Digital Okanagan turns two this June. We started off in 2010 as the organisation that threw 2nd Thursday socials and an occassional educational seminar. 2011 kicked off with our busiest event – the January 2nd Thursday social (over 200 people packed our Jan, Feb & March 2011 socials at Urban Distilleries, Hannahs and Streaming Cafe). We then disappeared from view for a while – something that can happen with volunteer driven organizations – before exploding back at the start of 2012 with a new leadership team, merging with the OKDG crew, and by executing our most successful event to date (Startup Weekend Okanagan).

With that two year anniversary comes a time for change in leadership and I’m delighted to let you know that Daryl Chymko will be taking over the role of Association President from me effective June 1st. Please give him a warm welcome.

On that note, the board of Digital Okanagan will have a spare seat for a ‘Director at Large’. So… if you’re interested in steering this organisation and supporting a community of designers, developers & communicators who share passions for digital media, education, innovation & collaboration please get in touch.

Finally, if you’re a business owner in downtown Kelowna, please consider voting for me in the forthcoming board of directors election for the Downtown Kelowna Association – more info on my personal blog and on the DKA site.

hockey makes john a better designer!

If you couldn’t make it out on April 24th to see Shawn Talbot and John vanderWoulde speak at the last OKDG night, you missed out on some spectacular passion-sharing, story-telling and awe-inspiring design and photography!

But fear not, dear friends! While Shawn is gadabout-ing with his camera, you can check out the images he presented and if you ask nicely, perhaps the next time you see him, he will tell you the stories behind the photos.

Ever  our beloved over-achiever, John blogged about his experience presenting the concept: How Hockey Has Made Me a Better Designer, and you can check out his presentation right here:

Coming into organizing an event like Startup Weekend, we can honestly say that, for the most part, we didn’t know what exactly to expect. Because of the vibrant tech community in the Okanagan (courtesy of initiatives like OKDG, Lean Coffee, and Accelerate Okanagan’s programming), we knew that there would be a good base of people who would be on board to participate, but what happened was beyond our wildest expectations.

What we learned through the course of the weekend was eye-opening. People from across and outside of the province of British Columbia were suddenly registering. Tech and business mentors in the community threw up their hands to support the fledgling start-ups. And sponsors were just as eager as the participants to bring this event to the Okanagan Valley!

And what an event it was. Wondering what it was about or want an awesome trip down memory lane? Check out the amazing video of Startup Weekend Okanagan!

Startup Weekend Okanagan 2.0 goes live in Spring of 2013 and we are already starting to plan.  If you want to become an organizer, mentor, judge or sponsor or even have questions about participation, send us a note: we would be happy to have you on board!

March Madness shot courtesy of @dchymko https://path.com/p/21zD99

Wowee! What a night last Tuesday at OKDG. A great group of new attend-ers, mixed up with the OKDG hardcores, came out to hear a couple of speakers, drink a pint or cuppa, maybe have some dinner, and hang out.

I was lucky enough to be one of the presenters, alongside Frithjof Petscheleit, and our topics both ran with themes of customers, connection, and conversation. It was clear that it was going to be a fun night by the tone in the twitter-sphere prior to the event:

Curse you unlocked iphone near OKDG-ers!! * Sorry to disappoint anyone actually expecting jello. The Bike Shop Cafe had plenty of other snacks though!

I was up first and terribly excited to realize that Daryl would be doing an intro! Very flattering, to have the brains behind Startup Weekend Okanagan intro me! My topic,  Aftercare: of Tattoos and Tech (Interventions to Keep Your Client Relationships from Going to the Dark Side) focused on developing meaningful relationships that serve you, your business, and bring in mo’ money.

Frithjof Petscheleit and his topic, The ROI in Social Media is: Your Business Will Still Exist in 5 years cultivated great discussion about approaches to manage your reputation, both online and beyond. In his presentation, Frith mentioned this video, which is definitely an interesting watch.

In my never-to-be-humble opinion, the discussion amongst the crowd both before, during and throughout the presentations alone was worth the price of admission (free? what!?).

Look forward to what this fine community brings to the table on April 24th: OKDG nights are now running monthly on the last Tuesday of every month!

Hope to see you out at the next one!

Brilliant Speakers – March 27th 2012

If we were betting fellas we’d say that the odds are looking pretty good — OKDG is 3 for 3, with a meetup every month so far in 2012!

We have two incredible speakers lined up for March 27th.

Cynthia Gunsinger has adept “customer wrangling” magic and will entrance, empower and educate us on building healthy customer relationships, followed by Frithjof Petscheleit who will challenge us to open ourselves up to engaging our customers in conversation when the stakes are high.

Our fantastic venue, the Bike Shop Cafe and Catering Co. once again makes us feel welcome. There will be food, beverages and alcohol available throughout the evening.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Shane & Daryl

The Speakers

This past Sunday at the Kelowna Art Gallery, amidst a passionate and emotional presentation and judging ceremony, the grand finale of Startup Weekend Okanagan took place.

What started as the vision of a few Kelowna developers, became an event that will be long talked about in the Okanagan tech community. The first Startup Weekend Okanagan sold out quickly with over 70 attendees, some from as far away as Victoria, Vancouver and Edmonton, all gathering to work together to create a potential tech business within 54 hours.

“I’m absolutely blown away by the support and community response we’ve received from running Startup Weekend Okanagan. The energy, passion, enthusiasm and talent shown by the participants over the weekend was truly inspiring. People are already asking when the next event is scheduled to take place.” said Brent Lachman, a member of the Startup Weekend organizing committee and Digital Okanagan board member.

