Montreal Tech Watch

The MandelBrot project was 2nd when counting votes from attendees.

Can you present yourself? What is your background?

Ismail Negm: Ismail is a licensed options broker with nearly 5 years of experience in the industry, and is an experienced trading systems developer with a keen interest in risk management strategies. He is also completing the following designations: Derivatives Markets Specialist, Chartered Financial Analyst, Professional Risk Manager and Chartered Market Technician.

Julian Squires: Julian has been working professionally as a programmer for over a decade, and has been involved in the open source community for even longer. His professional interests include pure mathematics and optimizing compiler design.

Can you describe what is the MandelBrot project? How did you get the idea? What problem does it aim to solve?

The idea for the Mandelbrot project (working title) came through our dissatisfaction with standard methods of testing trading strategies, and specifically with the optimization phase of testing. It is standard to test a strategy using historical data for the security that is intended to be traded and to proceed with a walk-forward analysis using the optimized results, again on historical data. Using this standard method yields highly curve-fitted results which are not representative of the future performance of the system in live trading. Ideally, a trader would have access to an infinite amount of representative data on which the strategy can be tested, and that is what our project aims to produce.

What were your objectives regarding Blitzweekend? What did you expect from the event?

Our expectations were very slim: a suitable environment in which to work. Our objective was to build a framework for realistic synthetic data generation. To test our data, we also had to develop a simulation environment that could test various trading strategies on both historical data and our generated synthetic data. We achieved these objective using technologies that yielded performance and development time wins.

Can you talk us about your experience of Blitzweekend? any challenges? How did you overcome problems?

The Blitzweekend experience was wonderful in many respects. We achieved our goal in less time than was allotted to us. We also found that we had access to useful experts and that we were well fed and taken care of. The main challenge was breaking away from all the interesting people we met over the weekend to actually get more work done. We were not successful in overcoming that “problem”.

What is now your plans for MandelBrot?

We are continuing to develop an efficient, scalable commercial product that runs on a fractal-based data generation model.

There is a funny blog post at techvibes, which reports about a South By South West Panel entitled “Blame Canada“. It ended with:

The panel ended with a rah rah Canada sentiment - we’re a viable place to work and we’ve made several fantastic contributions to new media and technology. All in all, Canada rocks. Which, we knew.

Sounds to me like self-congratulations and self-reassuring statements.

Tripod Ventures is a new private company, with the management team made of 3 experienced entrepreneurs and executives coming from the photo industry, and they also have Vahe Kassardjian as the CTO of the new venture. Vahe K. was the founder of Integration New Media, a company specialized in multimedia products (think Macromedia Director-like products).

Tripod Ventures is neither a startup or a VC fund, as the name might suggest. It has an original business model: the partners pools money into the venture, and they then partner with experts and external consultants to build and develop products they think will be successful on the market.

One of their first announced product is for instance “Fusion”, which is presented as web platform that would allow consumers to simply upload, process, “beautify” pictures and finally order transformed products. Fusion is meant to be sold to photo retailers, as a solution for digital printing, and a unified platform that would take in charge marketing/distribution/sales.

Tripod Ventures’ partner for Fusion is Future Image, a San Mateo CA, firm specialized in consumer digital photography.

The photo industry is currently reinventing itself, giants like Fuji or Kodak are closing film production and transformation centers by dozens, and I have to say I have no idea whether this new product would be successful. I hope they’ll bring something quickly to the market and see if this fits into the digital market.

Today is the final day for any company wishing to be a mobile carrier in the next few years. Industry Canada is receiving applications, both from legacy carriers, and potential new entrants, from a pool of 105mhz.

Industry Canada suprised everyone last fall whey they announced that 40mhz of the total pool would be reserved for new carriers — read MTS AllStream, from Manitoba, and Videotron Inc., from Québec.

Concerning applications, WirelessNorth reports that MTS AllStream has placed $340 million, for the bid, enough to buy all of the 40Mhz and become then a national carrier, coast-to-coast. On the other hand, Québecor already unveiled their intentions, and announced they are ready to invest up to $500 million to build a 3G UMTS network for Québec and also extend the service to other Canadian provinces. Also expect the 3 big telcos to pour in substantial amounts of cash to prevent entry of potential new competitors.

