This year, popular festival Coachella provided rfid bracelets as tickets. In the following video, instead of having a paper or a sim card, ticket checking is contactless and quick:

It’s secure, convenient, and quick, since there is no money transaction and there’s no friction in the gates. As you can see though, the system is not perfect, as you need almost 1 staff to guide people and make sure they find the scanner for the bracelet.

Coachella attracted 30,000 festival goers and it’s a big break for Montreal-based Intellitix. What’s also interesting is the social media integration. Each festival-goer gets their Facebook timeline updated everytime they check-in, adding more marketing opportunities for coachella.

Startups solve problems.

So if you find a problem there’s probably a startup idea lying somewhere nearby.

A Montreal developer Kenji Williams developed an app called twtspire.com that scours twitter and automatically detects tweets from people that wonder why a solution doesn’t exist for a specific problem they’re having.

Here are example of tweets from twtspire.com that could result in some kind apps

Why isn’t there an app that auto-deletes texts you send after 4am. #facepalm

Oh my god. Someone needs to make an app that makes an instrumental out of any song. #IsThatLegal #KaraokeAllDayEveryDay

There’s also evil ideas like:

Wish there was a single website with complete book/movie summaries with spoilers.

Twitter has over 50 million daily tweets, so testing and refining the app was done in a single week-end. The app uses a combination of keywords as well as keyword exclusion rules (which eliminate unwanted terms) and keyword proximity rules. For all of the meaty details and source code headover to Kenji’s blog

AccelerateMTL is coming up on the afternoon on May 23rd, right after the FounderFuel demo day.

It’s announced as a conference full of good keynotes, from successful entrepreneurs like BeyondTheRack founder, renowned Internet marketers, and other Internet execs. View more on the eventbrite page. As the name suggests, the presentations were curated to accelerate startups.

It’s more than a conference though, as it’s designed to create connections between investors and entrepreneurs. The keynotes and the fireside chats will be followed by a cocktail where startups can meet investors. The event is instigated by the C100, a Silicon Valley-based organizations aimed at helping Canadian-based businesses, so you are guaranteed to meet SV-based investors. Who knows? It can the ticket of success for your current startup.

The International Startup Festival organizers, Phil Telio, Alistair Croll, and other partners, such as Anna Goodson, has announced yesterday they will invest up to $50,000 in a startup present at the startup summer festival.

The startup festival aims to explore the business side of startups, and with the goal of making connections happen between investors and entrepreneurs, it’s good to see that the promise goes beyond keynotes, speechs and elevator pitches, and that they actually promise to invest $50,000 in a startup.

Generally, there are lots of VC funds and angel investors in a conference, but there are no advertised guaranteed deals, and conference-goers hear about deals after the conference. Here, the festival becomes a place for startup transactions. Perhaps in a few years, we will have a “Startup trade market”, where startups get bought and sold?

Read more

Editor’s note: Dominic St-Pierre is an experienced web entrepreneur, having sold previously twollow.com, a twitter mashup. Being a programmer and also entrepreneur at the same time, he’s venturing now in the world of saas services with Bunker, an online business suite designed for freelancers and small businesses who don’t want to deal with multiple providers to support their business. Let’s meet Dominic

Q: Can you present yourself, and specifically what lead you to be a web entrepreneur today?

My name is Dominic St-Pierre, 31 years-old developer-entrepreneur living near Montreal, Quebec Canada. I have a huge passion for developing web application. I founded Focus Centric inc. in December 2007 and switch from a 9-5 employee to a freelancer / business owner since. While completing contracts were bringing money, I always wanted to build my own products. Having a strong background in commercial credit, I’ve built a complete collection agency software that I’ve sold to only one agency (they still use the product today after six years though). I also built ModulusCMS a content management and e-commerce platform from 2008-2009.

My most popular product has been twollow.com, which I have acquired, re-developed and grow to almost 12K users before selling it. I was unable to find any way of having a revenue model from it at that time, a huge mistake ;). All those ventures thought me lessons and was sharpening my marketing skills. In 2009, I also subscribe to Rob Walling’s Micropreneur Academy, that help a lot and still do today.

Q: What’s bunkerapp? What problem does it aim to solve? It seems to compete with basecamp, freshbooks and many other web apps at the same time

Bunker App is an online business suite targeted at freelancers and small businesses. I’ve been there and done that, sometime you have no contracts and three or four weeks later you’ve got five pending contracts all approved at the same time. Having a tool that helps you in all your daily processes and hopefully saves time is the goal of Bunker App. At this time, we have the initial proposal, project management, time tracking, invoicing and expenses built-in. Having the same professional look and feel for the proposal, collaboration interface and the invoice is possible for the prize of a small pizza.

