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.

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.

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!

Can you present yourself? What is your background?

Tasveer Singh: I am the co founder of Resipricate with a background in computing. I started web development in 2001 along with video game development and general application development. My first e-commerce website was in 2003 and was created in PHP. This website really made me create professional web pages. I continued web development as a hobby for quite a while and followed the development of Ruby on Rails, which is what Resipricate is created with. Resipricate is my current project and I hope to fulfill it’s development and design needs by creating the newest breed of social networking possible.

Jennifer Bell: I have a background in software and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from McGill. Recently, I helped launch a local VC-backed software startup called Tungle.. Prior to that, I was part of the seed SW development team for a company that sold for $40M. I’m now on my next project.

Nicholas: I am the co founder of Resipricate with a background in Commerce. I am currently a full-time student as well as an entrepreneur. I have always been very motivated to develop a product that could have some revolutionary effect on the world.

I must say that I respect entrepreneurs and admire their courage to maximize their innovative sense. As well, the project which Tas and I had initiated since September is one that we are extremely proud of. In our pre-launch phase we have already heard a great response about our idea and we feel that our project will truly bring various benefits to society. It is our goal to promote drinking responsibly via resipricate.com and we have the revolutionary tools to educate our users and possibly reduce unnecessary fatalities. With our social networking component as well we have also made our website very fun and interactive while also being very useful (and free!). We feel proud now that we have finally found a way to enforce drinking responsibly. As previously mentioned, I am an entrepreneur conistently trying to meet the economy and market’s demands. I like to think outside of the box while also being realistic. I also must state that my partner Tasveer and I collaborated very well on this project and that it is truly a honour to work with such an expert and professional. As you can see by his splendid work experience he is very prominent in his field of specialization and once again it is an honour to have collaborated with him.

The Resipricate team is growing as we speak and we are also honoured to have such a motivated and highly-skilled team. Overall, there is a demand for our product in society and everyone can and will benefit from it. I am so excited and we are preparing our launch in
the next 2 weeks

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

Tasveer Singh: Resipricate is our idea to fill the gap in the current market. It is myself and Nick’s idea to create a new viral web site to connect many groups of people while making it fun, interactive, and viral. Through the many features that our site offers, our promotions and events, and appeal of the our industry, users will be captivated to come back for more. This will attract corporate sponsors which can only make the site even better.

Overall, I think it is a great idea and I am glad to be developing it. So far every person who has heard about the idea has found it very beneficial and that it’s very much needed. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens when we launch the website.

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

Jennifer Bell: I was looking to learn something about Ruby on Rails, and to meet programmers / entrepreneurs for potential future ventures.

Tasveer Singh: When I heard of Blitzweekend, I thought it was a great idea and told Nick that we should go. It was excellent, and in fact a bit more than what we originally expected. Our main objective was to get web developers/designers to help with the creation of the website and to work on the business side of the company by creating presentations and documentation. Fortunately, Jennifer joined our team and she was excellent at helping us with a lot of things. Together we made a great presentation and thought of a lot of functionality for the website. It was great.

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

Tasveer Singh: The business side was solved in the weekend, that that is great. The more important thing is the additional functionality which we added over the weekend. Many of these things are now officially on the Roadmap and will help the website by attracting users and sponsors.

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

We are currently looking for Ruby on Rails experts to help create the website as well as investors. If you would like to get in contact with us please send an e-mail to careers@resipricate.com or sponsors@resipricate.com respectively.

The BlitzDirectory project won the People’s choice award at Bltizweekend. Each participant to the event could vote for any project, other than the one he/she participated in.

Can you present yourself? What is your background?

Erik Wright: I’m an entrepreneur with diverse experience in the fields of software development and IT services. I operate a growing Montreal-based consultancy (Wright Technology Solutions) offering integration and software development services, especially related to Identity Management, Identity Federation, and Web Services. On the side, I am building StickyCal.com, a tool for promoting events online through social networking.

Hamish Macpherson: My name is Hamish Macpherson, and I’ve lived in the wonderful city of Montreal for the past six years. I got into web design and development not long after I moved here. Nowadays I’m a sort of designer/coder hybrid. I run my personal site at http://hami.sh and spend the rest of my time working at Radialpoint, and as a designer/coder for StickyCal.

Ivan Savov: My name is Ivan Savov and I am root. I recently graduated with a M.Sc in physics and now I am working as a freelance programmer. I am a connoisseur of the Debain GNU/Linux operating system, C, Python and SAMBA. I honestly believe that it is our duty, we the tech people, to change the world for the better by empowering and connecting people at the bottom of the pyramid. I am currently working on a distributed filesystem project.