Now, the big question is, why should you care? First, it’s well-known that data rates and cell phone plans in Canada are scandalously high and prevents mass adoption of the technology or development of third-party applications and services. For instance, fact is that Rogers is the only GSM carrier in Canada (Fido also uses GSM, but they are owned by Rogers). This monopoly drives prices up, and discourages new cell phone makers like Apple to enter the market.

In this case, Videotron already announced they will be using GSM rather than CDMA for their wireless network, and hopefully, it’s possible to envision an unlimited data plan in Canada, which will pave the way for the iPhone.

Follow further development @ wirelessnorth.

In addition to their publich launch yesterday, John Stokes also unveiled yesterday at MSU’s press conference that they also already made a first investment in a Montreal startup, Standoutjobs.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This adds up to Austin Hill’s initial funding, and iNovia Capital’s, announced earlier this year.

Congratulations to Standoutjobs and MSU!

Company: Standout Jobs, Inc.

Position: Javascript Jedi (Front-End Web Developer)

Responsibilites and Tasks:
Standout Jobs is looking for a Javascript Jedi to help us bring our Reception product to the next level.

Are you the perfect candidate to join the Standout Jobs A-Team?

Do you:

* have a great understanding of XHTML, CSS, DOM Scripting, AJAX?
* love working on user interfaces?
* understand how Flickr, BaseCamp, Gmail, and Google Maps does their magic?
* know how to work around the intricacies of cross-browser compatibility?
* have a familiarity or expertise with Prototype or Scriptaculous?
* are familiar with Ruby-on-Rails?
* or just really, really, really, want to be an expert in those subjects?

It doesn’t matter if you’re a super-senior developer with tons of expertise, or a smart, scrappy up-and-comer who can adapt and learn very quickly. If you believe in web standards, making customers happy, working with a great team, giving back to the community, and won’t crumble under pressure, we’d like to talk to you.

As our Javascript Jedi you’ll be a core contributor to the success of Standout Jobs. You’ll be building great applications and have a significant role in launching a startup company from the ground up.

Required Knoweledge:

Compensation:

Additional info:

How to apply:
Go here to apply:

http://standoutjobs.standoutjobs.com/jobs/300-javascript-jedi

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Submit a job ad

Can you present yourself? What is your background?

Alwin Tong (nick: alwinian) UI & Multimedia Design
Alwin is a freelance designer and a classically trained musician. His passions include art, music, design, and financial futures trading, in addition to web development. He has been exposed to technology since youth, growing up with a family-owned computer business. Over the past 10 years his career has enabled him to work in Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, Toronto and now Montreal where he plans to make his home and contribute his creative skills.

Gerry Briggs (nick: gbriggs12) Hardware Hacker & Quant
Gerry is an electrical engineer, mathematician and long-time electronics enthusiast. His first notable hack was a 10 watt FM broadcast station he designed and built at the age of 15 and subsequently used to operate an unlicensed radio-station for nearly a year until receiving a surprise visit from the CRTC. This inevitably led to a career with the federal government where Gerry has used his analytical expertise in spectrum regulation and geo-mapping and recognition for his work on Canada’s rural broadband strategy. Gerry has several hardware inventions at full prototype or in market test, developed using his expertise in integrated circuits, assembly and C.

Alok Mohindra (nick:alok) Entrepreneur & Innovator
Alok is an engineer and entrepreneur. Over the past decade he has held technical and management roles in industries ranging from aerospace and industrial automation to enterprise software and web-based technologies. Alok is a mechanical engineering graduate from the University of New Brunswick and holds an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business. He moved to Montreal in July 2006 and has been active in the local technology and cultural communities since. Alok lives to develop and commercialize solutions that employ emerging technologies for the betterment of mankind.

Joshua Layton (nick: josh) Tech Ops Ninja
Like SneakSend(TM) Josh is rather sneaky and chooses to use his skills in stealth mode.