I don’t think Basecamp or FreshBooks are direct competitors. Those are fantastic products and as a matter of fact; I’ve built a template app for FreshBooks near 2008. There’re enough freelancers actually to offer something different. It’s all about the workflow of each product, if you try a tool and like the way it handles things for you this is great, otherwise, try another one. Bunker removes the fact that paying $20 per month for a proposal software plus another $20 to send invoices is a truck load of money for a single freelancer.

Q: I saw the pricing, it’s very affordable compared to other alternatives. Who is your typical target customer?

As you might guess, solo freelancers represent the majority of our customers base. I ‘already blogged about this couple of months ago. In today’s society why something has to be ultra expensive to be considered desirable? I’ve set up the price from what I think it should be for a solo freelancer knowing that this kind of lifestyle comes with high and low in terms of cash flow. I would have loved to have a tool at that price when I started.

Q: I see you’ve done and sold twollow.com before, and now bunkerapp. Are you working full-time on bunkerapp? Does it get enough revenues and press, or are you still doing client work and/or looking for grants in the meantime?

I’m happy to say that I’ve kept only ongoing projects / clients I had agreements, no more new clients or contracts. I’m not sure everything would be possible in that market without being dedicated to the product.

BDC announced today a new collaboration with the the FounderFuel accelerator program.

In the next two years, each startup will be eligible to a $150k in convertible note from the BDC. During and after Demo Day, the Business Development Bank of Canada and FounderFuel will assess together which startups have what it takes to be venture-ready in the following months, and will then fund up to $150k per startup.

This is great news, since between Demo Day and their first funding round, it’s often an egg-and-chicken situation where potential investors are asking for market traction, and where startup co-founders need funds to get market-fit and also develop their technology. Furthermore, many investors are also asking that a first investor commit before agreeing to put their money in, another uneasy situation where the startup CEO has to play his cards carefully. With BDC’s convertible note, Venture Capitalists and angel investors will feel secured, both by the fact that each startup has gone through the FounderFuel program, and also has been selected by expert investors. It’s also an additional motivation for FounderFuel team, knowing that there is new funding waiting for them after the long 12-months business acceleration.

FounderFuel also confirmed today that the following startups received investments: Playerize, Ooh-la-la, wavo.me and Seevibes, raising a total of $2.5 million. It’s great news for Montreal, wavo.me and Seevibes being local startups and Playerize and Ooh-la-la still having employees here. With the new support from BDC, the number of funded startups for the second cohort as well the total amount should raise significantly.

Along with unique access to funding, FounderFuel general manager Ian Jeffrey still highlights that the program’s best proposition is its wide array of mentors that entrepreneurs can tap into.

FounderFuel also invites experienced and new entrepreneurs to discover the new FounderFuel startups at Demo Day, on May 23rd. The last Demo Day was inspiring, and it’s worth missing out for a half-day’s work to attend the event, especially if you’re planning to join the next FonderFuel cohort. In the same week, we’ll also have AccelerateMTL as well the CVCA conference which will be here in Montreal this year.

Editor’s note: Post by Jake Hirsch-Allen (@ jakehirschallen). Jake is currently Director of Business Development for Wall Street Survivor and consults on business development for the Multiplicity Accelerator and several Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto-based tech startups. Having practiced international criminal and intellectual property law, he has founded health technology and startup development organizations and currently consults for Incentives for Global Health.

…or at least that’s Venkatesh Rao’s argument in his recent Forbes.com article, “The Rise of Developeronomics.” His article combines 3 memes that I believe are transforming our economy. They will move the focus of commerce to software and to the individuals that create it.

Rao’s opening paragraphs capture the first meme well, describing the hard time we’re all having with where to put our money these days. He contrasts the current situation with the theory in evolutionary biology that reciprocal altruism and cooperation first appeared as a solution to the food storage problem. Sharing the food you couldn’t eat was a necessity and “the best bank for your excess capital was your friend’s stomach.”

Rao continues:

“Unless you are a professional investor (and probably even then), places to store surplus capital today where it will even be safe and/or not depreciate too fast (let alone generate a return) are getting incredibly hard to find. The stock market seems to be a secular, bearish bloodbath. Volatility and unexpected temporary rallies are making short games dangerous. Even staying liquid in dollars seems to have its dangers, due to threats of devaluation and unfamiliar new terms like “quantitative easing” which us average investors are starting to hear for the first time. The Euro isn’t exactly a great alternative at the moment. Investing in gold and similar commodities seems to require a somewhat apocalyptic mindset and decisions about whether or not you want access to the actual metal if things go to hell (which isn’t to say such a mindset isn’t justified at the moment).”

