The event is not your regular “job fair” : we want to feature on stage all the great talent out there who have passion and are looking for more than just a “9-to-5″ job, and are considering startups a great option for their career path. Too often, we focus on companies, projects and startups, and we do not focus enough on individual talent and people that makes the community what it is.

Celebrating talent

As such, we want to reach out the Montreal tech community: tell us why you are a talent. In front of a large crowd, we want programmers/designers/entrepreneurs to be proud and highlight their achievements. Did you win at a recent Startup Weekend? Is your github project forked by many others? Did you win a design award? Are you a star on Twitter? Do you want to present a weekend project you’re proud of? We want to celebrate all those small and big achievements that makes Montréal a great city for innovation and creativity.

Win the respect and admiration of peers

Since we can’t get hundreds of people on stage, we’ve decided to feature only a selection. This is how it works:

1. Write about a recent project or achievement you are proud of. Don’t forget the hashtag #MTLStartupTalent so we and everyone can view it. You can also link to a website, to a video, an event, or a photo showcasing your achievement.
2. Everyone can view the #MTLStartupTalent hashtag. We will select the best according to the “RT” the tweet gets, or according to pure awesomeness of your achievements
3. We will feature 3 talents per category on stage during MTLStartupTalet: programming, design, marketing/business. Each will present himself/herself and their achievements, and win the respect and admiration of your peers.

Startup co-founders, the best hackers, investors, media are going to be at #MTLStartupTalent so it’s your chance to get the admiration of your peers. Start rocking on Twitter!

Le défi Startup Weekend Montréal

Cette fin de semaine, 135 développeurs, designers et spécialistes en marketing et en administration se sont rassemblés à Startup Weekend Montréal, et ont été mis au défi de concevoir, développer et lancer une «startup». L’événement a commencé fort vendredi avec une allocution de Yona Shtern, le fondateur du site à succès BeyondTheRack.com et de François Gilbert, directeur général d’Anges Québec. « Être entrepreneur, c’est une façon de vivre, d’exprimer sa confiance en soi et ses convictions profondes » a affirmé François Gilbert. Ils ont été ensuite été invité à rejoindre dans un panel de discussions Jean-Sébastien Cournoyer, partenaire du fonds de démarrage Real Ventures et Chris Arsenault, associé directeur au fonds de capital de risque iNovia Capital.

61 idées ont été ensuite présentées par les participants, avec au final seulement 17 projets sélectionnés. Les équipes se tout de suite lancées au travail, avec pour défi la réalisation en seulement 54 heures.

Support complet de la Communauté d’affaires

Tout au long de de la fin de semaine, 54 entrepreneurs à succès, chefs d’entreprise, et experts reconnus en design, marketing, technologie et services légaux ont conseillé et supporté les équipes. Ces mentors se sont assurés qu’ils ont validé les hypothèses en parlant à des clients potentiels, les ont aidé dans leur modèle d’affaire, et ont rappelés aux équipes la nécessité d’avoir un produit fonctionnel.

Im-patient, la solution pour de meilleurs services en santé?

Les équipes ont été jugées à la fin de l’événement sur la qualité d’exécution de leur modèle d’affaires, de l’exécution, de la validation du produit auprès de la clientèle cible ainsi que sur la composition de leur équipe. Le jury composé de Senia Rapisarda (BDC), Mr. Claude Ananou (SynOpp), Mr. Johann Gest (Fasken Martineau), Mark Mcleod (Real Ventures) et Caroline Pelletier (Anges Québec) ont remis le prix du jury à l’équipe de im-patient, une application mobile qui permet à ses utilisateurs de simplifier et d’accélerer leur visite médicale. Humm.it a quant à lui, gagné le prix coup de coeur.

Des chiffres qui parlent d’eux-mêmes

En tout, 100 000 $ de prix ont été décernés, dont des forfait complets de services légaux, des services d’incubation, rencontres et coaching auprès investisseurs, services de design, et entrées dans des conférences internationales comme C2MTL ou Startup Festival. « Startup Weekend Montréal a pour la première fois rejoint d’un côté la communauté des startups de Montréal, avec des organisations comme Notman House, MontrealTechWatch ou FounderFuel, et d’un autre côté l’organisation de HEC Montréal, qui a eu un effet multiplicateur et donné naissance à un événement d’envergure.» selon Heri Rakotomalala, co-organisateur de l’événement.