Can you describe what is SneakSend? How did you get the idea? What problem does it aim to solve? a paragraph

SneakSend(TM) is a communication solution that offers users a truly private and secure channel for online correspondence pioneering a new take on a well known encryption technique called Steganography where encoded data is hidden inside of images. What makes SneakSend(TM) unique is the combination of both encryption and obfuscation solutions designed for the way people communicate online.

While multiple competing encryption solutions currently exist on the market, none offer the level of discretion and anonymity of SneakSend(TM). Our proprietary Crypto-Secure(TM) algorithm offers strong encryption combined with a high level of obfuscation along with reasonable cryptographic overhead. Crypto-Secure(TM) encodes text or binary files using standard digital images (png, bmp, jpg?) as public/private key pairs. The sender and recipient can transmit data securely over public channels by transmitting innocuous-looking images via email, instant messaging, photo-sharing, or social-networking websites. Detection is highly unlikely and decryption impossible without possession of the private key image. Public key images appear otherwise ‘normal’ with only minor distortion barely noticeable to the naked eye.

What were your objectives regarding Blitzweekend? What did you expect from the event?

Our original goal was to make something useful while we learned a new programming language (python) and to have some fun in the process. We succeeded.

Can you talk us about your experience of Blitzweekend? any challenges? How did you overcome problems?

We initially planned to develop web application to demonstrate SneakSend(TM) but that plan proved a bit ambitious in the time available. We decided instead to limit our scope and develop a working prototype of the Crypto-Secure(TM) algorithm.

What is now your objective for the project? Any plans to continue the work?

We are excited about the market potential for our technology. We are currently discussing a variety of compelling use cases and supporting business models while we continue to refine the technology. We are currently working on adding support for JPEG image keys and hope to have a web-based demo to announce soon. We’re also actively looking for a final co-founder with skills in Objective-C and an interest in iPhone application development. If that sounds like you please drop us a line.

I’ve raised the idea of having a Mobile Developer Meetup in Montreal.

If any of you is interested in developing for the iPhone SDK, or Google’s Android platform, or any other mobile device, leave a message. If we have more than 4/5 people interested, we will arrange something downtown — say next wednesday 19th around 6pm, or any other convenient day.

Things to talk about: geolocation, mobile commerce, mobile social networking, search, entertainement, web applications for mobile devices etc.

MontrealStartup launches publicly today and they present themselves as angel investors that will fund and mentor new technology entrepreneurs.

Today, John Stokes, Daniel Drouet, angel investors, and governement representatives announced officially a $3 million fund aimed at supporting startups in pre-seed and seed stage. This first fund was gathered from a joint effort from 20 successful and experienced technology entrepreneurs, matched by funds coming from Investissement Québec.

The current model behind MontrealStartup was born when John Stokes saw last year that Montréal lacked active angel investors in order to become a startup hub, à la Boston. For him, angel investors are essential in the startup “landscape”. We have of course early stage VCs like iNovia Capital, but those investors will only back companies that have an existing prototype/customer base/revenues. They also invest a substantial amount in a team, whereas many entrepreneurs need only from $50k to $250k in the eary beginning. For entrepreneurs, there is then a real gap between the idea and going to a VC.

If you are a technology entrepreneur, this can only mean good news. I have spoken to John Stokes and Daniel Drouet last week, and not only MontrealStartup will help you financially, they will also mentor, support, and help you fine-tune your business and make it venture-ready. Aspiring startups will be able to fill a quick form in MSU’s website and they assured me they will get back to you as soon as possible. If an agreement is signed, MontrealStartup will have a participation in return, from 10 to 30% of the company (more likely to be in the 10% range), depending on your targeted market and also the stage of the company.

I’ve known John and Daniel since last year, and they are one of the few who went regularly to the tech entrepreneur breakfast, to democamps and barcamps and other technology events. Congratulations, then! I am wishing them good luck in their ventures

If you think big (as in reaching people in Europe/Asia/North America), if you have a breakthrough idea, if you are in the internet, mobile, multimedia space, then go have a chat with them. Tomorrow, there is for instance a Montreal Tech Entrepreneur Breakfast, planned as usual at Bistro Etc, 1291 Mont-Royal Est, from 9am.

