Comments on: New Emerging Technology Organization in Toronto

By: scott brooks

scott brooks — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 14:19:38 +0000

There is something happening now….if you look at the different meetups and this-n-that camps. People are grabbing at the opportunities. I could see something like this working and attracting people from outside the GTA.

I think that anything that helps grow the community and the awareness of the world is great. There is no reason that Toronto can support activities of the sdforum.

I know that you could count on me making the drive in for events.

Let us know how we can help …

cheers

scott

By: Jay Goldman

Jay Goldman — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 21:06:45 +0000

We are, as always, in. I think this is a great idea (that got floated at the recent ICT Toronto/Barcamp meeting) and we should move on it before we lose the momentum. I even liked the name Tech T.O. that was floated at the meeting.

So, now what?

By: Rohan Jayasekera

Rohan Jayasekera — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 20:22:35 +0000

I believe there's a lot of latent demand for such an organization. People have been making do with other groups and I think can be attracted to a new one if there's enough oomph behind it: publicity and statements of support by those with profile (both individuals and organizations), as well as volunteer and financial strength.

I don't think most government programs would be suitable because the application/decision process usually takes a long time and the result is unpredictable. That's not to say that there is no appropriate program; I don't know.

As for MaRS, I doubt that we could count on their hosting unless the organization were part of MaRS. That is one option: to ask MaRS whether they would be able and willing to take on such an initiative themselves (with help of course). This would however mean that MaRS's stakeholders would be in charge, a very different situation from TorCamp and Innovation Commons.

By: Trevor Stafford

Trevor Stafford — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 01:29:57 +0000

I couldn’t agree more. Two excellent templates exist in the Waterloo region. Watstart (www.watstart.com) and its sister site Communitech (www.communitech.ca)

Toronto needs to emulate these sophisticated but remarkably grassroots kind of organizations. They are kicking our ass. No, worse. They are shaming our ass.

As an example, Entrepreneur week (http://www.entrepreneurweek.ca/section/view/) features 40+ speakers and multiple events spread across five days. Where is Toronto’s version?

My .02

By: Jevon

Jevon — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 21:50:00 +0000

Put together a small Council, incorporate as a non profit (if you have to… ?) and go to Government, Private Equity and successful TO tech companies and show them your track record with this stuff.

If they don’t understand that this is all a good thing (what has been happning here) and that if it really gets going, it will mean more opportunity for everyone, then they just really aren’t smart people.

It’s not a government program—they would kill it.

Nobody in particular is the host. Ideally, you will have venues competing to get these events.

By: Martin Hofmann

Martin Hofmann — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 21:10:57 +0000

If you are looking at including venture capitalists, you could consider approaching the Canadian Venture Capital Association or the Toronto Venture Group