Teralys Capital, the new fund of funds for Quebec and Canada completed the first closing of its fund last week.

Founders & Funders is holding two networking events to welcome Mr. Jacques Bernier & congratulate him on the closing of his new fund.

On Wednesday July 22nd interested entrepreneurs, VCs and angel investors can either purchase a pair of tickets for the John Cleese gala event at the Just for Laughs festival (cost is $375 for a pair of VIP tickets) to join the welcome cocktail and attend the gala show OR there is an option to volunteer to be in the Gala event which includes no cost, but requires the volunteers to rehearse with John Cleese and the Just for Laughs staff from 1:30pm-4:30pm on Wed. July 22nd, then these volunteers will watch the show from backstage and play a small role in the 2nd half of the Gala show that evening.

Details on the July 22nd Gala Event including tickets, registration for volunteer & VIP tickets can be found here.

On Thursday July 23rd interested entrepreneurs, VCs and angell investors can purchase a pair of tickets for the Lewis Black gala event as part of the Just for Laughs festival (cost is $375 for a pair of VIP tickets).

Details on the July 23nd Gala Event including tickets, registration for volunteer & VIP tickets can be found here.

On both evenings there will be a small cocktail reception from 4:30-6:30pm where Mr. Jacques Bernier will speak about the new Teralys Capital fund.

The next edition of MTEB, a bi-monthly breakfast for tech entrepreneurs, instigated by Ben Yoskovitz from Standoutjobs, is due June 9th at Boccaccinos, 1251 McGill College.

The event is sponsored by Nestor System and Sun Microsystems. It’s a great opportunity to chat and connect with another entrepreneur, angel, or a tech professionnal. Compared to StartupDrinks for instance, you will get time to know more someone and talk longer. Plus it’s a free breakfast, which is something you cannot refuse.

RSVP on Facebook. This is needed to plan for capacity.

For those on Wordpress, there’s an upcoming camp this summer, here in Montreal. This follows the successful WordCamp Toronto.

Wordpress has had a few interesting developments lately, namely the P2 theme, which turns it into a live-blogging/micro-blogging platform (see this for instance), as well as more elaborate products such as Buddypress, which gives it social networking features.

Of note, wordcampmontreal is looking for speakers, sponsors, venues etc. (hey at least there’s a website, I’m crossing fingers that this goes through, unlike BarCamps)

First day of the Web 3.0 Conference here in New York City where the name of the game is to be the biggest possible fish in the smallest possible pond, fast.

What is Web 3.0 ? About 100 attendees are gathered here to try to hammer out a convenient definition. Web 3.0 draws inspiration from the loosely defined beginnings of Web 2.0: 2.0 is Ajax, UGC, community and syndication, with APIs, mashups, angel funding, and Hawaiian-sounding domain names. So Web 3.0 ups the ante and fully embraces a fully effervescent sense of creative confusion: it is a machine-linked web of meta-tagged content arising from specified or behavioural semantic discovery, aggregated along the lines of your interests and/or social graph structure, but with heavy iron serving middleware functions, RDF, SPARQL, and few, if any, customer-facing interfaces, which you will actively use daily, because it will replace, yet support, extend, embrace, and completely annihilate the ordered chaos that is Web 2.0. That, and it will save you money. Excited ? You should be. It will change the world. Any day now. Got it ? The gift shop of the New Yorker Hotel is, perhaps not coincidentally, running out of Tylenol.

Let’s put the random Lego blocks apart though and take a look at what we can build with them.

Problem: Humans, whether they be your consumers or employees, have a fairly limited attention span borne out of a mind that is still by and large better adapted at understanding the Serengeti than it is at dealing with rivers upon rivers of disjoint information. As consumers, people tend to do the day-long web gerbil run: Facebook, blogs, e-mail, Twitter, planners, and back to the start again for one more spin of the wheel. They try to synthesize it all but can’t, so they run around looking hard for an elusive synthesis. As employees, they also have a lot of difficulty making sense of the torrential flows of information cascading through their senses, and face tighter deadlines and concentration-busting pink slips.

Solution #1: let the machines augment what they can do and know. Invent a new query language (SPARQL), to query random databases of unstructured information (which can be RDF, records of user behaviours, interests, and relations with other users), discover the links, synthesize it all, and feed it back the human. In other words, let the machine find the dots, link the dots, and understand the dots, and give you back the general outlines and dynamic trends of the whole picture. Who buys this stuff ? Right now: traditional media, health care providers, and intelligence agencies. If your business is to build, analyze, or enrich links, go see them now.