Arach Tchoupani to the left, Roger McFarlane on the right

Can you present yourself? What is your background?

Alexis Smirnov: Alexis Smirnov has been involved with software since the late 80ties. After studying applied maths at Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics and computer science at Université de Montréal Alexis has found his passion in creating great software people love to use. Ever since early 90ties he was instrumental in building products from the ground up such as AutoVue for Cimmetry Systems; SOFTIMAGE|XSI for Microsoft/Avid; Enterprise Privacy Manager for Zero-Knowledge Systems. His last project is a software company he co-founded in late 2003 called Pi Corporation. Pi is focused on creating better ways for people to organize, share and access their data. The company has recently been acquired by EMC.

Arach Tchoupani: Arach Tchoupani has been involved in software development since his first summer internship at Tenrox when he was only 18 years old. From the bottom up, he’s seen different angles of the craft of software development. Upon graduating as part of the first cohort of Software Engineers from École Polytechnique de Montréal, Arach looked for opportunities in web development startups. Arach joined Outbox Technology in 2006 and is proud to have contributed to the successful launch of the company’s innovative ticket selling platform. Arach is also involved in starting MontrealPython, a burgeoning community inspired by the barcamp and MontrealOnRails initiatives. MontrealPython aims to raise Python’s profile in Montreal and promote cross pollination among local software developers.

Roger McFarlane: Roger McFarlane is a versatile software developer with over eleven years of experience delivering and supporting a wide variety of products and systems. From the ground floor, he has been instrumental in the design, implementation and delivery of: Netscape/Oracle Web Calendar (years before AJAX style applications became mainstream) and PDA syncronization tools; the Freedom Network and Enterprise Privacy Manager at Zero-Knowledge Systems; networking and online services numerous titles at Ubisoft Entertainment (such as Rainbox Six 5 and Splinter Cell 4). Roger is currently at Pi Corporation developing tools and technologies to help consumers organize, share, and access their personal information across all their devices and networks. Pi was recently acquired by EMC. Roger has an M.Sc. in Computer Science from McGill University.

Can you describe what is the Noogl project? How did you get the idea? What problem does it aim to solve?

Noogl is a online service that offers a better way to do research on the Web. The idea came from the realization that people often use Web Search to create, manage and share collections of links on a particular topic. Yet, Google Search UI isn’t optimal for doing research on the web. Noogl makes online research quick and easy, putting research tools right within the context of familiar Web Search UI. Current implementation can be described as a mash-up between Google Web Search and a bookmarking service.

What were your objectives regarding Blitzweekend? What did you expect from the event?

My main objective for Blitzweekend was to explore some of the UI paradigms that would improve the user experience of online research. Clearly, this objective was surpassed and we ended up launching http://noogl.net at Blitzweekend. In addition, we had a chance to present the project to a panel of experienced judges in front of demanding audience. At the end, we were quite pleased to win the jury selection.

Can you talk us about your experience of Blitzweekend? any challenges? How did you overcome problems?

In a word, in was a blast! Starting with zero lines of code and an idea on Saturday morning and launching an online service on Sunday afternoon is indeed challenging. In my view, the biggest challenge was to carefully select the feature set of the service. One wrong prioritization decision would cost valuable time and can mean having nothing to demo at the end. Focus, clear roles and constant communication between team members were all crucial elements of success.

What is now your objective for the project? Are you looking for co-founders/investors/technology experts?

It would be fantastic to see Noogl widely used and to improve the service based on user feedback. Also in the plan is to distribute ad revenues amongst the members of the team. The project remains open for anyone interested in contributing. If you’re interested, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me or follow the progress on my weblog - http://weblog.smirnov.ca

Alexis Smirnov presents the Noogl project, which was selected by the Panel, composed of Vincent Guyaux from Embrase, Matthew Harrisson from BDO, Hang LeHong from Globalex, and Etienne Lagacé from iNovia Capital. Congratulations!