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Tectorian of the Week: Eric Jordan

July 31, 2014 by Nevin Thompson

Eric Jordan is our Tectorian of the Week for August 1, 2014.

The CEO of Victoria gaming company Codename Entertainment (formerly known as DJ Arts) is an archetypal Tectoria success story:

Eric got his start in a computer lab at UVic in the mid-90’s where he helped co-found PureEdge Solutions.

By the time the home-grown software company was acquired by IBM in 2005, PureEdge had 70 employees and 5 million users.

Following the acquistion, Eric took a year off to travel the world with his family. But Eric came back to Victoria, and has been committed to making our community a better place every since.

How?

Eric helps out in a lot of ways. For example, he’s a board member of the Cool Aid Society and is the co-chair (along with Victoria mayor Dean Fortin) of the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness.

The Coalition’s mission?

By 2018, all people facing homelessness in Victoria will have access to safe, affordable, appropriate, permanent housing.

The Victoria region has built a considerable number of supportive and affordable housing units since 2008, but the Coalition estimates that at least 1,500 units of affordable housing and more than 250 supportive housing units are still needed to end homelessness in Greater Victoria.

If you want to join Eric and the Coalition on their mission to end homelessness, get involved.

In fact, Eric has always tried to help out his local community, including a decade ago when as chair of the VIATeC board of directors, he helped launch the VIATeC Food Bank Challenge.

The Food Bank Challenge has since grown into a massively successful Tectoria community campaign that has collected more than $1.5 million so far to help out the more than 20,000 individuals in Victoria who rely on a food bank each year to avoid going hungry.

More recently, after serving as president of the Premier’s Technology Council, where he had the opportunity to educate senior levels of government about the important role tech companies play in BC’s economy, Eric has returned to his roots to lead a successful high-growth company right here in Victoria.

You should know that Eric is also all about games, both online and IRL with his family and friends (a certain Tectoria blog writer has even received useful parenting tips from Eric about how to “gameify” household chores so that the kids will actually do them).

This makes him the perfect choice to lead Codename Entertainment. The growing company is part of Victoria’s booming gaming industry, and has created a ton of cool titles that gamers all over the world can play on Facebook, Kongregate, BigFish and more.

Always ready to help build community, Eric sits on the Video Game Round Table, and is organizing the Video Game Startup Boot Camp here in Victoria on October 17.

Eric is working with VIATeC and IGDA to create a structured, intensive day-long workshop to connect local Tectorian teams and individuals with industry experts to put together a business plan.

The goal? To build a video game company right here in Victoria and help this vibrant sector continue to grow.

And, of course, as a technology veteran and a member of the gaming community, Eric can be counted on to participate in events like OrcaJam and GottaCon that mix gaming, technology, and the creative industries.

That’s a lot of community involvement! Thanks, Eric!

Eric has done a lot of other cool things in his life, and we know he will continue to accomplish a lot. And we also know he’ll always be here, helping make Tectoria a true community.

Tectorian of the Week: Greg Bobolo

July 9, 2014 by Nevin Thompson

Greg Bobolo is our Tectorian of the Week for July 11th, 2014.

Greg Bobolo and the team at Tectoria’s own SendtoNews have signed an agreement for the global syndication of short videos for Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball, a deal SendtoNews estimates will bring in more than $100 million over five years.

The vast library of content generated during the 2,500-game baseball season is the “holy grail of sports video highlights,” according to Greg (think of all the baseball highlights, interviews, top plays you have ever watched on TV), and now SendtoNews has the global syndication rights “across a variety of platforms.”

The Wharf Street-based company generates revenue via the ads attached to each video. Ad revenue from the video is distributed between the rights holder, media outlets and SendtoNews.

Prior to MLB, SendtoNews had already inked deals with NASCAR, the American Hockey League, and other organizations. These sports highlights are sent to more than 1,000 newsrooms all over North America.

Not bad for a tech startup that’s just four years old.

SendtoNews is the based on the vision of Keith Wells, a veteran broadcaster and familiar local face who understood that a rapidly changing media landscape presented a lot of opportunities.

In response, Keith developed a platform that allowed non-accredited media to relay video from the 2010 Olympics to their local station.

Greg Bobolo then led an A-Team of some Tectoria’s most talented tech veterans to transform Keith’s vision into a grand-slam success story.

Before joining SendtoNews, Greg Bobolo had already founded and built two startups into multimillion-dollar operations in seven years, winning him an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Award finalist nomination at just 31 years old.

