But alas, here we are at the beginning of May, and that same energy has flowed out of the building, into the community and has created brand-spanking-new startups.

If you are yearning for a shot of that Startup Weekend spirit, we have just the thing for you. This amazing video documents the weekend beautifully and is guaranteed to bring about an outbreak of Startup Weekend fever!

Thanks so much to everyone that participated and to our sponsors: you made it all possible!

FYI, our next big tech gathering is less than a month away. “Spring into Summer” is happening on June 1st at a spectacular lakeshore venue in Kelowna – tickets now on sale

What a weekend! Without a doubt, the first Okanagan Startup Weekend was a huge success!

Many, many thanks to the attendees, sponsors, mentors, organizers, judges and community for helping make Okanagan Startup Weekend such a phemonal success!

Break Down Of The Event

Metrics: 70 attendees, 16 sponsors, 11 mentors and judges, 24 ideas pitched, 10 teams formed, over 1000 lines of code in 21 different languages, 0 Nerf gun fatalities, and countless cups of coffee.

Winners:

• Congrats to SquadShout for winning box seats to a Kelowna Rockets game, and enrollment in Accelerate Okanagan’s metorship program.
• Congrats to Beauty Booker for winning enrollment in Accelerate Okanagan’s mentorship program.
• Congrats to UChangeIt for winning a Startup Entourage’ pass to Metabridge’s retreat.
• Congrats to Momento Locket for winning the “Best Pivot” award.
• Congrats to SeshWars for winning honorable mention.

Stay Connected With #SWOkanagan

• Follow Digital Okangan on Twitter.
• Join Digital Okanagan on Facebook.
• Connect with Digital Okanagan on LinkedIn.
• Upload your photos to Flickr and tag them with #SWOkanagan and #startupweekend.
• Follow the #SWOkanagan hashtag on twitter.

Reflections & Suggestions

This was the first Startup Weekend in the Okanagan. And what an amazing weekend it was!  There has never been an event quite like this before in Kelowna and the quality of the ideas, the pedigree of the people, the professionalism of the Sunday pitches and the energy in the room all surpassed last our wildest expectations. The organizing team came through in big ways, the mentors were all inspiring and the food was delicious. We can’t thank our organizing team members, attendees, speakers, sponsors and other VIPs enough!

Yet there’s always a few things we can improve – and that’s where we need your help! Please send me your suggestions, big or small, on ways we can make the next Okanagan Startup Weekend experience better for YOU.

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.

Our Thank Yous

Organizers: Shane Austin, Daryl Chymko, Cynthia Gunsinger, Mica Knibbs, Brent Lachman, Kazia Mullin, Richard Taylor and Fiona Campbell.

Sponsors: Accelerate Okanagan, BCIC, entrepreneurship@UBC, New Monaco Enterprise Corp, The Universtity of British Columbia, rtStrategy, Metabridge, Big Surf Beer, Canhost, GitHub, Zoho.com, Springloops, Dropbox, Nerds On Site, Contractually, Kashoo, Dunnenzies Pizza Co., and Kauffman Foundation.

Facilitator: Joey Aquino

Mentors & Judges: Derek Gratz, Ed Alfke, Anuj Singhal, Jeff Keen, Raghwa Gopal, John Drope, Peter Ranson, Chris Curtola, David Mayes, Steve Wandler, John Matechuk

What Else You Should Checkout In The Okanagan

• OKDG meetups
• Lean Coffee
• 2nd Thursday Socials
• Geek Beers

That’s it! If you had such a good time that you want to to see more events like Okanagan Startup Weekend, visit the Digital Okanagan Association website and contact us. See you at the next event!

We began our Startup Weekend Journey with over 25 pitches.  Whittled them down to 13 team finalists, and from there, through the process of elimination we start our Sunday with 10 teams getting ready to pitch.

This morning, the teams gathered to discuss their progress and to share insights into what they’d learned so far.  The top answers the team leaders gave were: flexibility, knowing their market and defining their brand.

What the teams have to show so far is amazing!  Each team has used their time to create forward thinking business ideas that have a targeted market, and seek to meet the needs of their end users in innovative and creative ways.