Startup Weekend Montréal, c’est en tout 8 projets d’affaires dans les réseaux sociaux et jeux, 4 projets en ecommerce, 3 projets en applications mobiles et géo-localisés, 1 projet en santé, et 1 projet en publication numérique.

Startup Weekend Montréal a pour partenaires principaux HEC Montréal, Fasken Martineau, Real Ventures et la BDC, et est un événement co-organisé par la Société des Relations d’Affaires et MontrealTechWatch.

Références:

Antoine Delacressonnière (@delacrouz), one of the Montreal Startup Weekend organizer, works in the SRA office. The student association Société des Relations d’Affaires along with Montreal Tech Watch are the organizers of Startup Weekend.

Alexandre Adou (@alexandreadou) works on his iPad. A SW organizer practically works full time on the project for weeks and weeks, especially as the number of partners rise. There are always questions and requests from sponsors and mentors. Emails and phone calls come in hundreds a day, and it’s a tough challenge making sure they get all they need… and more!

Startup Weekend has many volunteers working in communications, catering, logistics, and security. Most are from the HEC Montreal business school.

Yldar, who contributes regularly to the community, with Montreal Tech Watch (read last photo series) and Notman House, was at the SW launch on friday evening.

There are also volunteers from the startup community, who come in with social media expertise to make sure Montréal Startup Weekend gets great visibility.

Antoine tells participants how the voting system works. It’s not always perfect, but after chaos comes then the teams selected for Startup WEekend.

Maxime Grandjean, is the

Alexandre “believes in his project”. Even though he was not selected by other participants, he still came back Saturday AM to work on Instabuy, the QR Code tool to buy acha

Projects gather front-end designers, developers, and a good ratio of marketers and entrepreneurs.

Here you can see a typical team: mac laptops, the odd developer, the executive, and the designer with funky colors and innovative ideas. Robotgrrl presented the Edubotts education

Olivier Cabanes, bolidea co-founder, talks with Marc-Antoine Ross, also a serial technology entrepreneur. Montréal Startup Weekend is a great opportunity for the startup community to connect with the “new generation”, i.e. students, and other people considering startups as an alternative career choice.

The Yaround team hustled their idea, with cool t-shirts and a panel.

Jim MacDannald works on a site for fantasy olympics sports.

Startup Weekend is also a great opportunity for marketers , business developers, lawyers to connect and get challenged on new ideas.

JS Cournoyer, a partner at Real Ventures, gives advice to one of the team.

Anna Goodson talks about the beginning of Anna Goodson management, to an all-girl audience. It’s an inspiring talk, and most relevant, in a community predominated by male entrepreneurs.

Robotgrrl!

Red Bull comes in with the music

Marketing brainstorming. The team does the Innovation Collective, is big on marketing and business plans.

woowoo ho Startup Weekend

Red Bull girl deliveries at Startup Weekend, to bring more energy and smiles.

This post was originally posted on Louis-Philippe Huberdeau’s blog, co-founder of new hiring startup hirevoice. It’s hot on the trails of an earlier MTW blog post

We learned a lot at CUSEC this year. However, for the first time, it was not from presentations. The first presentation I watched entirely was on Saturday, when we decided it was time to rest and enjoy.

The rest of the time, the HireVoice team (Étienne and I) were hard at work, running a survey among the attendees to figure out what motivates them to work for a company. We gathered data on an analog medium (paper), uncertain that the digital age would resist the amount of devices attempting to connect during a conference attended by 400 software engineering and computer science students. Bell’s network could not handle it. Analog was the right way to go. Compiling the data turned out to be a huge task, but we got a few interesting points out of it. We finished everything yesterday.

First off, everyone was really nice. We surveyed 109 students in two days. Almost everyone accepted. We don’t really hold grudge against the two who walked away.

