Tag: events

Edmonton Notes for 8/4/2013

I was in London, UK all week for work and though I didn’t plan on taking a mini-break from blogging it turned out that way. Anyway, I’m back now!

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

The Edmonton River Valley above the Royal Glenora Club #yeg
Great panorama by Dean Smith.

Here are some upcoming events:

art gallery in edmonton
Love this shot of the Art Gallery of Alberta by Leighton Ramos.

Edmonton Notes for 7/21/2013

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

K-Days Parade

Photo from the K-Days Parade by PremierofAlberta

Here are some upcoming events:

Boyle Renaissance

Boyle Renaissance, the site of our Truck Stop on Thursday evening!

Edmonton Notes for 7/14/2013

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Here are some upcoming events:

Daniel Oldaker (Dandyman)

Some of the Street Performers Festival action, photo by Connor Mah. The festival wrapped up today. Connor’s got many more photos here.

Edmonton Notes for 7/7/2013

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Downtown from the west
Downtown from the west

Here are some upcoming events:

2013 Edmonton International Street Performers Festival
A photo of the International Street Performers Festival from earlier tonight!

I can’t say that I particularly like the message “feel the pulse”, but I do generally like this video showcasing Edmonton’s downtown:

What do you think?

Edmonton Notes for 6/30/2013

Hope you have a wonderful Canada Day tomorrow! Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Midnight ride
Midnight Ride by Chris C.

Here are some upcoming events:

Sketchy
Sketchy parkade that totally has me wishing for new Matrix sequel to be shot here in Edmonton! Photo by Dave Sutherland.

Edmonton Notes for 6/23/2013

Happy Birthday Sharon!

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Don Iveson
Councillor Iveson in the media scrum after announcing his mayoral campaign, photo by Dave

Here are some upcoming events:

Edmonton a.m.
This photo was taken on the morning of June 13 by Sarah – great shot, I totally missed the fog!

AccelerateAB 2013: The Next Billion Users with Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs

In less than a month, Alberta’s tech entrepreneurs and investors will descend upon Calgary for AccelerateAB. Now in its third year, AccelerateAB is an initiative of the A100 focused on “connecting, educating and showcasing the incredible tech companies that proudly call Alberta home.” It’s not just locals you can expect to see there, but also mentors and investors from around the country and across the continent.

This event is a true melting pot that brings together Alberta’s seasoned veterans, young punks, quality mentors, whip-smart investors and keen students, all with the goal of building Alberta’s tech ecosystem. With speakers, mentors and investors jetting in from Silicon Valley and all across Canada, this isn’t just a great tech event for Alberta, it’s a great tech event. Period.

Here’s a promo video for the event:

This year’s opening keynote features Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs who will be speaking about The Next Billion Users:

The next billion users: the global opportunity of wireless. As mobile technology spreads throughout the developing world, everything we know about mobile communication, commerce and information is about to change.

I had the opportunity to talk with Gary back in April about his keynote.

Born in Toronto, Gary completed his BComm and MBA at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business throughout the 90s. Though now located in California, he does make it back to Calgary a couple of times a year. Given that AccelerateAB is taking place during the Stampede, Gary said he was looking forward to returning with his family. Beyond that, he relishes the opportunity to connect with Alberta-based entrepreneurs. “I want to bring my mistakes and lessons back to people who are working hard in Alberta,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to speak one-to-many, not just one-to-one.”

Gary has talked about the next billion users before. He spoke at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona back in February, and I encourage you to check out his blog post about the topic. “It took 22 years for the first billion users to come online, and everything changed,” Gary started. “The next two billion will come online over the next five years.” It’s that dramatic pace that has Gary most excited. “If we thought we were moving fast before, we can’t even understand this change.”