Solution #2: let the people remain confused, but use machine synthesis to analyze the memetic dispersal of ideas along the influence lines of social graphs, so you can sell them more goodies (including migraine medication). Who buys this ? Right now, advertising networks. If your job is to discover how information flows in a way that augments returns on advertising investments, run, don’t walk, to their doors now.

Solution #3: build microsites and streams that let you distill a whole domain of knowledge for users, web readers, managers and employees. Who’s very interested ? As of a few days ago, Google. Take tomorrow’s plane to Silicon Valley.

Why the rush ?

If there is something that many attendees seem to agree on, is that Web 3.0 is a giant zero-sum game. To win it, you must capture sectorial knowledge in such a way that nobody else can draw better analysis from it than you, possibly obviating the visibility of the sites that are the very sources of your data. When you do, the barrier to entry becomes vertiginously high: with every day that passes, your data gets refined and augmented at an accelerating pace; with every day that passes, wannabes lose ground to your accelerating momentum. Soon enough, you’ll be the biggest fish in the smallest pond, leaving no space for anyone else to grow.

You may agree or disagree on this. Not that I’ll be around to persistently debate either side of the issue tonight. You see, I have this gigantic headache, and there are quite a few more days of deep confusion ahead for us all.

Deux articles bien écrits dans Le Devoir aujourd’hui: La fracture numérique, Faire d’Internet un service essentiel, via @pgmartin.

2 phrases-clés cités de ces articles:

En cinq ans, le Canada est passé du 9e au 19e rang mondial en matière de technologies de l’information et des communications

…

Après avoir bombé le torse, au milieu des années 1990 avec un réseau de transmission de données numériques à l’avant-garde et des branchements au Web dont la rapidité faisait brûler d’envie le reste de la planète, le Canada n’a désormais plus les moyens de plastronner.

Le Québec et le Canada me font beaucoup penser à la France fin des années 90. Ce pays avait misé sur le minitel, une innovation technique (et commerciale) dans les années 80; mais avec pour résultat un retard certain dans les habitudes des français sur l’Internet et les services fournis par les entreprises, par rapport au reste de l’Europe, de l’Amérique et de l’Asie.

Au Canada, la construction des infrastructures télécom semble s’être s’arrêté dans les années 90. 10 ans plus tard, on a des réseaux CDMA (qui doit faire place au GSM), de la fibre noire non utilisée (deployé par Hydro-Québec et le gouvernement du Québec en 95), et peut-être aussi des modèles d’affaires à revoir, surtout au niveau de la tarification des services.

Pour reprendre l’exemple de la France, le gouvernement français a exigé la dérégulation, forçant France Télécom à ouvrir ses accès, et favorisant l’entrée de nouvelles compagnies innovateurs. Je pense à Free, Orange et tous les opérateurs maintenant qui offrent maintenant la quadruple play (TV numérique, téléphone, Internet, cellulaire au même prix d’une connexion internet ADSL au Québec)

Les 2 articles du Devoir concluent en évoquant les conséquences. Je me dit que dans un pays où on ne voit pas toutes les possibilités de connexion, il y a forcément beaucoup moins d’idées d’innovation, on se ferme la porte à des opportunités (ou on n’est même pas au courant…).

Interesting video showing a data center in Montreal operated by iWeb

I visited 2 years ago another iWeb data center; and what a change since then.

More videos seen here.

The recent Quebec provincial budget included a range of announcements that represent the most significant set of commitments ever done by any provincial government (or to my knowledge state government) to support entrepreneurship.   To help shed some light on the announcement and what it means for Canadian entrepreneurs, I asked my partner at iNovia Capital, Chris Arsenault to write a guest post for MontrealTechWatch - Austin Hill.

Disclosure: I’m on the board of Reseau Capital, Anges Quebec and MontrealStartup some of whom stand to benefit from this issue and I was involved in consultations with the government in the establishment of these programs.

$5 billion to end up in the hands of Canadian entrepreneurs, as a result of Québec’s support of Venture Capital initiatives nothing less!

Now that the dust is starting to settle down around the recent Québec government budget announcements, the high tech community is wondering what concrete actions will come out of what is believed to be the most important “commitments” ever done by any provincial government to date towards fully supporting the build-out of the entrepreneur’s ecosystem.

I feel confident that the recent Quebec initiatives (link to budget) will ignite a flurry of positive impacts that will solidify Quebec’s entrepreneurship foundation, and that we will see numerous successful companies be launched, existing companies be financed which otherwise would not exist or would not be able to further their development because of today’s economic downturn, yet many of these companies will prove to become tomorrow’s industry leaders.