Second, relocation is not really an issue. The competition for talent is global and talent is going global too. 65% of respondents are ready to relocate for a job. The good news for Montréal is that a lot of those born and raised in Montréal have a preference to stay here.

Going back to a normal life, I read a post on Montreal Tech Watch indicating that the next challenge was getting students into startups. I went back in our dataset. Here are some numbers:

• 55% of the students surveyed listed a start-up in their employers of choice (among the sponsors)
• For those indicating a desire to work in Montréal, the numbers are very close (within error range), and keep in mind that you can also get those from outside to relocate to Montréal too.

If you want to recruit top talents getting out of universities, make sure you have a killer work environment, plenty of challenge and a product or services they can be proud of.

HireVoice is a Montréal-founded start-up interested in employer and candidate perception.

Serge Landry, co-founder of Miralupa, shared with me the stats they got after they just released a new version for Chromia Wars:

- 1760 games played in the last 5 days

- 69% of new gamers vs 31% existing

- average playtime: 8mn

- 15% are finishing the game

What’s more interesting is also the sales: +22% IAP for the paid version . The MARGE platform is geared to be used by other developers, who can use those stats for better marketing, and perhaps even later use the lobby to drive even more users

What’s next? Miralupa will be launching soon an Android version, with an optimized version for the Xperia Play. Sony-Ericsson for instance is looking for Augmented Reality apps for the Xperia Play and Chromian Wars is a good candidate for their tablet.

The event is free (with free breakfast and lunch), and covers everything you need to know about mobile development on the latest smartphones: Android, NFC, HTML5 plus also Samsung technologies such as bada and SmartTV. If you are looking to connect with Samsung and do a special app for them, Samsung reps will also be there to discuss, answer questions, and also give you tips on how to get to the Samsung Apps store.

The event starts at 9AM, and has 2 tracks: one mobile track and another focused on TV. Each presentation/session lasts 30mn, and there are also many breaks to let you talk to other participants to switch tracks. The afternoon covers IceCreamSandwich, Flash on TV and more goodies. All in all, a great day to learn for mobile developers.

Register on the Wavefront website

That’s where the MTLStartupTalent initiative Feb 1st is interesting. With 4 local startups (Seevibes, Wajam, MatchFWD, Yelp Montreal), the group will be meeting directly students looking for opportunities (either first job or an internship), with around 40 students from the business school ESG and more students from AGEEI, a student association from Faculté des sciences (Computer Science).

The event is called “Démystifions les startups”, and as the name suggest, it’s an effort to dissect and promote the “startup way of life” to students who usually hear about jobs at Unilever, Desjardins, CGI who are lure them away in corporate ranks. The event is done for the community, probably organized through a couple of quick emails and done in lost hours, but the idea got nevertheless the interest of many career centers and also many students who liked the outreach. There will be probably more at ETS, Concordia, Polytechnique etc. to give a prime spotlight to Montréal startups.

For startups who missed the opportunity, there’s more: with the Centre De Gestion des Carrières, there’s an upcoming workshop on Feb 9th on teaching them how to hire an intern. It’s especially good for startups who are looking to get help for a product launch, or for the first commercialization phase. There has been questions on what’s the grants out there, and also what exactly should be in a internship offer, so here’s your chance.

RSVP http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2811185331

With the promise of launching a real startup, with a product and a business model, in a weekend competition, and at the end a selection by experienced judges, the formula has been proven multiple times in the USA, Canada, and all over the world. As a matter of fact, many newcomers who have been to other StartupWeekends in other countries have always asked why there were nothing organized in the city.

StartupWeekend Montreal has now 4 major partners: the business school HEC Montréal, the law firm Fasken Martineau, the early stage venture firm Real Ventures, and the BDC (Business Development Bank of Canada). Beyond the financial support, they are giving substantial support by also providing key mentors, event space, and of course an extensive business and executive network to make sure participants get help during and after the weekend.

Other Montreal, Toronto, and international organizations have joined in. It’s great to see schools like Dawson College, incubators from Montreal (Bolidea) and Toronto, local CLDs, SAJE, reso investissements, and of course user groups such as MontrealPython, MtlGirlGeeks or MTLStartupTalent joining in the party.

