Recap: DemoCamp Edmonton 23

Edmonton’s 23rd DemoCamp took place last night at the Telus Centre on the University of Alberta campus. DemoCamp is “an event that brings together developers, creatives, entrepreneurs and investors to share what they’ve been working on and to find others in the community interested in similar topics.” You can read my recap of our last DemoCamp here. Despite the cooler weather, we had a strong turnout for both the first half (demos) and second half (beer) of the event.

We had five demos. In order of appearance:

• Shawn and Zeshan kicked things off with a demo of SelfieText. “If SnapChat and Instagram had a baby, this app would be it,” they told us. The app lets you take a photo and send it to contacts, but the unique thing is that the photo “self destructs” after 12 seconds. They’ve decided to go with the closed network approach, and though you can take a photo of anything, they found the app was popular among people taking selfies.
• Next up was Nathan, Forrest, Ben, and Donald who showed us Project Quest, a fun project management app that they built for Rails Rumble 2013. The idea is that instead of creating and working on tickets, you instead create and complete quests. Each quest also gets added to a game map. They had different types of quests too, representing by a unicorn or a yak that needs to be shaved. It looked like a really fun project to create!
• Our third demo came from Nick and Andre who showed us PinShape. Described as a cross between Pinterest and the App Store, PinShape is a community for 3D printing. Designers can use the site to share and even sell their 3D models, while the public can use it to download, buy, and print the objects that others have designed. It definitely seems like 3D printing will be rapidly moving from commercial/industrial applications to consumer ones soon, so the project seems well-timed.
• Our fourth and quickest demo of the evening came from students Grant and Motiejus who showed us SilentZone. The app runs on Android phones and allows you to have your phone switch to vibrate or silent mode automatically based on your location. There are other apps that provide similar functionality, but SilentZone is focused on having a simple user interface. They have plans to add more features though the app already seems highly useful.
• Our final demo came from Blaine who showed us DryRun. It’s a web-based tool that helps you forecast your cash flow and create different financial scenarios with a few clicks. The interface looks great and very simple-to-use. Blaine has plans to integrate it with financial services like FreshBooks, though he feels already that you can get a lot of mileage out of the app. There are tools for sharing and exporting your scenarios and projections too.

I think the crowd-pleaser was probably Project Quest, just because it was such a fun way to look at a fairly boring problem (issue/project management). Though the team had lots of ideas for new features and other things to add, there’s no word on whether they’ll pursue it further. I would say that DryRun was probably the demo that I can see being most successful. It’s polished and highly functional, and it solves a problem nicely that a lot of people have (sure you can use spreadsheets, but the possibilities with DryRun are appealing). Of course, the SilentZone guys sort of stole the show with their Q&A. It was the right mix of humor, indifference, and seriousness.

Great job to all the demoers!

Here are the upcoming events and other announcements that were highlighted at DemoCamp:

• Tonight is the Exchange.js JavaScript Meetup at Startup Edmonton.
• The next Edmonton Python Meetup takes place on Tuesday at Startup Edmonton.
• Also at Startup, the next GameCamp Edmonton Meetup takes place the following day.
• Looking a little further out, there is also the YEGRB Meetup, UX Edmonton Meetup, Google Developer Group Meetup, and Physical Computing Meetup, all taking place at Startup Edmonton.
• The week of November 18 is Global Entrepreneurship Week, and to kick things off here in Edmonton you can check out the Startup City Luncheon taking place at the Delta Centre Suite Hotel downtown.
• Later that week on November 21 is Launch Party Edmonton 4, a great opportunity to check out some new products and companies.

Keep an eye on the Startup Edmonton Meetup group for more upcoming tech events.

See you at DemoCamp Edmonton 24!