Squad Shout

Wesbite: SquadShout.com

Twitter: @SquadShout

Facebook: facebook.com/SquadShout

SquadShout.com is the ultimate team organization and notification system powered by an automated phone call, text, or email which also allows you to confirm your attendance.

UChangeIt

Website: uchangeit.com

Twitter: @youchangeit

UChangeIt is a smart, easy tool that uses your own compelling reasons to help you achieve your goals.

Squirrel Jar

Website: www.squirreljar.com

Twitter: @SquirrelJar

Facebook: facebook.com/SquirrelJar

A way to visually monitor how much money you have to spend each week and keep track of where you’ve spent it – we help you stay focused on your end goal and get closer to living the lifestyle you want to.

Time Badger

Website: www.timebadger.com

Twitter: @timebadge

Facebook: facebook.com/TimeBadger

Our service allows users to show their support for social causes (or brands) by adding a badge to their profile picture for a period of time.

Beauty Booker

Website: www.beautybooker.ca

Twitter: @BeautyBooker

Facebook: facebook.com/BeautyBooker

Beauty Booker’s simple promise is to connect customers to unfilled, last-minute & discounted hair & beauty appointments.

SeshWars

Website: seshwars.com

Twitter: @SeshWars

Facebook: facebook.com/SeshWars

SeshWars is a game that lets you submit videos of your skateboarding tricks (other sports coming soon) and compete with others around the world.

Memento Locket

Website: mementolocket.com

Twitter: @MementoLocket

Facebook: facebook.com/Memento-Locket

Capture all the photos of your wedding – even the candid moments you missed. We gather all the event photos and comments sent by your friends to twitter, facebook and other social media sites. All this content is presented online and can be viewed before, during and after you wedding. You can even create a book of treasured memories and have it shipped to your door.

Taste Okanagan

Website: tasteokanagan.com

Twitter: @TasteOkanagan

BookEx

Website: www.BookEx.org

Twitter: @BookExCanada

Facebook: facebook.com/bookexcanada

BookEx is a local digital marketplace that lets students compare textbook prices and cut out book retailers by selling used books to each other.
BookEx Media

Marvillas

Website: www.marvillas.com

Twitter: @marvillas1

Facebook: facebook.com/marvillas

Providing high end housing for Kelowna tourists.

Come See For Yourself!

Check out what the teams are up to online by visiting their sites and social media profiles.  And be sure to make come on to Judgement Night tonight and see the teams pitch for business domination.

Who will come out as the Okanagan Startup Weekend winner?

Our Gold Sponsors

Accelerate Okanagan – At Accelerate Okanagan, their Mission is: To increase the number of technology companies that start and grow in the Okanagan through helping to develop and support a vibrant entrepreneurial, creative and innovative technology community, and offering programs that support entrepreneurs and technology companies looking to start, accelerate and grow.

BCIC – BCIC (British Columbia Innovation Council) develops entrepreneurial talent and commercializes technology. BCIC focuses on competitively positioning British Columbia in today’s global knowledge economy in order to provide significant employment opportunities and a high standard of living for British Columbians.

entrepreneurship@UBC – entrepreneurship@UBC is a campus wide initiative formed by UBC in order to provide mentorship, course work, unique opportunities and make very early stage pre-seed investments in start-ups founded by students or recent alumni.

Our Silver Sponsors

New Monaco Enterprise Corp – New Monaco is envisioned as a ‘complete’ community built on principles of sustainability and focused around a neighourhood centre anchored by health and wellness technology employers.

The University of British Columbia – UBC is one of Canada’s leading research universities and is consistently ranked among the top 40 in the world. The university attracts 54,000 students from across Canada and 140 countries around the world to two major campuses.

rt Strategy – rt Strategy Brand Transformation Agency™ journeys with clients through left-brain & right-brain thinking to produce brands & communications that change the way people perceive and behave.

Metabridge – metabridge connects emerging Canadian technology companies to California’s Silicon Valley through a series of targeted events and an annual premier retreat.

Big Surf Beer – Looking to capture their love of riding the waves, the creators of Big Surf Beer wanted to produce a light, highly drinkable, craft brewed lager that they could enjoy after a great day of riding.

Our Contributing Sponsors

Canhost Inc. – Canhost is a hosting service provider.