The interesting thing about the next billion users is that they aren’t tied down. “They won’t be constrained by any existing process,” Gary said. “They can start something new.” Sending money using a phone might be a shift in habit for someone from Canada used to visiting a bank, but for the next billion that will be just the way you do things. I mentioned that students in Africa often receive test scores via text message, whereas I had to wait for a piece of paper when I was in high school. Being free of the context of paper is part of what makes the coming shift so exciting to Gary. “To anyone who has never had a test score delivered via a sheet of paper, they don’t even have that in mind.”

Something that Gary has focused a lot of energy on during his time at Mozilla is privacy. “It’s a concern mostly because there’s no transparency,” he told me, which in the context of the recent NSA and PRISM news is quite accurate. The challenge around privacy in bringing the next billion users online is to enable them to have control. “Tools are being developed, and there will be ways for them to have a much better privacy experience from the start,” Gary said.

gary kovacs
Gary Kovacs at Mobile World Congress

Another topic we discussed was the open web. “It must be open and available for all to participate,” he said. “The next two billion people can’t be forced to go online in a way that advantages one commercial organization over another.” Gary mentioned the history we’ve been through with AOL, and noted that in the world of mobile today we’re forced to essentially choose one of two centrally planned economies. “One or two organizations cannot possibly keep up with the millions of requests of human innovation,” he said.

Lastly, I wanted to ask Gary what advice he’d give to startups. “Big organizations innovate at the centre of the bell curve,” he said. “Startups are magically placed to innovate at the edges.” For Gary, the next two billion people coming online is an incredible opportunity for startups. “Look beyond the boundaries of where you live,” he advised. Startups are able to have an impact in areas that simply cannot be contemplated by larger organizations. “Also think in terms of systems,” he added. “We should no longer think of mobile as a device or an app, that wave of innovation has occurred; the next wave is when anything is connected.”

Very exciting times ahead indeed! This is just a small snapshot of the things you’ll hear discussed at AccelerateAB in Calgary next month. The conference takes place on July 11, and tickets are just $30. You’ve got until July 2 to register, so get on it! You can check out the schedule here.

The other thing happening in conjunction with AccelerateAB is Alberta Tech Week. All week long there will be interesting tech events taking place, and you can submit your own if you’d like to get involved. It’s going to be a great week to connect with tech entrepreneurs from across the province!

Edmonton Notes for 6/16/2013

Happy Father’s Day!

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

Whyte Avenue
Whyte Avenue by Luc Therrien

Here are some upcoming events:

Quintessentially calm!
Quintessentially calm! by ishwar_v_h

I previously mentioned Edmonton’s 30 Most Interesting People, a Make Something Edmonton project. Well the Q&A’s are taking place this week, and somehow I’ve been nominated by more than one of you! My AMA (ask me anything) will take place on Thursday, so get the PressMoi app to participate.

Recap: Pecha Kucha Night Edmonton #16

pkn16Edmonton’s sixteenth Pecha Kucha Night was held tonight at the Citadel Theatre downtown. I did my first Pecha Kucha talk at PKN7 back in 2010 which was held in the same venue, so it was nice to be back without the nervous feeling that you get before presenting! The vast majority of the not-sold-out crowd were newcomers who had never been to Pecha Kucha before, judging by the show of hands at the start.

In case you’re not familiar with Pecha Kucha, here’s what it’s all about:

PKN features presentations on local ideas, projects and musings in the 20 slides at 20 seconds per slide format made popular by worldwide by Klein Dytham Architecture. More than 150 presentations have been given at Edmonton Pecha Kucha Nights to date on wide-ranging topics, from lighting up Edmonton’s bridges to in vitro meat and everything in between.

In order of appearance, these were the presenters at PKN16:

  1. Emerson Csorba, Make Something for Single Mothers
  2. Myles Curry, Grasscycling & Community Based Social Marketing
  3. Mark Connolly, Downtown Story
  4. Dan Jacob, The Future of Civic Engagement
  5. Andrew Whistance-Smith, What’s In a Smile?
  6. Alistair Henning & Gary Garrison, McCauley Then and Now
  7. Anna McRobbie, Open Space Technology & Unconferences
  8. Mara Erickson, Conservation Caravan: Going Beyond the BBQ
  9. Matthew Stepanic, Mythic Power
  10. Kuen Tang, The Ha Ling Project

I thought all of the presenters tonight did a great job. Everyone spoke clearly and for the most part confidently. There was a pretty good variety in terms of content too, with everything from climbing a mountain to teeth.