Rao’s solution? Invest in software developers. Every industry needs them and even when the current bubble bursts there’ll still be far more demand than supply. This is how he describes the current developer frenzy:

“In the midst of a thoroughly gloomy labor market, the genuine desperation you see in the software talent wars is almost surreal. Almost every day, I see big companies, little companies, entrepreneurs, wannabe entrepreneurs and even venture capitalists join in the hunt.”

This description is similar to an Economist magazine summary of “The new tech bubble“:

“some start-up firms are dangling multi-million-dollar pay packages in order to tempt star programmers from Google, Microsoft and other big companies. They are chasing scarce skills when the broader technology industry is on a roll.”

I agree with Rao’s description of the current situation as somewhat fantastical but it’s not surprising if one plots the increasing importance of information technology and more specifically software over the past couple decades.

Another Economist article entitled “Another digital gold rush” describes three forces that propel the software revolution forward “First, technological progress has made it much simpler and cheaper to try out myriad bright ideas for online businesses. Second, a new breed of rich investors has been keen to back those ideas. And, third, this boom is much more global than the last one; Chinese internet firms are causing as much excitement as American ones.”

Yet the Economist also characterizes some descriptions of the current upheaval as over the top: “Some excited people have likened this technological upheaval to the Cambrian explosion 500m years ago, when evolution on Earth speeded up in part because the cell had been perfected and standardized.”

The internet or software revolution, at times compared to a Khunian paradigm shift and at a minimum the most significant recent development in human technology, necessitates a rethinking of some economic principles.

In his description of the new role of developers in our economy Rao explicitly dehumanizes and objectifies developers, describing them as the objects of an all-encompassing capitalist game that we are all playing whether we want to or not. One interesting dynamic that he mentions, for instance, is the tendency for software to benefit extremes in company size. Not only are the Googles and Facebooks of the world capitalizing on the increased importance of 1s and 0s but software has also been the primary engine behind the massive decrease in the amount of capital and time required to create a startup, even in other industries. This has resulted in an attraction to the poles where the best entrepreneurs and developers succumb either to the comforts of “gilded-cage workplaces full of gourmet buffets, high-tech nap pods, and daycare facilities” or the freedom and unrealistically slim chance of a windfall at a startup. This latter career choice has become doubly attractive due to the totally overblown publicizing of the relatively few individuals who have gotten rich quick (while I’ve seen many stats on how few startups make it, I’d be curious if proportionally more are making it big since software has done so).

Eric Ries’ book, “The Lean Startup“, perhaps the most popular meme in recent tech startup lore, describes the myriad benefits of small teams focused on fast moving software projects requiring little capital and with massive potential. Applying Toyota’s “lean” methodology to product development including its focus on constant cyclical validation, constant QA and a culture of transparency, this movement has brought significant attention and benefits while reinforcing unrealistic hopes.

One symptom of software’s overwhelming influence about which I was unaware is how early talent war’s are beginning. Apple, Google and others are encouraging students as early as middle school to adopt their technology, doing their best to breed a new generation of iOS or python coders. Just as Google’s investment in Python (one of the three languages the company uses for its work) was in part a strategic bet on the growing talent pool in this under-valued language, so too, my developer-friend Matthew Huebert informs me, PowerSet mined Ruby for young talent.

I think Rao is wrong when he says that this is creating a have/have-not talent divide “that will soon surpass the infamous geopolitical North/South divide in importance” yet he is dead on in noting that it is unprecedented and significant.

Rao cites three reasons for the talent wars:

1. “software development talent is incredibly hard to assess upfront, and its value can be highly situation-dependent, which means intake volumes and intra-industry churn have to be high (since a potential star may not flourish in your environment).”

2. software skills can afford social and economic mobility – the former fad, in my opinion may not endure as long as the latter. Nevertheless I agree with Rao’s statement that “Stock options are simply not as effective in limiting mobility as the power of Russian nobility to whip serfs into immobility once was.”

3. the most important and interesting reason is the third meme I went to discuss, the 10x phenomenon, about which I’d like to learn and write more later. The concept of the 10x engineer is attributed to the now octogenarian software engineer Frederick Brooks, who described why a good programmer is an order of magnitude more productive than an average one (see here for a longer discussion http://www.quora.com/Is-the-concept-of-a-10x-engineer-valid/answer/Tom-Park).

More specifically, Rao explains why the 10x phenomenon applies to software developers in a way that it doesn’t other engineers:

“Other industries turn x’ers into 10xers primarily using software tools (a mechanical engineer equipped with CAD software suddenly becomes a 10x mechanical engineer)… [Yet] the 10x phenomenon, and the [software] industry’s reliance on it, doesn’t seem to get engineered or managed away because the 10xers keep inventing new tools for themselves to stay 10xers.”

