Tag: events

Edmonton Notes for June 11, 2017

I’ve been in Seattle on vacation with Sharon for the last week! I’m still here actually, attending a Microsoft conference for the next couple of days. It was a nice break from the computer, but I’m ready to get back down to business.

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Headlines

2017 Edmonton Pride Parade 50133
Councillor Scott McKeen and Premier Rachel Notley, photo by Premier of Alberta

Upcoming Events

  • Indulgence is taking place on Monday evening at the Delta Edmonton South.
  • Improvaganza kicks off on Wednesday!
  • The City is holding an open house on Thursday to discuss a proposed rezoning in Jasper Park that would allow for the development of up to nine row housing units.
  • City Hall School’s annual Citizenship Fair takes place on Friday afternoon at City Hall.
  • WWE Live returns to Edmonton on Friday at Northlands Coliseum.
  • The Africa Centre is hosting its 2017 Africa Day Gala at the Shaw Conference Centre on Saturday.
  • Head over to 104 Street on Saturday for the Mercer Summer Super Party or to Highlands for the Highlandia Festival.
  • ZooFest takes place at the Edmonton Valley Zoo on Saturday evening to raise funds for the Valley Zoo Development Society and the Zebra Child Protection Centre.
  • We are having our first Taproot Edmonton event on June 21 discussing a couple of exciting urban planning ideas! It’ll be kind of like doing one of our stories, but live. We hope you can join us!
  • Be sure to check out Taproot Edmonton’s guide to summer festivals & events for more upcoming events!
  • The City has released some details for this year’s Canada Day celebrations. “It is anticipated that 300,000 people will attend the celebrations throughout the day.”
  • For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.

2017_06_10PrideParade (73)
Mayor Don Iveson, photo by Don Voaklander

Edmonton Notes for May 28, 2017

I can’t believe it’s nearly June, but I am enjoying how green everything has become around the city! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Headlines

  • Fifteen regional municipalities have voted to create a new entity “to promote the Edmonton Metropolitan Region to the world.” The budget for the first year will be $1 million and an organizational meeting is slated for June 8.
  • The City has mailed your annual property tax notice. All taxes are due by June 30, 2017. “This year, a typical single-family home, assessed at $397,000, will pay $3,378 in property taxes.”
  • If you missed Mayor Don Iveson’s State of the City address, you can read his remarks in PDF here. He officially announced he will seek re-election as mayor in the municipal election in October. “Edmonton is on the verge of something extraordinary and I’m inspired by the opportunity to make change ours,” he wrote.
  • New data from Statistics Canada shows the median income plunging 15% in Calgary but surging 13% here in Edmonton to $88,900 (in 2015).
  • The latest Taproot story looks at synchronizing traffic lights and why we so often run into red after red, as drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.
  • MacEwan University president David Atkinson is stepping down in June and will take a year off before returning to teach English. “When I arrived here, there was a blue thing out on that wall that just said MacEwan and now it says MacEwan University.”
  • An interim report from the Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission proposes creating three new urban ridings (one each in Calgary and Edmonton, plus another near Cochrane) by consolidating rural ridings. “We have ridings drawn to disproportionately favour rural voters — and parties with strong rural bases,” wrote Paula Simons. Thing is, nearly 75% of Albertans now live in urban areas. The final report is expected in October.
  • Hockey Canada and the City are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding to pursue a new Hockey Centre of Excellence where Northlands Coliseum currently stands. But will it require a new building? It may be the most cost-effective option.
  • Edmonton Fire Rescue Services installed dual-sensing smoke and carbon monoxide alarms in approximately 250 homes this weekend. Last year firefighters responded to 107 fires in homes with missing or non-functioning smoke alarms.
  • Burrow Cafe in the Central LRT Station is closed for equipment repair and a rethink as business has not been as brisk as other Elm cafes. I only ever make it in the afternoon, and when it’s open, the place is usually deserted. I always thought rush hour would be busier though.
  • Sounds like the new Snow Valley Aerial Park is off to a strong start.
  • For more recent headlines, check out ShareEdmonton.

Edmonton Skyline

Upcoming Events

Lifelines
Lifelines, photo by Jeff Wallace

Edmonton Notes for May 21, 2017

Happy long weekend! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Headlines

Clouds & Cranes

Upcoming Events

Nagar Kirtan Edmonton 46831
Nagar Kirtan Edmonton, photo by Premier of Alberta

Edmonton Notes for May 14, 2017

Happy Mother’s Day! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Headlines

Edmonton at Night
Edmonton at Night, photo by Andrew Kennedy

Upcoming Events

Oiler Bronze
Oilers Bronze, photo by Jeff Wallace

Edmonton Notes for May 7, 2017

After a massive 7-1 victory tonight at Rogers Place the Oilers have forced a Game 7 against the Ducks. Exciting times!

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Headlines

Rainy Legislature Grounds

Upcoming Events

Downtown Rainbow

Recap: DemoCamp Edmonton 36

Edmonton’s 36th DemoCamp took place at the Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences (CCIS) on the University of Alberta campus tonight. Here is my recap of DemoCamp Edmonton 34 which took place in February. I missed #35 in March, but you can see the lineup here.