Pecha Kucha Night 16

Emerson kicked things off talking about SMART – Single Mothers Achieving Results Together. It’s an organization he is launching with his mother, focused on providing a space for single moms to learn from, collaborate with, and support one another. Next up was Myles from the City of Edmonton who told us all about grasscycling. During the summer, about 40% of all waste collected in Edmonton is grass. If everyone grasscycled, the emissions saved would be equivalent to taking 4,329 cars off the road. Mark from CBC used his time to talk about their new interactive web project called Downtown Story. They’ve got a collection of data and stories and invite you to take part. Dan was fourth and he talked about Urban Pulse, a new online platform for civic engagement that he’s building with Sean Healy. I liked the way he introduced it, with a story about Sean’s desire to better communicate with the City. Last up before the intermission was Andrew, who did a very entertaining talk on teeth. He connected the golden ratio and explained what we notice when looking at someone’s teeth.

Pecha Kucha Night 16

After the break, Alistair and Gary kicked things off with a talk on an upcoming book about McCauley. I’m such a sucker for local history, so I quite enjoyed hearing about some of the stories. Anna was up next to tell us about open spaces, unconferences, and Mosaic Minds. If you’ve ever been to an unconference you’ll know they don’t have an agenda, the law of two feet rules, etc. Mara was perhaps the strongest speaker of the evening, and she told us about Operation Grassland Community to the south. She encouraged everyone to ask not just where their beef comes from, but what it took to get it there. The penultimate talk was by Matthew, and I think it might have been the most powerful of the evening. He shared his story with us with a nice mix of heartfelt and funny moments. He told us that “every story has mythic power.” Our final presenter was Kuen, who shared the story of how along with the help of her co-workers she became the first quadriplegic to climb the Ha Ling mountain. It too was at times funny and at times serious, and inspirational throughout.

I think my favorite talk was Andrew’s. It was unexpected, educational, and entertaining. More than any of the others, it got people chit-chatting!

Tonight I came to the realization that I’m no longer the target audience for Pecha Kucha (and probably haven’t been for a while, honestly). I wish it could be all ideas and less promotions and launches, but I don’t think the majority feel that way. Judging by the amount of applause tonight, I think most people in attendance really enjoyed hearing about the various projects. After all, why shouldn’t it be a venue for nextgeners to learn more about what others are doing? There’s no rule that says you can’t talk about your own stuff at Pecha Kucha. I guess I just like the notion of a platform to throw out a controversial idea to get people talking, where the only benefit to the presenter is the conversation. But maybe that’s not the role of Pecha Kucha in Edmonton.

Pecha Kucha Night 16

Even though we’re halfway into the month already, Mayor Mandel was on hand tonight to proclaim June as NextGen Month. He had some really kind things to say about Edmonton’s NextGen, and said he felt confident that no matter what happens in October, nextgeners will speak their minds.

The next Pecha Kucha Night in Edmonton is actually going to be a pan-Canadian event featuring twelve speakers from across the country. The theme is downtown, and the event will take place on October 5. With an anticipated audience of 1,700, it’s going to be a big deal!  You can learn more at Designing Downtown.

Stay tuned to @EdmNextGen on Twitter for other upcoming events and have a look back at the #yegpkn hashtag for thoughts on this evening’s presentations.

Edmonton Notes for 6/9/2013

Got back to Edmonton last night and spent much of today catching up on sleep. Lots of email to get through now, so if I owe you a response it’s on the way!

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

June Morning
June Morning by Randall

Here are some upcoming events:

DSC_0593
Great shot of the Pride Parade by Bill Burris