling to be up there with some pretty amazing companies.”

The company has been unstoppable since. “[In 2013 we were] bursting at the seams with ideas but cautiously progressing as a bootstrapped company has to do,” explained Jason. “Now in 2015 we have an office, four employees, and some crazy good things are happening.”

L to R: Cameron Smith, Alex Koszegi, Jason Long and Emily Elias: the awesome team that is Engenuics Technologies.

The team at Engenuics supports electronic developers and hobbyists by providing excellent learning platforms and essential tools born from their own design work of embedded systems.

“We try to find a way to teach through all of the work we complete, and thus have a growing lineup of valuable training courses unlike anything that exists,” commented Jason.  “What we’re really striving towards is redefining how engineers in the industry are trained, and our very unique experience enables us to build relationships between companies, universities and students in a rather glorious win-win-win way.”

Students having fun soldering at the first MPG at UVic in 2013.

This year is looking very promising for Engenuics; they’re right at their tipping point. A few weeks ago they invited Grade 8 students to get a glimpse of Engenuics and they were all able to dive in by soldering devices, the hands-on approach Jason is so passionate about. They have also launched youth summer camps and they’ve formed a great relationship with a major electronics company (more details being announced soon). Lastly, with the success of their free program at UVic and three other schools, they’re upgrading their university program and hope to offer it to even more schools.

“I want to keep growing as a company and as an individual so that I can reach more people. I love to give stuff away, and usually it’s my wife who reminds me that a company is supposed to make money at some point. But hey, we pay our bills, and even though I make less than our co-op student and I still clean the office toilets, I have never been happier and more excited about what I do each day.”

Jason Long presents Brody Holden with the MPG bursary at the UVic wrap-up party on March 26, 2015.