DemoCamp Edmonton 36

If you’re new to DemoCamp, here’s what it’s all about:

“DemoCamp 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. For presenters, it’s a great way to get feedback on what you’re building from peers and the community, all in an informal setting. Started back in 2008, DemoCamp Edmonton has steadily grown into one of the largest in the country, with over 200 people attending each event. The rules for DemoCamp are simple: 7 minutes to demo real, working products, followed by a few minutes for questions, and no slides allowed.”

In order of appearance, the demos included:

We had some really great demos, with a nice mix of apps, websites, and hardware projects. The demo gods must have been in a good mood tonight, because everything went fairly smoothly!

Blocky McBlockface is a side-project of RUN-WithIT which launched at Launch Party 7 back in October. Myrna and Grant showed us how they have used Google’s Blockly to help simplify their automation without needing to know how to code. They demoed using Selenium recorder to capture a test that could be triggered through a Blockly add-in they wrote which is a bash generator. Definitely the most nerdy demo of the evening, but interesting to see the attempt to turn programming and automation into a Lego-like experience.

Curtis and Jesse showed us MapsUp, which is “a drop in HUD for cars that requires no variation from traditional navigation workflow once setup.” It is designed to get directions from your phone to the hardware that sits on the dash which displays them off the windshield, giving you a transparent heads up display. It has the ability to automatically adjust for ambient light, so it works during the day too. Future improvements will focus on notifications and enriching what is displayed. They were inspired by an app that was doing this with the now-dead Pebble smartwatch and they built it in a 36-hour hackathon and said Bluetooth was probably the most painful hurdle to overcome. Very cool stuff.

Next, Eric and Nathan showed us Traktion, which attempts to improve the experience of both promoting and finding local live music. The site lets you browse performances, venues, artists, and more in your area but the current version is really targeted at organizers and performers. They can use the site to create attractive profiles, request and book events, and sell tickets. Traktion aims to let performers “create a profile in 30 seconds or less” by pulling in data automatically from Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, and other services. They hope to add additional APIs over time and to improve the listener experience. The backend of the site is written in C#, while the frontend is using Aurelia.

DemoCamp Edmonton 36

Bootmark is an app that aims to make it easier and richer to share your favorite locations with friends. When you make a post, you pick a specific location on the map, and then you can share a note, photo, or video. You can follow other users and they can follow you. The app is in alpha right now in TestFlight while they are working to build out the functionality further. In the demo, they dropped a pin on Hudson’s Bay and uploaded a photo of the room, illustrating that there’s no restrictions on where you are when you make a post. Interestingly they positioned this as a way to tackle privacy concerns. The app is currently on iOS and they’ve started porting it to Android. They hope to work on integrations with Foursquare, Instagram, and other services in the future.

Gordon showed us iSports Live, an iOS app that delivers highlights for your favorite professional sports to your phone. When you open the app it shows you a list of games for today. Simply choose which ones you want to be notified about, and the rest happens behind-the-scenes. The web spiders that power iSports Live (built in Python) will look for highlights and deliver them as notifications to your device. In the future, Gordon hopes to expand from general game highlights to filtering notifications for specific players. He’s also starting to take advantage of iOS 10’s richer notifications.

Ryan introduced Full Circle Visuals’ demo as something “fantastically complicated, which is why its cool”. To succeed in 360 video he told us, you need a camera that can capture very high resolution video. They have built a rig with six Sony DSLR cameras outfitted with fisheye lenses. Software then “magically” takes the six videos and stitches it into a sphere, which you can look at inside the Oculus Rift or other devices. But that’s an individual experience, so Ryan has been working on projecting the video instead, and that’s what he showed us. Five years ago this would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to get all the equipment, but thanks to Moore’s Law that has come down dramatically. Ryan predicts that in the next five years or so you’ll be able to buy a 360 projector that you can install on your ceiling specifically for 360 video. It was an impressive demo made stronger by Ryan’s clear passion and energy for immersive video!

DemoCamp Edmonton 36
Full Circle Visuals’ six camera rig

I think the Full Circle Visuals demo was my favorite tonight. It’s so great to see that we have leaders in this still emerging field of visual storytelling right here in Edmonton. I also really enjoyed seeing MapsUp and Traktion, both of which are going to face a lot of competition but are off to a solid start.

Some upcoming events to note:

If you’re interested in demoing at a future DemoCamp, you can apply here. The next event is scheduled for late summer/early fall, so enjoy the summer break and get working on some cool stuff!

See you at DemoCamp Edmonton 37!