While I still don’t completely understand this particularly allegorically interesting paragraph:

“As Alan Kay, a major pioneer of today’s software-eaten planet, pointed out recently, the Internet doesn’t have stop, shut down, or rewind buttons. Once it was turned on, history was essentially rebooted. Software began eating away at the pre-software layers of civilization on the planet, and depositing software-infused layers instead.”

I do find compelling questions about how the internet is changing history. There is no question, software and the internet are dramatically changing how history is being re-written resulting in the medium having a perhaps unparalleled effect on our stories. This relates to what Matt describes as his “random thought” that “software is a very “mental” thing… it changes how we manipulate & categorize the world at a deep level in our minds.” Like him, I too am “very curious about the psychological and sociological consequences of the software revolution.

I do not agree with “David Kirpatrick’s now famous line that every company is now a software company” and think Rao returns to hyperbole when he suggests we will replace the BC/AD distinction with BI/AI (Before Internet/After Internet). Yet I do think this hyperbole is representative of sentiment within the software industry and is perhaps indicative of a problem with its over-exaggerated sense of self-importance. While this narcissism has so far done the software industry well, I worry that it is perhaps the clearest harbinger of a bubble.

The Economist tempers these fears though with the reasonable statement that “irrational exuberance rarely gives way to rational scepticism quickly. So some bets on start-ups now will pay off.” Here the magazine echoes the National Venture Capital Association’s claim that today’s tech firms have robust business models and healthy revenues. It suggests this plus the fact that they are trading at price-earnings multiples “nowhere near as frothy as they were before the last bubble burst in 2000″ should limit excesses in valuing private firms.

I remain a sceptic. I think a middle term bubble is foreseeable and favour the Economist’s portrayal “of signs of irrational exuberance among some investors.” Instead of the indefinite exponential rise or a short term crash foreseen by many I think the software revolution will likely be experienced as a bumpy economic progression for the better.

Matt recently responded to my thoughts on this issue with the following:

“Frothy excitement and narcissistic personalities may be positive signs of a short-term bubble, but are they reason to suspect that the underlying change is weak? Tech is hard for outsiders to understand; I would imagine it difficult for people who do not understand tech deeply to be able to see how much change is coming.”

Spurred in the short term by mobile, social, cloud, platform, apps and data driven advances, we may see significant efficiencies across markets and in societal, environmental and international developmental work.

From new forms of financing, think angel networks and impact investing, to dramatic new uses for internet-based technologies, the latest tech bubble and software more generally will increase standards of living. One brilliant example is Ushahidi’s free, crowd and open sourced software (LGPL) for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping. Other good uses of technology closer to home include open data initiatives from Montreal Ouvert to Open North and Buzz Data to Vote Compass increasing transparency and accountability through technology.

In sum I see software as the latest significant social evolution – a technology that like glasses or the engine have sped human progress and given us new powers. Our current bubble is ironically a sign of software’s long term importance and is the best support for developeronomics.

In the past 6 months, we’ve seen several initiatives in Montreal, such as HackingHealth, the cloud robotics hackathon, Startup Weekend. These events are open to anyone and is a good opportunity to start a project. Participants and partners also love the intensity and the fact that there’s a prototype and a (glimpse of) a business at the end of the weekend.

What’s often missing from these events is guidance to teams about what’s next for them, in terms of becoming a viable startup. It’s often a hit or miss, before they become ready for launch, VC or angel funding.

It’s with this in mind that I discussed with Charles Morand, a senior analyst at the Business Development Bank of Canada or the BDC, involved in the “Anges Financiers” event, and also at Startup Weekend. Charles Morand also mentored teams at the event, and I wanted to see what was the investor’s point of view for those local startup events.

Q: Can you present yourself, and your position at the BDC?

My name is Charles Morand and I am a Senior Analyst in the Strategic Initiatives and Investments group. We focus largely on the early-stage end of the VC market and do mostly indirect investing (e.g. accelerators, seed funds, angel funds), although we do issue convertible notes to the most promising graduates of the best Canadian accelerators.

Q: We’ve seen the BDC getting involved in the startup community, by sponsoring Startup Weekend Toronto, Startup Weekend Montréal, HackingHealth, and now the $100,000 BDC Innovation Award. Is there a plan behind this? Is the BDC looking to support very early-stage startups?

Our group was created in response to the major funding gap that exists for early stage Canadian technology companies. We therefore focus heavily on investments (e.g. accelerators) and initiatives (e.g. Startup Weekend) that have positive impacts for the early-stage ecosystem. So yes, there is a plan behind what we do

Q: What do you think of the hackathon model where a hundred or so programmers and tech entrepreneurs get together to design and launch a project in one weekend?

We’re big fans of them. They’re relatively cheap to put together and they’re a great way to get the local entrepreneurially-minded talent (technical and otherwise) together. Sometimes that’s all it takes for someone who has the fire to make the jump and become an entrepreneur – we’ve seen that happen in a couple of cases already. Some of the projects we’ve seen come out of the hackathons have been very impressive. Moreover, it’s often a chance for the whole community to get together and network.