“When I was brought on to SendtoNews I saw enormous potential,” he told BIV recently, “News organizations have a huge need for sports content and are lacking in resources to purchase it. I saw a clear direction for the company and started developing partnerships.”

Greg’s hard work pounding the pavement in Los Angeles, London, New York and other global media hubs has paid off.

By the end of 2013, Victoria’s own SendtoNews was the largest provider of short-form sports video content in Canada.

“We have a digital network that sees millions and millions of viewers every month, and it’s growing steadily at about 100 per cent month-over-month,” Greg told the Globe and Mail about a year ago.

By the end of 2014, Greg is predicting there will be more than 100 million monthly viewers on the SendtoNews network in North America.

Besides Greg’s energy and drive, what sets him apart is his ability to “network at a high level” to develop the partnerships that drive SendtoNews’ success.

He estimates he’s met with over 120 sports owners, from the NHL to the NBA, preferring to go directly to the top.

Never feeling self-conscious about his Tectorian “small island in the Pacific Ocean” roots, Greg always feels confident when negotiating with a room full of Ivy League graduates, relying on “doing his homework” to secure a deal.

Greg Bobolo and the team at SendtoNews provide a lot of inspiration for fellow Tectorians trying to make it big. Congratulations on the newest major league partnership, and we’re pretty sure this is just the beginning.

Innovation Elsewhere: General Harmonics

July 9, 2014 by Tectoria

It turns out that Pied Piper, the company from television’s Silicon Valley, HBO’s satirical take on the tech industry, may actually exists in real life.

General Harmonics is a small startup from Vancouver that’s looking to revolutionize the way we stream media.

In the show Silicon Valley, Pied Piper is a fictional company that makes compression software that makes files incredibly small, allowing for faster downloads and taking up less storage.

Canada’s General Harmonics doesn’t do that – instead of compressing files down to ever smaller sizes, the company’s technology looks at media as “systems of information,” or very detailed descriptions of the parts they’re composed of.

Using their technology, a song is seen in terms of its vocals and the instruments played. The description of each of those elements takes up less space than the actual digital audio file would.

General Harmonics says it can deliver CD-quality music in one-twentieth the original file size.

The implication is companies like Spotify, Pandora, or Apple could significantly cut down on server costs — or, more likely, serve customers better for the same level of spending.

Tectorian of the Week: Carli van Maurik

July 3, 2014 by Nevin Thompson

Carli van Maurik is our Tectorian of the Week for July 4th, 2014.

Many Tectorians will recognize Carli thanks to her constant presence as a “booster” in the VIATeC Accelerator, where she mentors start-up businesses and appears as a frequent guest speaker.

Carli provides much-appreciated insights about technology start-up formation, debt and equity financing, corporate and capital structuring, corporate governance, maintenance and compliance, as well as shareholders agreements.

In short, if you’re a building a tech company in Victoria, you want someone like Carli in your corner, not only because of her knowledge and expertise, but also because Carli has been there too, trying to do something that’s never been done before in order to reach her maximum potential.

Since graduating from with a law degree from Dalhousie, Carli van Maurik has chosen to find her own path, inventing her own opportunities. Carli van Maurik could have joined one of the big law firms to toil away racking up as many billable hours as possible, but it was during one interview in Calgary when she realized she had to practice law her own way:

“The interviewer in Calgary actually talked to me about my goldfish for the entire half hour slot,” Carli says. “I spent $800 on a flight for that interview.”

So, with the goldfish triggering a certain satori, Carli ended up in Victoria, where she quickly rolled up her sleeves doing pro bono work while working for some top-notch local boutique law firms.

Now Carli van Maurik is Senior Business Solutions Lawyer at Whiteboard Law, where she works with BC tech industry champions Jim and Joan Mutter to help businesses in Victoria, Vancouver, and Kelowna grow and achieve their full potential.

They help everyone from early stage growth-oriented companies to acquisition-ready companies that are raising money and doing deals – the kind of successes the VIATeC Accelerator program is trying to foster.

Thanks, guys!

Whiteboard Law is unique in that it is a completely virtual law practice, and uses cloud-based technology that allows the team to be on the move, with full access to client files from any global location with internet access.

This is actually innovative for the legal industry, which even in 2014 still typically relies on paper-based information management – this means companies must take time out of their day to travel to a law office to review files.

Whiteboard’s online approach provides startup companies with an agile process that saves time and money – crucial in a tech scene that is always changing.