Mentors were also announced at the event yesterday: Olivier Cabanes (Bolidea), Chris Arsenault (iNovia Capital), Shawn Kernes (CTO Beyond The Rack), Mark McLeod (RealVentures / FounderFuel) and many others. Expect at least 3-4 mentors in each domain of expertise, with the majority being serial entrepreneurs, executives or expert consultants.

Follow the StartupWeekend site for more information and updates! There are still a few designers and developers available on the main site, and for those who know how the right people, there are still also a few entrepreneur tickets.

Startupifier a group dedicated to linking students with startups, has announced a new tech event, and it has the surprising name of Occupy Notman. So this is what I have in mind if you mention “Occupy” and hacking:

With the temperature and also the occupy movement looking for a place, is Notman getting involved in the occupy movement? No, it’s a hackathon! The eventbrite page is here: RSVP if you want to occupy and hack at Notman.

Here’s an interview with Marc Beaupré, startupifier member, hackathon organizer, and also Notman residant:

Q: Is the event focused on technology, or is it focused on ideas with a business model?

The event just happens to focus on technology, but that’s just because of the industry most of our members are involved in, and the ecosystem that’s around technology. We would really love non-tech ideas at the event. We have had a couple in the past, but I think the tech majority might make people that were considering other ideas shy away. So, we’ll definitely continue to explore ideas on how to improve our ability to host events which are accessible to all ideas, but right now technology is the majority of what goes on.

The second thing is that while we try to encourage students to consider working at startups and to start their own businesses, the event isn’t just for business ideas. We love to see free, open-source and charitable projects happen too. Really, the #1 thing is that people come to the event to create something. No matter what, that process of creation will teach them something and maybe help themselves or others, which is really what we’re all about.

Q: so what’s up with the occupy theme? Is it related to “camping” during the night at Notman? or it’s just for fun?

The occupy theme is just something we came up with to keep the events fresh. Everyone has heard of the real occupy this or that events, and we wanted to have some fun with it. And, it was a chance to throw a unique and interesting event. So it’s poking fun at the occupiers a little bit, but our intention is to experiment with the format of the events. We’re still a young organization, and so for now we want to work to distinguish ourselves a bit, and to find out what works and what doesn’t.

Q: What kind of people are you expecting at the event? students?

The objective of Startupifier is to connect students with startups. So we do a lot of work with student groups, either in CS departments or in the entrepreneurship area, to try to promote startups and get students involved with the community. So our big focus is trying to encourage their participation. However, we also need the tech community to be there for students to meet and interact with. So, we can’t have the events without them, and so they’re equally encouraged to come to the events. I think we just have to work harder to get students to come out, so that’s where more of our time is spent. But the event is open to anyone with an interest.

Q: Interesting in seeing so many designer tickets. Are you doing special outreach to designer groups?

Honestly, that was done without much thought. hahaha. Last time, I think that we just had one group of tickets, but it was suggested that we break it up. So, I just put out equal numbers of designers and developers. Though, we definitely expect more developers.

Q: who are the guest judges? any criteria for the winner selection?

The guest judges are actually still being worked on. It’s a bit of a slow process to contact people to come be judges because I like to wait for replies before moving on to the next person. But, what I know for sure is that they will be people from all parts of the community. Last time we had some amazing judges, all of whom are pretty active and well known in the Montreal tech community.

The criteria is always pretty loose since we never know what types of ideas will present in the event. So, we don’t take it too serious and will sometimes create categories at the last minute to recognize something special in a group that didn’t fit in to an existing category. But, generally judges look for what was accomplished, how polished it is, how innovative it is, how useful it is and how they liked the presentation.

Q: are you doing anything special for the winning team, after the event?
It’s yet to be determined whether or not there will be 1 winner, but most likely we’ll have a few winners. We do have prizes, but we’re going to hold off announcing what they are until the event. If the teams aren’t too exhausted after the event, we might go for a few beers afterwards.

That’s all folks, if you’re free in that weekend, you know what to do: RSVP