The Three Days Of Okanagan Startup

The event began Friday night with some icebreakers to get the creative ideas flowing, and culminating in 28 people coming forward individually to pitch their tech startup idea to a room full of new faces.  Each person pitching had 1 minute to outline their idea and inspire the crowd to vote for their pitch as a viable startup option that could be a viable startup business within 54 hours.

By Saturday morning, what had started as an idea had become a full-fledged startup. Teams were busily naming their new businesses, choosing domain names, flowcharting the business processes and refining their ideas. Along with the guidance and support from community mentors, the new business teams worked long into the night, building, refining and innovating.

When the Kelowna Innovation Centre opened back up to teams at 9am on Sunday people trickled in at a slower pace. People had been giving all they had to create something amazing by the end of the 54 hour event, and the learning process had been steep. However after a 10am group session, everyone returned to their projects, reengaged in getting their startup ready for the big pitch that is Startup Weekend’s wrap-up event, Judgement Night.

Judgement Night

When at last 4:30pm rolled around, team leaders headed off to the Kelowna Art Gallery to get their pitch presentations ready. At 6pm, Judgement Night began and Okanagan Startup Weekend had come to an end.

The final pitch process was a fast and furious event with each team only having 5 minutes to present their business idea to a panel of judges. Pitched business ideas included applications that helped budget, organize memories, or communicate with groups. Video games that involve real world stunts. Websites that helped with salon bookings, vacation rentals, or non-profit awareness. But in the end, of the 10 businesses pitched, only a few could come out on top.

Jeff Keen, a Startup Weekend judge, said, “It was incredible to see what can be accomplished over a 54 hour period. We were very impressed by the quality of the work, the team collaboration, the ideas created and the enthusiasm with which the event was embraced by both participants and the local community. It goes to show that innovation is alive and well in the Okanagan!”

The Standout Startup Teams

Congratulations go out to :

SquadShout.com – a team organization and notification system powered by an automated phone call, text, or email.

Beauty Booker – a site designed to connect customers with unfilled, last-minute and discounted hair and beauty appointments.

UChangeIt - a smart, easy-to-use tool that uses a person’s own compelling reasons to help them achieve their goals.

SeshWars – a game that lets you submit videos of your skateboarding tricks and compete with others around the world.

Momento Locket – A service that takes all your wedding photos and comments sent by your friends to twitter, facebook and other social media sites and even create a book.

Deven Rich, Team Leader of the first place team, Squadshout.com, said that he found the weekend to be a “rewarding experience”. According to Rich, they plan to launch a full-feature team notification system “over the next few months”.

What’s Next For Okanagan Startup Weekend

Still riding the Okanagan Stratup Weekend high? We’re inviting all the attendess, mentors and judges to a re-group on Wednesday, March 14th from 6 to 8pm at The Streaming Cafe, 596 Leon Ave, Kelowna. We hope to see you all there, and are looking forward to hearing feedback about your Startup Weekend experience.

Okanagan Startup Weekend was truly an event to remember. An enormous thank you goes out to all who were involved, sponsors, attendees, organizers, judges, mentors, and support; without them, this unique event would not have been possible.

We are already looking forward to next year’s Startup Weekend.

Main Website: okanagan.startupweekend.org

Judgement Night (Closing Presentations & Party): judgementnight.eventbrite.ca

MicroMobs (for attendees only) : Micromobs

Twitter Account: twitter.com/swokanagan

Twitter Feed: #swokanagan

Facebook: facebook.com/digitalokanagan

A quick note to let visitors to the site know that we are currently playing around with and testing some additional backend functionality for the Digital Okanagan site using BuddyPress and BBPress. You might see a couple of odd things going on while we do so. Pls ignore them while we experiment

Startup Weekend hit the news today. The following article appeared on Castanet News.

Thanks to the team over at Castanet for publishing this!

From March 2nd to the 4th, 2012 Kelowna will host its first Startup Weekend at the Kelowna Innovation Centre.
For those unfamiliar with the event, Startup Weekend is a weekend-long, hands-on experience where entrepreneurs, developers, designers, marketers, product managers, and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups.

On average, half of Startup Weekendʼs attendees have technical backgrounds while the other half have business backgrounds.

Startup Weekends are designed for entrepreneurs interested in receiving feedback on an idea, looking for a co-founder, or wanting to learn a new skill; anyone looking to test the entrepreneurial waters are also welcome.

Startup Weekend Okanagan will be a risk-free environment where everyone is expected to roll up their sleeves and dive into the exhilarating world of startups.

Beginning with open-mic pitches on Friday March 2nd, attendees bring their best ideas and inspire others to join their team. Over Saturday and Sunday teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas, and building a minimal viable product.
On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes and receive valuable feedback from a panel of experts.

Brent Lachman, one of the event’s organizers, says, “Right now there’s a strong entrepreneurial movement in the Okanaganʼs high tech sector. We feel that this budding community will benefit greatly from bringing Startup Weekend to the Valley.”

Jeff Keen, acting CEO of Startup Weekend Okanagan sponsor Accelerate Okanagan says, “AO is behind this initiative to support local technology entrepreneurs and to pursue our mission to increase the number of technology companies that start and grow in the Okanagan.”

Success stories include Foodspotting, a food finding application established during San Franciscoʼs Start Up Weekend, and the Copenhagen startup company, memolane, who recently received $2,000,000 investment.

Who knows… the next success story could come from the Okanagan.

Startup Weekend Okanagan can be found online at:
Website
Twitter
Facebook

For more information or media on Startup Weekend Okanagan, please contact us.