Carli’s sense of enthusiasm, and her focus on entrepreneurship and innovation make her the perfect fit for Accelerate Tectoria, and make her our Tectorian of the Week.

Owen Matthews

June 18, 2014 by Nevin Thompson

Owen Matthews is our Tectorian of the Week for June 20th.

In many ways, Owen *is* Tectoria:

Like many in our community, Owen got his start studying studying Computer Science and Psychology at the University of Victoria.

And he knows what it’s like to launch a tech startup, cross the chasm, and do what it takes to successfully commercialize a technology.

By 1998, just a few years after leaving UVic, Owen had founded software startup NewHeights in Victoria.

NewHeights allowed businesses to easily manage video conferencing, data collaboration, voice calls, and conference calls using a single interface. It’s something that we take for granted now, but just a decade ago it was revolutionary.

Owen’s company NewHeights, based right here in Victoria on Government Street helped kick off the revolution. By 2007, two years after receiving Frost & Sullivan’s Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award for enterprise applications, NewHeights was acquired by Vancouver-based CounterPath Solutions.

Owen Matthews: Tectorian

So, why is Owen Matthews our Tectorian of the Week?

Owen bought a double-decker bus and suggested branding it for Tectoria to take to events… We launched the Tectoria SpaceBus at VICfest this past weekend.

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Owen also introduced VIATeC introduced to the team that helped us find Fort Tectoria, and that same razor-sharp team is managing all the renovations and permit applications for our new home. It’s going to be an incredible leap forward in the evolution of VIATeC.

Owen has also recently launched a “mini tech-park” on Vancouver Street at Fort, just a few blocks from our own Fort Tectoria, transforming what used to be the old bottle depot at 1124 Vancouver Street into what will become the heart of the Harris Green neighbourhood.

Image Courtesy of Photographer Sama Jim Canzian

The space is home to growing tech companies like Pretio and Tutela, so, with a lot of help from Owen, there will be some critical mass turning downtown Victoria into a visible tech hub.

Helping train entrepreneurs for success in Victoria

Still based in Victoria, Owen also works with the Alacrity Foundation, which has a mandate to turn engineering and business students and recent graduates into entrepreneurs through practical business training.

The foundation has become well-known for Entrepreneurship@Alacrity and Entrepreneurship@UVic. These are training programs that teach young engineering and business graduates how to build successful technology companies.

The program is experienced-based, where graduates are assigned to projects that form the basis of a real technology product opportunity.

Tutela Technologies, recipient of the 2013 VIATeC EmergingTechnology Company of the Year Award, is an Alacrity alumni, and is a great success story of combining engineering, entrepreneurial and creative talent from UVic to create a successful addition to our booming tech sector.

Owen Matthews also acts as executive vice president of Wesley Clover, a technology investment firm that is playing a key role here in Victoria helping fledgling technology entrepreneurs commercialize technology through support of initiatives such as the Alacrity Foundation.

It can be challenging to launch a successful tech business anywhere on Earth, but partners, allies, mentors, and supports like Owen Matthews, Alacrity, and Wesley Clover are key ingredients in the secret sauce that makes a vibrant technology community like Tectoria.

And then there is Owen Matthews’ community involvement.

Owen is passionately committed to the development and growth of Canadian athletes and youth development. He was the co-chair of the Advancement Committee for Canadian Sport Centre Pacific Institute, a $28 million dollar training facility for high performance athletes. He is also active on the board of advisors for the Business school at University of Victoria and Power to Be, a charity founded to enrich the health, education and quality of life for vulnerable youth.

So thanks for your hard work Owen… and we look forward to seeing you at the VIATeC Awards tonight.

Tectorian of the Week – Christina Seargeant, MediaCore

April 30, 2014 by Nevin Thompson

The Tectorian of the Week for May 2 is MediaCore’s Christina Seargeant.

Like that old Molson commercial, Christina Seargeant IS Tectoria. We see her everywhere, and we mean anywhere there is a tech-related event in Victoria, or a Victoria-related event somewhere else.

Other tech companies in Victoria have an open house, Christina is there. Rifflandia? Christina hung out at the Tectoria tent a while. It was the same with Rock the Shores, VIATeC networking events… she’s there.

But what really blew us away: VIATeC rents a house in Austin, Texas for our fellow Tectorians to enjoy SXSW:

Christina is there, representing Tectoria!

In short, Christina is an engaged, friendly member of the evolving Tectorian community.

And she also demonstrates some of the awesome, latent creativity that is turning Victoria into a cultural hub.