The one caveat to that is that startup competitions of all kind are gaining in popularity, and that means greater demands on a limited pool of mentors, sponsors, etc. My advice to organizers of such events is to focus on putting together fewer, high-quality events rather than more frequent mediocre events.

Q: What could be done to support the most advanced projects from Startup Weekend and other hackathons? Right now, it looks like there’s a real gap between being a winner a Startup Weekend and being seed-ready.

That’s a good question and one that a lot of people struggle with. In a majority of cases, there is indeed a gap between being seed- or angel-ready and having just won a hackathon or startup competition. There are some interesting initiatives in other places that could serve as models, but there’s nothing yet here that provides support at the very early stage on a scale that would move the needle from an ecosystem standpoint. Maybe that’s the next thing the organizers of the top hackathons and startup competitions in Montréal should tackle – get together and bring a solid project to us and we’ll be happy to see how we can support it!

Note: l’article suivant a été écrit par Anne-Laure Putigny, en charge de “À Go, on change le monde”, à l’institut du Nouveau Monde

Montréal est reconnu pour sa scène tech extrêmement dynamique. Mais au delà des suspects habituels, on entend encore peu parler d’entrepreneurs nouveaux genre, pourtant en pleine expansion : les entrepreneurs sociaux techno!

Ces entrepreneurs ont décidé d’utiliser le plein potentiel des nouvelles technologies de l’information et de la communication (NTIC) pour répondre à un besoin social ou environnemental. Ils utilisent le pouvoir du virtuel pour enrichir le monde réel, et nous proposent de nouvelles façons de nous alimenter, de communiquer, ou de s’éduquer, afin de rendre Montréal, le Québec, et même parfois le monde plus agréables!

Bref, ils innovent, en mettant les technologies au service de l’humain ou de la société.

Vous pensez que ces entrepreneurs d’un nouveau genre sont de doux rêveurs? Découvrez quelques uns de ces projets vraiment innovants, et si proches de chez vous :

Révolutionner l’éducation une rencontre à la fois : E-180 : L’idée est simple: nous apprenons constamment. À utiliser Twitter. À voyager avec un enfant. Et si quelqu’un était prêt à nous rencontrer pour répondre à nos questions? E-180, c’est une plateforme de jumelage qui vous permet de rencontrer cette personne aux intérêts similaires aux vôtres afin de partager des connaissances. L’échange n’est pas nécessairement réciproque : peut-être offrez-vous aujourd’hui, peut-être demanderez-vous demain. Mais qu’on offre ou qu’on demande des connaissances, on apprend tout le temps ! Leur pari, c’est de faciliter ces échanges informels et d’élargir nos opportunités de rencontres à un plus grand réseau.

Un accès à internet démocratisé : Île sans fil Île sans fil a pour mission de fournir un accès Internet sans fil public et gratuit à Montréal. La vision d’Île sans fil est qu’il possible d’utiliser les technologies de l’information afin de contribuer à briser l’isolement des citoyens à l’échelle locale. Île sans fil, c’est l’expression de l’esprit communautaire Web à son meilleur !

Collaborer virtuellement pour changer le monde : plusieurs projets web ont également choisi d’utiliser le virtuel comme un espace de collaboration en soi. Je pense à Imagination for people, véritable répertoire et espace collaboratif pour des projets d’innovation sociale à l’échelle mondiale, ou encore Espace temps Montréal, qui via son projet Mur Mitoyen, se donne pour mission de valoriser et de rendre accessible l’offre événementielle montréalaise de la manière la plus conviviale possible, par la création de calendrier en ligne simples, accessibles, ouverts et centralisateurs.

Et si une ferme poussait sur chaque toit : Les fermes Lufa. Pour utiliser les NTIC, il n’est nul besoin que cela soit son cœur de métier! Même pour les entrepreneurs sociaux traditionnels, les NTIC peuvent permettre d’innover, d’être plus efficace, de sauver beaucoup de temps (et d’argent) pour répondre toujours mieux au besoin qu’ils ont identifié.. Je pense notamment aux fermes Lufa, qui grâce à des logiciels et un intranet très performants, réussissent à savoir le matin s’ils doivent cueillir 14001 ou 14002 tomates pour leurs paniers bio, réussissant ainsi à garantir des légumes cueillis le matin même, et sans la moindre perte!

