Here’s hoping to a great 2008 (14)
I am not about to write a retrospective of 2007, but what I think is necessary is to thank everyone who contributed to making Montréal a vibrant tech community.
Thanks to Mehdi Akiki, Claire Bu, Mat Balez, Frank Lamontage, Scott Lake, Victoria Revay from nowpublic, Samuel Bouchard who all contributed to Montreal Tech Watch.
Thanks to Carl Mercier and Mat Balez from Karabunga for starting montrealonrails.com and create a strong Ruby on Rails community in Montréal.
Thanks to Ben Yoskovitz who organized the monthly tech breakfasts and where many bright minds met. This is probably where Montreal Tech Watch was initiated, back in February this year. Austin Hill and Patrick Lauzon brought the idea to the next level with the Founders&Funders dinner, which gathered more entrepreneurs and investors.
Thanks to everyone who went to the Montréal Tech Developers book club, especially JF Couture, Mehdi Akiki, and Fred Brunel who came on many occasions.
Thanks also to the bloggers who get the word out there, Roberto Rocha at TechnoCité, Denis Canuel at QuebecValley, the TechnoMontreal team, Tris Hussey at MapleLeaf2.0, Jonas Brandon and Jevon McDonald at startupnorth.ca, the Intruders TV, Scott Lake and Scott Annan at StartupOttawa,
Big thanks for the Blitzweekend “crew”, Denis Canuel, Raymond Luk, David Massé, Mehdi Akiki — and there is also Etienne Lagacé from iNovia Capital.
Of course, one of the big successes in Montréal were “open source” events, be it democamps, rocococamp, barcamps or facebookcamps. These wouldn’t have been possible without Fred Ngo, who first championned the idea of starting one barcamp in Montréal. They wouldn’t have been possible either without Simon Law, Evan Prodromou and Sylvain Carle.
Looking ahead, 2008 promises to be a great year. On the startup scene, we have new startups coming in early 2008 akoha, praized, standoutjobs. Embrase is starting the first ever startupcamp. Hopefully, we will also have more Founders&Funders dinners, and monthly entrepreneurs breakfasts.
On the developer scene, I hope Montreal Python will create a strong python community in Montréal. I will also be re-launching the monthly Montreal Web Developers meetups, as soon as we find a sexier name.
Montréal’s coworking space, Station C, is also opening in early 2008, thanks to the joint efforts of Patrick Tanguay and Daniel Mirault. I see Station C as a place which will support local and bright designers, developers and entrepreneurs, and hopefully will be a place of continuous innovation and collaboration.
Blitzweekend is planned for late February, and will be definetely a place where we will see a lot of innovation and get lots of projects started.
I wish many things for Montréal: that more students and universities be involved in technology and innovation, that we will have more designers, and we will have more deals and more projects starting. For everyone, I wish you success and luck.
I am sure 2008 will be a great year for everyone of us.
We have to sustain the pace and take it to the next level. Can’t wait to see where the other startups will go. Great write up Heri!
Thanks Heri for maintaining this website which is perfect to keep all of us “connected”
Oh, and a happy new year!
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