Here are some highlights from the budget:

• $825M  for the creation of a privately managed fund-of-funds - to invest in a certain number of VC funds;
• $500M for a privately managed later stage fund – to invest in existing high growth companies;
• $125M for the creation of 3 privately managed seed funds - covering all sectors;
• $60M for existing FIER regional funds – as additional matching capital with private investors;
• And a 10-year provincial tax holiday for new ventures that commercialize research from a Quebec university or research centre.

So, what is so great with the above initiatives? Other than the obvious large amount of dollars that will be  flowing towards entrepreneurs old and new?

What is great, is the way all of the above is being delivered! First, it’s important to the that over the last year, Minister Bachand conducted many market and industry assessments, done by qualified individuals and the results were then compared to existing initiatives found elsewhere in the world. Many, if not most of the ecosystem key players (venture capital firms, fund of funds, private equity firms, angels, angels groups, Réseau Capital, CVCA, successful entrepreneurs, incubators, coaching and mentoring service firms, tech transfer offices… and so on) were asked to share their comments and recommend solutions. Finally, and most importantly, the above listed budget highlighted initiatives are being executed in partnership with the private sector and with the financial support of the existing Quebec government affiliated institutions with industry expertise such as the Fond de solidarité FTQ (FsFTQ), the Caisse de depot et de placement du Québec (CDP) and Investissement Québec.

(more…)

With conference season upon us the Montreal technology community is preparing to descend on a number of very large industry events.

Our community has a number of speakers, attendees & company presentations occurring at:

• SXSW Interactive in Austin (March 13-17)
• Game Developers Conference in San Francisco (March 23-27)
• Web 2.0 Expo (March 31-April 3)

Conferences give us a great chance to network with many of our industry counterparts from around the world.  They also provide us a chance to meet members of our local community that we may not have connected with while in Montreal.  Meeting your local counterparts at these events allow us to help support each other in many ways while we are stateside.  Whether you are looking for a job, trying to recruit for a position, inviting people to listen to your session talk or need help trying to meet that critical investor/partner/speaker or guru your local community might be able to help you get more out of your conference experience.

If you are planning on attending any of these conferences this year please send a tweet using the conference hash tag & #MTL to introduce yourselves including who you are, which company you are with (if any) and any information about meetups, promotions, presentations or help you need to get the most out of your trips.

• #SXSW #MTL Example: @georgefavvas CEO of @smarthippo is at #SXSW #MTL this week where SmartHippo is going to be doing a fun promotion.
• #GDC #MTL Example: @austinhill from @akoha #MTL is doing a keynote at #GDC Serious Game Summit
• #Web2Expo #MTL Example: @acroll @seanpower Authors of new O’Reilly book on Watching Websites are speaking at #Web2Expo #mtl

This will allow other Canadian & Montreal tech community members to reach out, introduce themselves and hopefully lend a helping hand to each other for any specific things you are trying to get done. It also allows those of us not attending events to keep an eye on your tweets from Montreal.

If this picks with with other cities such as #Tdot (Toronto), #Van (Vancouver), #Cal (Calgary), #Ott (Ottawa) or #CAN (Canada) you can use these links to track the Canadian tech community at these conferences. Expat Canadians are also welcome to grab the #CAN tag to join in on the fun.

• #SXSW - Full Canadian City round up
• #GDC - Full Canadian City round up
• #Web2Expo - Full Canadian City round up

At the very least we can co-ordinate meeting up for drinks to showcase our drinking prowess to our industry counterparts around the world :)

This is a cross post from Austin’s blog.

We’ve missed the event for last month for FreeHackers, but we’re back with the event, with an exciting schedule.

From the event page @ techentreprise:

FreeHackers is a free, open event targeted at programmers, hackers and everyone interested in experimenting in new technologies.

Schedule:

• 12h30pm Sébastien Pierre, from datalicious, is going to present Sugar, a new programming language meant to replace Javascript for front-end user interfaces
• A workshop by Sébastien Pierre, covering Sugar, will follow for one hour or so

The event will follow the unconference format, which means attendees will be asked to participate, lend a hand at co-organizing, present, or organize a workshop. We should have a couple more workshops alongside Sébastien’s workshop.

For the remaining 3 or 4 hours, there will be free hacking. Anyone is free to code/hack/work on his/her project of choice.

Any technology, programming language, platform, software or hardware is welcomed. The focus is on community, experimentation, hacking etc. You can view it as an intense R&D session, an opportunity to network or exchange, visit the bolidea offices, or just be curious and see what’s hot in Montréal currently.