Et comment ne pas finir en citant l’un des plus grands sites de microcrédit au monde où des petits prêts changent des vies? Kiva est la première ONG au monde de microcrédit en ligne, finançant près de 500 projets par jour. Grâce à sa plateforme en ligne, Kiva connecte des micro-entrepreneurs avec des personnes partout dans le monde qui décident de prêter des petites sommes. Au fil des mois, les prêteurs sont remboursés de leur prêt qu’ils peuvent récupérer ou réinvestir dans de nouveaux projets. Cette success story, fondée à San Francisco en 2005, a réuni depuis plus de 110M€ de prêts, à destination de plus de 50 pays différents.

Alors pourquoi ne pas rêver en grand et imaginer d’autres projets qui pourraient changer le monde?

Pour en savoir plus sur l’entrepreneuriat social et découvrir d’autres portraits inspirants : http://www.agoonchangelemonde.qc.ca/

In the New York Times, Nadim Kobeissi tells how Sabu, at that time presumed to be the leader of the Anonymous network, tried to befriend him and get him into his schemes.

A Montreal-based student and also encryption specialist, Nadim (@kaepora) is also famous for crypto.cat, a communication tool that is used by many security groups and also activists worldwide to send privately messages, without fear of detection. The messages are encrypted, and not even the operator of the infrastructure cannot read the messages.

Even with the cryptocat cred, Nadim was still impressed to get messages from Sabu, and even more surprised to be invited to join in attacks. As most of you know, Sabu has know been revealed as the 28-year old NYC resident Hector Xavier Monsegur, paid by the FBI to reveal the identies of hacker “friends”.

Other signs show the growth of the hacker community in Montreal: in less than 3 weeks, Hackus will be in Montreal, with a software, hardware, and social engineering tracks. The initiative is advertised to most Comp Sci students in Montreal as well as various InfoSec companies. Teams are challenged for 2 days to solve simple to complex challenges, such as rooting a server, cryptography challenges, or hacking the network layer. For programmers or “regular” sys-admins, it would interesting to attend the event and see what are the challenges in security, if you are on the other side of the fence… especially if your server experienced an intrusion or injection recently.

Other initiatives also contribute to the growth of the community. Every month, MTLSEC has organized informal get-togethers where anyone can meet professionals or anyone interested in security, from governance issues to low-level implementation. The next meeting is tomorrow at Nyks Bistro near metro Place des Arts.

That’s without counting REcon, a world-class computer security conference. The event attracts companies and individuals interested in reverse engineering and exploitation techniques, and contribute into establishing Montreal as a security and hacker pole in North America.

That community is fuelled by the support of new startups like Subgraph, a developer of the open source security tool Vega. Many student groups from ETS to UQAM to Concordia are also heavily invested in that community… on what side you might ask. But that’s for another article.

The year is 2020.

Somewhere in an African village a father is having a conversation with his son.

“When you were just a little boy, we didn’t have phones that check water quality.”

As incredible as it sounds, the technology is very real. The prototype was developed in just a few days by a local Montreal team during a hackathon called “Random Hacks of Kindness.” The event is about technology for humanitarian needs.

The Open Source Android App is called “Portable Microbiology Lab” and here is how it works:
A user puts a water sample on a 3M petrifilm and tells the App to register GPS coordinates of where the water was taken. After a 24 hour incubation period, the user photographs the petrifilm (example below).

The App then applies filters to the image and counts the bacterial colonies. Sophisticated image recognition shows if the bacteria is ”e.coli” (very bad), “total coliform” (bad), or environmental bacteria (not so bad): this is done by analyzing by the color and nearby bubbles.

Afterwards, all the information including the image is uploaded onto a server. In the future it may tell humanitarian workers and residents that a Tanzanian lake at XYZ coordinates has a bad concentration of e.coli.

The beauty of the app is that water sources can be as small as tiny water wells, but information about its water quality is available through something as huge as the World Wide Web.

Application developers are working closely with John Feighery PhD, a former research associate at NASA, who will perform lab trials this April to test the accuracy of the app when it comes to counting and analyzing bacteria.

If the lab trials succeed the Portable Microbiology kit will hit Tanzanian soil as early as July for additional field testing.

Android phones capable of taking these pictures cost less than 120$. Combine this with affordability of ‘Portable Microbiology kits’, that can be incubated using body heat, and we may end up with a sustainable solution to help fight water problems that plague many parts of the world.

This goes to show the value of hackathons such as RHOK Montreal, which themselves are a lot like incubators: Put a bunch of smart, passionate people in one room, incubate them for a few hours and let them grow whatever they want.

Oh, the magic of Petrifilm!

Team working on the App includes: Clayton Grassick, Gina Cook (@cesine7), George Peristerakis (@peristerakis), Amir Pakdel, John Feighery (@rocketboy76), Adriana Olmos and Pablo Duboue (@pabloduboue). RHOK Montreal was organized by Angelique Mannella (@angemannella).

by ildar khakimov (@ildarius)

Month after month, we’ve had many hackathons in Montréal: the node.js/redis/mongodb hackathon in mid-december, the occupy notman hackathon by startupifier, Startup Weekend Montreal, and more recently HackingHealth (see here for report and projects), and Roboticks hackathon this weekend.