After she punches out each evening as operations manager at MediaCore, Christina turns her attention to her other project, csnaps photography, specializing in portraits and events. Her Instagram feed is really fun, especially if you like dogs.

Christina also works hard to organize the annual TC10K road race in Victoria, BC, and she has managed Guitar Hero championship for the extremely cool Video Games Live.

So Christina IS Tectoria.

If you see her around town, make sure to say hi, and then join in whatever fun thing she is doing to help grow our community.

Tectorian of the Week: TinyMob Games

April 11, 2014 by Nevin Thompson

Our Tectorian of the Week for April 11 is TinyMob Games. …You may have heard of them in Tech Cruch.

TinyMob unveiled their first game earlier today at the massive PAX East Boston gaming conference. It’s hard to believe TinyMob, led by Tectorians Chris Hoefgen, Alex Mendelev and Jamie Toghill, opened their studio last fall, just a few months ago.

Besides getting critical home-town recognition in a glowing Times Colonist article today, TinyMob and its new game is also the subject of a longer Tech Crunch profile published just this morning.

Tiny Realms, a Unity-based real-time strategy game for iPad and iPhone, looks like it’s going to be awesome, and it’s very cool that a Victoria-based company is creating eye candy that appeals to millions of gamers around the world.

The game lets you build worlds, assemble armies, wage wars, and build empires.

Tiny Realms is also generating a lot of exciting in a mobile games industry always seeking innovative ways to remain competitive and profitable.

“We have content and features planned out for the next 12 months post launch that not only add content, but will also expose more of the underlying mythology we’ve created for our world,” Mendelev says in the Tech Crunch interview. “The way we bring this to life is through player events actually having an impact on the fabric of the Tiny Realms universe. Player actions will leave indelible marks on the game we’ve created that other players will get to experience, too.”

The team unveiled the name, images and a trailer of game play at the PAX East Boston gaming conference. The finished product will be released later this spring.

Innovation Right Here: Andrew Wilkinson

April 11, 2014 by Tectoria

We want to acknowledge the hard work of Andrew Wilkinson, MLA for Vancouver-Quilchena and the provincial minister responsible for growing BC’s technology industry.

Since becoming BC’s Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services about a year ago, Andrew has proven himself to be a champion for tech entrepreneurs and tech companies in Greater Victoria and the rest of the province.

In short, Andrew is helping grow and celebrate the success of innovation, right here in Victoria and every corner of BC.

We Tectorians think he deserves some recognition!

First, some background…

The other day, Dan Gunn, Rob Bennett, and Accelerate Tectoria’s very own Crowd Content attended Cascadia Startup Day in Vancouver. The event is organized by BC’s leading technology incubators, including Wavefront, one of Accelerate Tectoria’s partners in the BC Acceleration Network.

The BC Acceleration Network itself is funded and supported by our friends at BC Innovation Council, which itself works closely with Andrew Wilkinson in his role as the provincial minister responsible for growing BC’s tech sector.

So, Cascadia Startup Day features a high-energy pitch competition that connects tech entrepreneurs across the Cascadia region with investors, media, and industry professionals.

Dan, Rob, and Crowd Content worked hard all day to mingle, network, and spread the word about Crowd Content, and… it worked!

After a few hours, Crowd Content was selected from between 25 other start-ups to be among 5 “finalists” to give a public pitch to 500+ attendees. By the end of the afternoon Crowd Content was already talking with potential new customers.

While the Tectoria team was working the room, Andrew Wilkinson actually came looking for the VIATeC contingent, hoping to catch up with what’s happening in Victoria tech scene.

Government ministers are typically busy (and popular) people at events like Cascadia Startup Day, so it was really notable that Andrew was able to make time for Victoria’s tech community.

Then, when it was time for his presentation about BC’s booming technology industry, Andrew began by acknowledging the hard work of organizations like VIATeC and Kelowna’s Accelerate Okanagan in growing BC’s regional tech sector.

Andrew gave some highlights of a recent BC Stats report about the explosive growth of the tech sector in every corner of BC. Read the report here.

It’s great to be remembered and acknowledged, especially when there is so much good news already coming out of Andrew’s home turf of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland.

It can be hard to keep up, but Andrew Wilkinson has consistently championed tech companies in every corner of the province.

Building a strong, vibrant tech sector that creates plenty of high-paying jobs is truly a team effort, and we want to give a shout out to Minister Andrew Wilkinson, thanking him for his hard work!