Github - GitHub is the best way to collaborate with others.

Zoho.com - Zoho offers a comprehensive suite of productivity & collaboration applications.

Springloops – The web development collaboration studio.

Dropbox – Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily.

Nerds On Site – Nerds On Site help businesses utilize the technology they have and plan for future growth.

Contractually – Contracts productivity for web-savvy businesses.

Kashoo – Online accounting software aimed at helping small businesses organize and manage their finances.

Dunnenzies Pizza Co. – Try their infamous pizzas, or our traditional, or design your own.

Thank you again to all our awesome sponsors!

Here are the Okanagan Startup Weekend teams and what they are building this weekend.

Event X

An application to take the photos/tweets/social-media updates from from an event and creates a timeline that can be saved and printed as a keepsake.

Website: eventline.us

Twitter: @eventline_us

Book X Media Group

Application to help students find best price for used/new textbooks.  The app will provide a digital marketplace for students to buy and sell textbooks.

Website: bookex.org

Twitter: @BookExCanada

Smart For Love

Helping couples realize their positive potential.  An application that will help set goals for couples and work as a guide to improve their relationship.

(this is our super team with 15 people involved in its creation)

U-change

This team is building a platform to help people better achieve their goals and track their progress.

BeautyBooker

Service to sell last minute spots/appointments at hair salons and other service industries.

SquadShout

The ultimate team organization and notification system. Never miss a game or event again! You can be reminded by an automated phone call, text or email.

Website: squadshout.com

Twitter: @SquadShout

Okanagan Rentals

Website to help property holders in the Okanagan connect to tourists for short term vacation rentals

TimeBadge

Automatically put twitter badges on your twitter avatar to show support for non-profit awareness campaigns and community events eg. Cancer awareness.  Also an easy way to schedule updates to your twitter avatar during the awareness campaign.

Website: timebadger.com

Twitter: @TimeBadge

Easy Finance

A mobile application to help people set and adhere to their financial goals.

Taste Okanagan

A mobile application to help Okanagan residents and visitors plan their winery tours.  App will feature GPS navigation, reviews and ratings by friends and people you trust.

Seshwars

Real-life competition-snowboard video games, available through mobile applications and the website.

Team Renegade

An application to help companies quickly find replacement workers at the last minute.

Don’t Miss Judgement Night

So many great ideas and so much talent all in one place!  You do not want to miss Okanagan Startup Weekend‘s closing event, ‘Judgement Night’.  Join us as we discover what ideas have been developed over the weekend, see working prototypes and make your call on who will be the Okanagan’s next successful technology start-up.

Tickets are available for purchase online here: Judgement Night Party Tickets

We had 28 people come forward and pitch their startup ideas to a room of about 70 attendees.  Each person had 1 minute to outline their idea, inspire the crowd to vote their pitch as a viable startup option,  and to get entice potential team members to join them in their quest for Judgement Night Glory.

The evening saw a variety of business ideas come forward, and each pitch had to follow the Startup Weekend parameters:

• 5 – 10 sec  - Who you are
• 10 – 20 sec  - What problem will your business resolve
• 10 – 20 sec  - The solution/idea startup is built around
• 5 – 10 sec – The team needs and potential brand name

What occurred over the next half hour energized the room and had us “oo-ing” and “ah-ing” (for real) over the great insights being offered by some great minds.

The pitches included business ideas that improved goal achievement, idea exchanges, collaboration applications, business support systems; boosted WiFi, built video games out of real life skills, aggregated media, built community, connected people and collaborated data systems.

The 13 pitches that made it to the second round were an eclectic bunch, but it was clear people were gravitating to the ideas that featured creativity and collaboration over the promise of huge revenue.  People had come to Okanagan Startup Weekend to be a part of something innovative, and it showed in the projects that were chosen to move forward.

As we wrapped up Friday night, of the 13 pitches that were selected to potentially be turned into a startup, only 7 or 8 had actually found their team.  Many similar pitches decided to collaborate and form a super team.  Others attendees weren’t able to find something in the 13 surviving pitches that sparked their interest so decided to go rogue and begin the pitching and review process over again amongst themselves.