For those who are in the community, observers, as well as investors and companies, it’s clear that there’s a strong interest both from programmers, designers and entrepreneurs to get together and startup working together on projects. It’s worth taking a step back though and ask ourselves seriously what’s the value of hackathons and startup weekends. It’s obvious that a 2 or 3 day project is not a viable project, as you can barely get together a working prototype in this timeframe. Questions like go-to-market, team composition, product/market fit, legal matters, business model validation are most of the time left unanswered, and there’s a real gap between the weekend entrepreneur and the startup that can be accepted with confidence in a startup accelerator, or be “seed-ready”.

It’s with those questions in mind that I discussed with Remy Beaumont on the topics of hackathons.

Can you present yourself, and what lead you now at Nightingale?

Sure, I’m Remy Beaumont, vice-president of R&D at Nightingale. But in reality, I’m technology entrepreneur at hearth who loves to design and build products from the ground up and watch them grow.

Back in December 2011, Nightingale bough Medrium Inc, a US based company that I helped start back in 1999 in California. Medrium provided web based tools to help US healthcare provider manager their practice, both from a day to day operation up to management of the medical record. The R&D team of Medrium was moved to Quebec city back in 2011 and is still there today.

Amongst the 19 registered projects at HackingHealth, what were your favourites?

I have to say I was impress to see teams come up with a prototype in less then 24 hours.

One of my favourite was “Rapid Assessment of 3D Surface Area of Burns Using the Kinect”, which showed that it’s possible to come up with solutions based on inexpensive technology.

What do you think of the Hackathon model, where you bring engineers and health professionals together?

I’ve always been a fan of the Hackathon model, it brings together people that you have probably never met before to come up with innovative technology / solutions. It’s an intense creative process and there are allot of takeaways after those events.

Bringing engineers and health professionals together takes it to another level. Healthcare is a difficult and complex field where engineers tend to stay away from. Health professionals often see problems in their day to day work but are not quite sure how to solve them technically. An event live HackingHealth helps explore those opportunity.

For the most motivated teams with good projects, it’s clear that there’s still a lot of work. What do you think organizers, sponsors and partners could do to support them? Also, what do you advise teams to do in their next steps?

It depends on the goals of the team:

Some teams might be willing to take their project to the next step but are not necessarily entrepreneurs at hearth. For those teams, organizer / sponsors / partners could help them find a company that would be willing to take it on or find a company that is working on a similar problem and where the team could join the work in progress.

For those that have the entrepreneur spirit, the commercialization model (can it make money and from who) needs to be answered/ modeled before going any further. “Saving money to the government” will only get you so far. Some of the sponsors / partners can certainly help in this initial validation and give ideas / feedback to those teams.

Once commercialization is clear, the teams should work on getting a more complete demo in order to find financing.

Follow MontrealTechWatch for more on the topics of hackathons and startups

MTLNewTech is inviting all tech entrepreneurs, developers, designers and those who are interested in technology startups to come to the monthly newtech demo event, where 5 new tech startups use the opportunity to publicly launch their startup, in front of a large tech audience.

Like previous events, it’s held at McKibbins on bishop st (corner Ste-Catherines), and is an event designed for the technology community: there’s no entrance fee, and as such, it’s a great opportunity to meet newcomers.

Here’s the line-up:

• DrupalSun is an online aggregator of curated RSS feeds, featuring a UI optimized both for easily skimming new items and searching through archives. It’s made by the folks from EvolvingWeb
• QA on Request is a web and software testing company. We specialize in testing mobile apps, web sites, video games and software projects during the development phase, making sure they are bug-free and ready for launch.
• Recruit.ee: Helping students and startups connect.
• Plus 2 other startups.

RSVP on twtvite. See you there1

This weekend, a hundred and more programmers, geeks and hardware hackers gathered at Notman House for the Robotics Hackathon. The goal was simple: work on robots for the weekend, learn how to program them, and also at the same time discover new robots and new devices like 3D printers.

Here are selections of pictures taken from the event.

 

 

 

 

Are you working with Facebook’s social API? Interested in twitter marketing? Or maybe working foursquare and new social apps? Head over this month to BuildSocial, co-organized by Andrew Sider and Paul Herrera. Read more to know everything about BuildSocial:

Who are the event organizers? What’s your experience with social APIs? Anything you’re doing currently with social APIs?

BuildSocial was started by our team at UrbanOrca. We are a few crazy startup-ers who love to build social products, and believe strongly in the power of social data and APIs. Our social discovery product is heavily integrated with platforms like Facebook, which has been an important part of our early success. My first experience building a social product was at RootMusic.com, which is now the largest music app on Facebook with over 30 million users.