Bassem Abi-Farah: I have 8 years of international experience, working with Siemens and Nokia Siemens Networks in,amongst others, implementing and configuring Mobile industry specific technologies like IP Multimedia Subsystems (SIP protocol) and WAP/Mobile Proxy.

My main software expertise is in UNIX/Solaris and my main hardware expertise is in Sun servers. I am interested in participating in innovative web/telecom/IT projects.

Tadatoshi Takahashi: I’m a software developer deeply into Object technology. Currently I use Ruby and Ruby on Rails. In the past, I worked on various Java projects. My awareness to the reality of software development is reflected to my solid experiences in Agile software development practices such as Test/Behaviour-Driven Development.

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

BlitzDirectory aims to eliminate the barriers to SaaS adoption facing small and medium businesses. By providing a unified experience for both administrators and users, BlitzDirectory will provide service consumers an affordable, “better-than-desktop” experience that they can setup in minutes. For SaaS vendors, BlitzDirectory is a targeted, value-added sales channel that enables them to stand out from the crowd.

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

My main motivation in bringing this project to Blitzweekend was the opportunity to get feedback from the panel of experts. At the beginning of the weekend the team decided on a use case that best reflected the value of the product. We then focused on the development work that was necessary to make that flow work.

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

Trying to develop anything in two days is ambitious. Several of the developers were working with new technology. One important open-source component was only beta quality and lacked documentation. Another was alpha and didn’t work at all! We overcame these issues by continually focusing our attention on the key message that we wanted to present at 4PM on Sunday.

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

The project received a lot of very positive feedback from the investors, the advisers, and the other participants. The next step will be to refine the idea and to reach out to the startup network here in Montreal for feedback and advice. I will also be making a related presentation at BarCampNYC3 on the weekend of March 15th. After Blitzweekend, I am more than ever convinced that this idea could be a success with the right partners behind it!

Erik Wright presents BlitzDirectory. As said earlier, BlitzDirectory won the most votes from other attendees. Congratulations!

It’s Friday and Denis Canuel gave us a treat.

GoalR project at Blitzweekend
.

Can you present yourself? What is your background?

Ian Rae - background in web performance optimization and underlying network infrastructure including architecture and operations. I’m the founder of Syntenic, a consulting and managed services company and I blog at infreemation.net

Will Stevens - is a PHP and CSS whiz, works as a LAMP coder at Syntenic, and insanely good foosball player - follow him on
www.swilled.net

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

Ian Rae: I was reading a magazine article several years ago about Google’s management practices. What stuck in my head was a sort of self-management software that prompted you Monday AM to set your objectives for the week, and then would follow up at the end of the week so that you could report your successes and …well… misses. I really liked the concept of what I’ve been calling “virtuous feedback loops” where the software is designed around both human nature and our habits to help acheive our goals.

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

Ian Rae: Primarily I was there to see what was happening in Montreal, support the community, and as an excuse to try the 37Signals “Getting Real” approach. Will has wanted to dig into Ruby on Rails and this was a great excuse for a first project. So we both had personal motives to do some work over the weekend.

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

Ian Rae: It was great, but Will did most of the work so deserves the props, especially given that it was his roommate’s 30th birthday party on Saturday night! The concept and basic ideas didn’t take much time to come up with and the ideas flowed fast and furious. The main objective I had was to protect Will from non core or “epicentric” features that were not necessary or sufficient to solve the fundamental problem: allowing me to score my ability to set a goal and delivery the goods, realistically and predictably. Mainly my role was to remove obstacles from Will’s path as he hacked and slashed his way towards a functional web application.

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

We have had some great feedback from lots of folks from different backgrounds (primarily non-tech) that they like the approach where the software prompts you to interact on a regular basis and that there is a feedback mechanism (your goal completion or “accuracy”) to improve upon.

We would like to polish it off and launch it as a free beta, and find time to develop the small teams oriented functionality that would allow it to be a sort of peer-to-peer management tool. We’ll keep you posted on our progress!!

Reverse Payment project at Blitzweekend.

1 - Can you present yourself? What is your background?

Marc-André Lamarche: My name is Marc-Andre Lamarche, I am 35 years old, pure entrepreneur, always the one coming up with the innovative simple ideas that provoke the “wow, why didn’t I think of this” reaction. From my first business I started at the age of 21, an original idea of mine (it was “private micro-radio stations” for retail surface, shopping center, grocery stores, gas stations), to this new project, I’ve always started from the bottom.

Jean-Sébastien Boulanger: Jean-Sebastien Boulanger is a software developer, computer scientist, and web technologies enthusiast. He has been engineering web-based applications since 1998 using a wide array of technologies and languages (Ruby, Java, PHP, C#, ASP, Perl). Jean-Sebastien also holds Bachelor and Master degrees in Computer Science from McGill University. In his research, he worked on technologies related to large dynamic distributed systems (MMOGs) and problems encountered in software maintenance.