Edmonton Notes for April 30, 2017

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Headlines

  • City Council set Edmonton’s property tax rates for 2017 to reflect a 2.8% municipal budget increase. Taking everything into account, it works out to “a 3.3% overall increase for the typical single-family home and a reduction of about 2.6% to apartment buildings” while the “average overall increase to commercial and industrial (non-residential) property is 2.9%.” Tax notices will be mailed to all property owners on May 23 with the deadline to pay being June 30.
  • Council voted 7-5 this week to approve the proposed 80-storey tower known as the Aldritt tower. Mayor Iveson voted against the project and wrote about his rationale. Councillor Walters also wrote about the decision saying the project is “out of scale with the river valley and out of sync with the Quarters’ ARP.”
  • Councillor Ed Gibbons confirmed on Wednesday that after fifteen and a half years on Council, he will not stand for re-election in October which means we have an open race in Ward 4. “I leave council, but I remain a proud Edmontonian,” Gibbons said.
  • I think as a community we messed up with the closure of Dollarama at Edmonton City Centre. Staff “received 3,000 calls from people wondering when the discount store would return,” according to a recent article. Lots of people shop there, from all walks of life, but the store is vital for those just scraping by. I’ll be very glad to see the larger store re-open.
  • A total of $241,672 was raised during this year’s DONATE A RIDE campaign. “To date, the program has distributed nearly 1.4 million transit tickets valued at more than $2.8 million.”
  • Tim submitted a FOIP request on MacEwan LRT Station and found it “was not designed or built to handle large crowds, despite being right next door to an arena and despite featuring prominently in the Ice District’s marketing campaign.”
  • The City says the last steps in the Infill Roadmap were put into action in January, so they’re looking for Edmontonians to get involved in what comes next for Evolving Infill. Mayor Iveson says “our next big challenge is to deal with the cost and availability of infill.”
  • Don Braid wrote recently that “Edmonton is crazed with excitement these days” while “Calgary is losing some of the old drive”.
  • Edmonton is among the seven finalists for a global Intelligent Community of the Year award. You can check out some highlights on the City’s Instagram account.
  • “Be a Good Fan” and “Make Good Calls” are a few of the messages the City has for fans celebration the Oilers playoff run. Remember there are parking bans and no-stopping zones in effect along Jasper Avenue and Whyte Avenue for both home and away games.
  • Spring service changes for ETS went into effect today with frequency of service “reduced for post-secondary routes, school specials and 22 bus routes.”
  • Urban Pedal Tours is a new business launching in May that will take guests on a 15-seat bicycle beer tour of downtown and Old Strathcona for $40 per seat. Cool!
  • The City of Edmonton Youth Council is now accepting applications for youth between the ages of 13 and 23 by August 31. The deadline to apply is June 4.
  • The Edmonton Arts Council is now accepting nominations for Edmonton’s seventh Poet Laureate.
  • Looking for a great place to eat duck in Edmonton while the Oilers play Anaheim? Linda has the definitive list.
  • Amazon.ca has expanded its free one-day delivery for Prime members to Edmonton and Calgary.
  • For more recent headlines, check out ShareEdmonton.

Edmonton - Oiler Country
Edmonton – Oiler Country, photo by Jeff Wallace

Upcoming Events

Edmonton Oilers 2017 Playoff Scene
Edmonton Oilers 2017 Playoff Scene, photo by IQRemix

What the Truck?! kicks off May 14, 2017

Winter hasn’t quite given up yet here in Edmonton, but hopefully it won’t be long until the trees are green, the sun is shining, and food trucks are once again a regular sight around the city! To help kick things off, we’re excited to share the details for our first What the Truck?! event of 2017:

WHAT: What the Truck?! 2017 Season Kickoff
WHEN: Sunday, May 14, 2017 from 12pm to 7pm
WHERE: Edmonton Expo Centre, Northlands (free parking!)
RSVP: On Facebook

Yes, that is Mother’s Day, so bring your Mom and enjoy some tasty food trucks! If this is your first time attending one of our events, be sure to read our tips & tricks.

We’re not quite ready to announce the lineup just yet, but there will be no shortage of options. Stay tuned to our website for the list of trucks, menus, and more in the coming days.

What the Truck?! at Northlands

It has been amazing for me personally to see the food truck scene in Edmonton grow since we held our first event way back in June 2011. Last year we worked with nearly 100 different food trucks, which is even more incredible when you consider that a number of them have closed or transitioned into brick-and-mortar restaurants over the last few years. If you’re starting a food truck and want to get involved, you can join What the Truck?! here. One of the ways we help food trucks is by connecting them with hundreds of event opportunities every year using our Book the Trucks form.

This year we’ve decided to run a few less of our own events and will instead focus primarily on promoting the trucks and other events. We are getting ready to share more on that soon.

Keep up-to-date on food trucks in Edmonton by following What the Truck?! on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And to see where the trucks are, be sure to download the Street Food App.

See you on May 14 at Northlands!

Edmonton Notes for April 23, 2017

Winter is back, but at least the Oilers are in to the second round! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Headlines

Cranes, Edmonton, Alberta
Cranes, photo by Jeff Wallace

Upcoming Events

Ford Hall at Rogers Place
Let’s go Oilers! Round 2 here we come!

Edmonton Notes for April 9, 2017

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Headlines

Ice District, Edmonton
Ice District, Edmonton, photo by Jeff Wallace

Upcoming Events

A moving and thoughtful ceremony to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge
Vimy 100 event in Churchill Square, photo by Dean Smith