Tag Archives: Innovation

Busbud at SXSW 2013 in Austin Recap

15 Mar
SXSW

SXSW Conference Floor

Busbud was present at the South by Southwest Festival held in Austin, Texas from March 8-17th, 2013. The festival offers the unique convergence of original music, independent films, and emerging technologies.

This year, on the Interactive track, keynotes Elon Musk (Tesla Motors, Space X), Tina Roth Eisenberg (Creative Mornings) and Matthew Inman (the Oatmeal) shared the stage with hundreds of feature sessions, panels and workshops. Session topics ranged from the future of creativity, education, media, gaming and politics.

Among the more popular themes were the advent of the maker movement, including 3D printing, and the potential of Google Glass. My personal favorite sessions were with angel investor Esther Dyson, statistician Nate Silver and investor Peter Thiel.

Nate Silver session "The Signal & The Noise"

Nate Silver session “The Signal & The Noise”

I had the opportunity to attend the Harvard@SXSW meetup and catch up with all the great work that is happening at the Harvard Innovation Lab, which is helping support entrepreneurship at Harvard and in the Boston ecosystem.

I also had the chance to check out the awesome charity street hockey game featuring (non-surprisingly) lots of Canadians, including players from Hootsuite and a host of other startups.

Hoot Hockey street hockey game

Hoot Hockey street hockey game

Finally, it was great to see Quebec represent with its Planet Quebec at SXSW booth, featuring local startups like E-180 and Float 4 Interactive! Also nice to see Montreal-based analytics guru Alistair Croll presenting his brand new book on Lean Analytics and to run into Greg Isenberg from new “video concierge” startup 5by. Always great to see fellow Montrealers abroad!

Planet Quebec at SXSW - Interactive microtile screen by Float 4

Planet Quebec at SXSW – Interactive microtile screen by Float 4

See you again soon, SXSW!

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Busbud Selected for Canada’s CTA @ NYC Program!

28 Feb
New York Road Sign

Next stop: New York City!

Busbud is pleased to announce that it has been selected to participate in the Government of Canada’s CTA@NYC program in New York City, in collaboration with the Consulate General of Canada in New York.

The Canadian Technology Accelerator (CTA) Initiative aims to provide digital media entrepreneurs with access to unique resources and contacts to accelerate the growth of their start-up on a global scale.

As part of the program, Busbud CEO LP Maurice will be working from General Assembly, a startup community space in the heart of New York City, from March to June 2013.

Other participants include: Authintic (Toronto), Elevate (Toronto), Picatic (Saskatoon/Toronto), Shiny Ads (Toronto) and Viafoura (Toronto). Previously, the last companies from Quebec to participate in the program were e-commerce clothes retailer Frank & Oak and location-based marketing startup SweetIQ.

Busbud is very excited to participate in this program. In addition to being the most vibrant travel hub in the world, New York City is increasingly taking center-stage as a hot-bed for internet-based technology entrepreneurship.

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Startup Weekend Montreal 2013 Recap

11 Feb

Startup Weekend Montreal Masthead

It has been my pleasure this weekend to serve as a mentor at the 2013 edition of Startup Weekend Montreal. The event, held at the HEC Montreal business school, allows budding entrepreneurs to pitch ideas and work on startups during an exhilarating 54 hours.

Busbud is proud to help support the local entrepreneurship system and to contribute to this event. Events such as Startup Weekend help foster connections amongst members of our startup community, and hopefully give rise to innovative new products that make the world a better place.

Startup Weekend Montreal 2013 local sponsors (including Busbud!)

Startup Weekend Montreal 2013 local sponsors (including Busbud!)

The Startup Weekend organization is a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs on a mission to inspire, educate, and empower individuals, teams and communities. Participants come share ideas, form teams, and launch startups. Created in USA in 2007, there have been more than 672 events organized in more than 320 cities and 90 different countries.

The event in Montreal kicked off Friday with Pitch fire, where every entrepreneur gets 60 seconds to pitch an idea. The best ideas make it through to the next round. On Saturday, the teams brainstormed and started producing early prototypes to implement their idea, even working into the late hours of the night. On Sunday, the teams got their pitches ready for the judges. All of this happens in a fun, fast-paced environment where entrepreneurs work feverishly to get the most done before their final pitch.

The teams in action

The teams in action (source: Startup Weekend Montreal)

To get an even better feel of the event, check out the cool recap video our own Alain Wong had made for the 2012 edition:

That said, for the 2013 edition, the winning team on Sunday night was CrowdMedia, a platform allowing users to sell eye-witness photos to media outlets instantly. Congrats also to runners-up Dashbook and Smartalyzer, as well as all the teams who poured their passion into their pitches.

SW 2013 participants - the big group pic!

SW 2013 participants – the big group pic!

Thanks again to other local sponsors like Fasken Martineau, BDC, Real Ventures, iNovia Capital, SAJE, CEIM, Google Montreal, Github, Founder Fuel, Growtalks, Anges Quebec, Rho Ventures, Tandem Launch, TP1, F & Co, Execution Labs, Frank and Oak, Startup Academie and others.

A big shout out goes to amazing organizers Julie-Anne Larose, Komary Ly and Marc-Antoine Baril for investing time and energy to make this event happen for our local startup community.

Startup Weekend: you were great, see you next year!

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