Stirling Westrup: I’ve spent most of the 20+ years of my career working for startups and small businesses as a programmer and system’s architect. I was a founding partner, and eventually Director of Research and Development for Strategy First, a Montreal gaming company. I have also worked in industrial control programming, educational software, data communications, Internet client/server information systems, and most recently supercomputer file systems.

My technical interests and experience extend to real-time systems, computer graphics, image processing, simulation, modelling, heuristic programming, user interface issues and cryptography. I am a voracious reader in physics, mathematics and advanced technology, an experienced technology watcher and an Internet research specialist. Above all I like to think of myself as a dedicated student of the art and science of design and an excellent design critic.

2 - Can you describe what is the Reverse Payment project? How did you get the idea? What problem does it aim to solve?

Marc-André Lamarche: Reverse Payment is about making “The safest cash transaction on the web” without the need of a credit card or bank account link, no need to set up an account and give any information about yourself. You just have to click on “Reverse Payment”, copy the unique code generated from our data base and go to a physical location to pay it.

I had this idea back in 2003, I was involved in a multimedia/e-commerce project and I was trying to find new features to facilitate e-commerce transactions… so I wanted to add this as a new payment option and maybe make a spin off out of it… I never had the opportunity to communicate it at the time… so the idea stayed in my mind until this week-end…

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

Marc-André Lamarche: At first, to be honest, not much. A friend almost twisted my arm to bring me there, telling me I have so many great ideas and Blitzweekend could be a good “lab” and meeting place. I found the programmers on the wiki and didn’t know if they’d show up. On the business/project side, I know what it is to start from the bottom so I didn’t expected to have a business in my hand at the end of that week-end .

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

It started well, the programmers showed up Stirling Westrup & Jean-Sebastien Boulanger did a really good job. We had a “big” meeting the Saturday before they started to code, to be sure we were all on the same track and that we were covering every aspect… the chemistry was there, great team work. It was great to see the interest shown by the experts that spent hours asking us questions about what we were doing and where it can go… In fact, I never saw that kind of spontaneous “enthusiasm” around what was becoming a “must be startup” company and .. . that is the biggest problem that came out of the weekend, I don’t have the choice, “they pulled me back in”…Now I have to make it happen!

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

I forgot that at the end of my presentation last Sunday and I’m glad you asked me that question; I wanted and still want to invite anyone who has expertise, talent, network contacts and money and who thinks they can contribute to making Reverse Payment a success to contact me, you are very welcome.

Note: this post is about AST Python/Scheme, and begins a series of posts about projects developed during Blitzweekend.

Can you present yourself? What is your expertise and experience?

François Pinard: François Pinard has a background in theoretical computer science and in operational research. All along, he waved through studies and teaching, system administration, computer graphics, AI, statistics and databases, computer applications of many kinds, and various languages. He his also known for his long implication in GNU, Linux, and free software matters.

Can you present the project done during Blitzweekend? Where did the idea come form?

François Pinard: The initial project was to build, using Python, a Scheme tree for representing the syntax of any given Python program, studying then using the newer “compile” module in Python. As it worked unexpectedly well, I then extended the project into a framework by which, using Scheme, I could rebuild the Python source out of the syntax tree.

What were your expectations for the event? and objectives?

My main goal was to participate to this experiment of a Blitzweekend, and enjoy it as much as I could. My secondary goal has been to refresh my old forgotten knowledge of Scheme, starting from Python which I well know, while doing something reusable. I also tried, yet without much success, raising up a mixed team from the Python and Scheme communities.

Did you have any special challenges? How did you overcome them?

A particular challenge was to tame myself into using both a laptop and Windows, as I do not often have the opportunity of those :-). It went rather well! The method cycled between careful study, making the proper choices, and throwing correct code right on the first writing if possible, even if this meant resisting the pressure and slowing down :-)

Are you going to continue working on the project? Any plans?

I want to complete the framework to the 74 syntactic tree types, and then address the difficult problem of beautification of the generated sources. I’ll get a mixed Python/Scheme powerful pretty printer for Python sources. Then, I intend to extend the tool for exploring the generation of other languages, as a way of studying and deepening them.

Blitzweekend snapshots, continued from series 1 and series 2

Day3, 10:54am

Day3, 11am

Day 3, 10:54am,

Day 3, 10:53am, AtoB

Day 3, 1:36pm, Tikiwiki

Day3, 3:56pm, Blitzweekend

Day3, 3:56pm, Blitzweekend

Day3, 3:59pm, GoalR

Day3, 4.11pm, Presentations and audience

Day3, 4.11pm, Noogl

Day3, 4.57pm, Audience

Day3, 4.57pm, SneakSend

Day3, 5.07pm, BlitzDirectory