Organizers: Heri (MontrealTechWatch), Alok Mohindra (Arkalumen), Bolidea

• MontrealTechWatch covers Technology and Innovation in Montréal
• Arkalumen markets a new revolutionary LED light, much more efficient, programmable, and more powerful than any LED light available currently.
• Bolidea generously provides the space, with the goal to connect with local hackers, brilliant programmers and software Engineers

What’s been added in FreeHackers this time is a featured presentation (Sébastien’s) to begin the event with.

We’ve also added workshops to the event. This will be “organized” following the unconference format (wikipedia link), which means you should lend a hand, present, interact, organize a workshop, discuss. The event will be participant-driven, and will be as great as you want it to be. 

Free Hacking will follow. 

I believe this makes it an exciting schedule, and should be a great platform for experimentation and enabling new projects. 

As the previous edition, the event is done in close association with Bolidea, a startup incubator started by sucessful entrepreneurs. The event is hosted by Bolidea, on 4115 bd St-Laurent, suite 200.

Go over to TechEntreprise to register. Do leave a comment, here or at TechEntreprise, get in touch on twitter,

Yves Williams, a web entrepreneur, who is now doing AgentSolo, has a lengthy article about the need for the technology community in Quebec to gather and get the provincial government to come up with a digital plan in his blog.

This follows a recent action by Montréal bloggers last autumn, who sent a letter to Quebec’s prime minister, highlighting structural problems in the province’s technology infrastructure, as well as the sad state of small and big businesses which were lagging behind, outside of the innovation-hungry startups.

Yves Williams finishes the blog post about the need to go further and get all actors and the players of the industry to do something. You’d need to go read the post, and also go through the comments, which shows how his thoughts echo pretty much what many were thinking.

I thought it would be interesting to sum up the state of technology in Québec. This is not by all means an exhaustive post, by just links to a few interesting facts.

First, the last major works done by any Québec government was back at the “.com boom”, when the “Cité du Multimédia” was created, when everyone was crazy about the Internet and wanted to invest in everyone who had a website and an idea. The plan didn’t work out: the only industry which spurred from the government initiative was the video games industry, thanks from the likes of Ubisoft. The “Cité du Multimédia”, where new digital companies would be grown, with generous tax cuts, didn’t work out. If you go there currently, it’s mainly used by hip communication agencies and other companies wanting to benefit from the tax cuts. The initiative was a failed one, in my point of view.

Other initiatives, from different levels of government, were to put money in the hands of private angel investors, such as brightspark ventures, who’d in turn help local tech entrepreneurs. They also funded other initiatives such as AngesQuebec or TechnoMontreal (see here), whose goal is to gather the players of the industry and accelerate incubation and expansion of tech companies.

We’ve also seen various fiscal measures and plans for the technology sector in Québec, the last of which was last May.

So it doesn’t really look like the Québec government isn’t doing anything to help tech in Quebec and Montreal.

What I see though from this is that they don’t necessarily know what kind of sectors to invest in, and also, they don’t necessarily “get” the best means to achieve it.

I don’t necessarily have an answer — and I am not even sure that asking the government to take more actions is the answer. What can they do? Install 1Gbps fiber optics networks, like in South Korea? nope, telcos are the ones able to do those things efficiently. Maybe have a law stating that all businesses should have modern websites and upgrade their IT infrastructure? hmm, no, that sounds like what “enlightened leaders” would do in Zimbabwe. Build data centers, install city-wide wireless in Quebec cities, or create more “IT organizations”? nope, again, would do more harm than solve any problem.

One thing I’d like the government to have is to get a highly expert technology person that would tell them when not to f*ck up. France has for instance Ms Nathalie Kosciuko-Morizot, “Sécrétaire d’État en charge de la prospective et de l’économie numérique”, who’s very dynamic in her role (see photos of her visit to South Korea/Japan to view latest technologies). The current US government has also an interesting tech focus, with the guys at Blue State Digital being the masterminds in everything web.

Another thing that the Quebec private sector can’t do is have huge incubator centers like this or this, so this is also something that governments can weigh in, but it would need to be driven as well by people who know what technology is inside out (instead of just throwing money at the thing, and believing the first digital marketing person who does a lot of noise)

I believe the current mayor of Montreal as well as different politicians had plans to “brand” Montréal as a city of culture and arts. I’ve read a recent article, in how Gilbert Rozon stated that Montréal should be instead presented as a city of creativity (french article - english article at the Gazette). He is a wise man, and if Montréal should succeed, I believe that’s how things should be done, a vision which goes from art, cutlure, technology, as well as other areas like design. That’s a city where Montréalers could thrive in, and the québec tech community should support that vision.

Picture Credit: “Do Schools kill Creativity?”, by djenan