In the fresh light of Saturday morning, the Okanagan Startup Weekend teams have now solidified, many have been working into the early morning hours to make their startup viable.  This is the day that will truly test which ideas are able to move from concept to reality, and which ideas haven’t found their time yet.

As you move into prep phase, and get your game face on, you may be wondering what to expect tonight at our Kickoff tonight.

Fret no more.  We’ve got the need-to-know final details for you to make the most out of tonight:

• Doors open tonight at 5:30 at 1405 St Paul Street, the Kelowna Innovation Centre.  There will be a registration booth and lots of signage to make it easy for you to find where you’re supposed to go.
• Pizza will arrive at 6, and we will kick things off officially at 7 PM.
• As soon as our speakers are finished getting everyone familiar with Startup Weekendand getting everyone pumped, we will jump right into pitches (roughly 8:30 or sooner).

  We will explain how the pitching process works in the opening speech at 7, but here are a few key points:

  • Pitches are 60 seconds. This will be strictly enforced!.
  • You may have just one chance to pitch, depending on how many people want to pitch tonight. So – pitch your best idea first.
  • No PowerPoints will be used – just your voice

If you have any questions, send us an email  or tweet us at @SWOkanagan and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Also, don’t forget to to invite all your friends and family to the final presentations and after-party on Sunday. It’ll be a blast!

See you in 4 hours! Get pumped!

Social

Group-Kickstarter - Like Kickstarter, only for groups/ideas**. Once x number of people are ‘in’, the idea/group/project launches. e,g, “I want to start a charity/product to help people are that need xyz, who’s with me?” Uses social sharing, etc for accountability.

Open Data

CrimeMap/AmbulanceChaser - Not sure hot to monetize this one. Seattle and Nanaimo have opened up their 911 calls in their data catalog. Aside from the obvious app to make for lawyers who want to find new client at accident scenes, I think something cool could be done with this. Analyze data over time and show safest areas?

NeighbourhoodFinder. – I’m moving to new city but don’t know where to live/work. This site will ask me a bunch of questions and then suggest some areas/jobs that I might like based on the responses. Would use Open Data Catalogs like Art locations, Firehalls, areas with the most mosquitos, spray parks, etc to make recommendations. RentGeek does a lot of this for the home portion already, not sure if they use Open Data

AdoptATree - For some reason a lot of cities have opened up their database of tree locations. I’m not sure what could be done with this. Maybe partner with the cities for an ‘adopt-a-tree’ program? Maybe use the data for the Neighbourhood finder above to find areas that are the ‘greenest’?

Twilio Apps

Crisis Connector - A platform to help crisis hot-lines utilize a distributed workforce. There would be a public 1-800 number that would automatically route to one of the volunteers based on an internal scheduling system.  Would use Twilio to ‘anonymize’ the calls and eliminate the need for a ‘call center.

Whistleblower - A site to let companies/governments setup an anonymous hotline/service for people to report infractions/concerns. Could

Local

WineKeeper  - A mobile app to help wineries manage their production & Inventory. (not sure what exists out there for this already)

EventMapper - Finding event in new places still really sucks. What about a map-based event system that scrapes events from all the various calendars and posts them in a map like padMapper?

** “borrowed” from @StartupLJackson

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

The organizing team has been hard at work getting you following awesome prizes + swag:

• $1000s of prizes in form of entrepreneurship programs and office space to be awarded by Accelerate Okanagan & BCIC
• Free subscriptions to Kashoo & Contractual.ly for teams to help keep financial and legal matters on track
• Free code repositories & issue tracking from Github, SpringLoops & UnFuddle
• 12 months web-based office application subscription from Zoho
• 170GB of DropBox storage
• T-shirts, stickers & other swag from Box.net, DropBox, Kendo & PhoneGap
• Free Virtual Server for the duration of the weekend for all teams + 3-36 month VPS prizes for winning teams courtesy of Canhost
• Free limited edition Startup Weekend Okangan T-shirt for each attendee
• Collapsible water bottle From Nerds On Site
• Complimentary ticket & beverage at the Startup Weekend after-party courtesy of rt Strategy & Big Surf Beer
• Tons of other awesome swag and a few other ‘surprises’ to be announced in the next week

Tickets will not be sold at the door and are close to being sold out. The only way to get a crack at all the above is to buy your ticket now!

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