While Canadian companies haven’t been known for their leadership in the social arena, we have recently noticed some cool social projects emerging in Montreal. We started BuildSocial to bring this community together, pool resources and learnings, and give the community a voice in the global startup ecosystem.

It’s been a few years that companies have included social media monitoring strategies plus elaborate Facebook apps in their marketing campaigns. Are you also welcoming marketing agencies, IT companies and established companies at BuildSocial, or it’s going to be startup-focused?

BuildSocial events are for entrepreneurs, developers, designers, and product managers who are building a web or mobile product that is heavily integrated with social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Foursquare.  Big and small companies are welcome to attend, but as entrepreneurs we are slightly biased towards startups J.  Most importantly, the events are free for all!

The event has been introduced as a meetup. Is it about meeting people, or is it focused on the learning aspect? There are 2 talks scheduled in the event.

Both.  Each event will have a learning and presentation component, followed by a time for casual discussion and networking.

Our upcoming “Building on Facebook” event includes 2 amazing presentations, where we’ll learn tips for mastering the Facebook API from some of Montreal’s brightest:

• Serial entrepreneur Carl Mercier will be discussing his latest project (still in stealth mode)
• Nicolas Cadou and Alice Bevan-McGregor (senior members of Le Site) will share learnings from building the Facebook game Bachelor Bachelorette (based on the popular TV show)

Like any good tech event, presentations will be followed by free beer to help stimulate some great discussion and networking.

The event is Wed, March 14 6:30pm at Notman House. There are a few spots left. You can sign up at www.eventbrite.com/event/2990329155

It’s introduced as “BuildSocial is a Montreal community”. Does that mean it’s going to be more than a one-off meetup? Anything more planned beyond the March 14th event?

We plan to have a monthly event, each one covering a unique theme. Our vision is for BuildSocial to be a sustainable community, which will require the active support and involvement of its members.  If you’d like to be involved in any way please contact me (@andrewsider, andrew@urbanorca.com) or Paul Herrera (@pherrera, paul@urbanorca.com ).

 

Head over to startupcan.ca to view a movement gathering organizations supporting Canadian entrepreneurship. Most chamber of commerces, business councils, economic development agencies and clusters in the country are presented as community partners there. It also presents first and foremost a governing board, advisors, as well a national council.

The initiative has been spearheaded by Victoria Lennox, who has met partners and organizations nationwide for the past year, with the announced goal of celebrating Canadian entrepreneurship.

In the website, the announced final goal is to develop a white paper to be sent to the prime minister, after a long process of meeting local communities, drafting ideas, and craft a vision for future Canadian entrepreneurship.

See how it works

As such, Startup Canada does not provide any direct support to entrepreneurs (such as Startup America or Startup Chile), but is rather a unifying group that for the first time gathers all organizations and people involved in entrepreneurship. It’s a laudable goal; and if you think entrepreneurship is not well viewed in your professional or industry circles, then you should join the movement.

Another important point is that the group supports Canadian entrepreneurship in its broad sense, and not specifically technology startups in its usual accepted definition. Think more of the audience that the local board of trade are talking to, and not high-growth startups aiming for impact.

StartupCanada is announcing flash mobs and other social media initiatives near you, and they’re inviting entrepreneurs and supporters to sign up to their mailing list on the site.

Open North is a Canadian non-profit that makes web and mobile apps to increase government transparency and connect citizens with their representatives. If you’re passionate about government transparency and civic engagement and want a job where you’re making a difference, work with our team to build tools to inform and empower citizens to exercise their political influence and participate actively in decision-making processes.

What’s it like to work at Open North? On any given day, you’ll discuss with our team creative new ways to get governments and citizens to engage with one another, learn cutting edge tools to build innovative web apps, follow trends in democracy and citizenship, and make a name for yourself in the open government, open source community.

Web Developer Intern
Open North is looking for a talented Web Developer to join our team. This offer is for a 16-week summer job, starting May 7, 2012 and ending August 24, 2012. Open North is a bilingual team that works comfortably in both official languages.

You will be working on MaMairie.ca, an online tool that helps citizens track and interact with their elected officials in the City of Montreal and gives them the tools they need to engage with government on local issues. You’ll design and build interactive features to encourage participation and engagement with municipal government, integrate new local information sources, and help us translate and launch Ma Mairie in cities across Canada.

Requirements

Minimum skills:
- Pursuing (or possessing) a university or college degree in web development, software engineering, computer science or a related field
- At least three years experience with programming languages, preferably Ruby or Python

Preferred skills:
- Over five years experience with programming languages, preferably Ruby or Python
- Multiple years experience in Linux, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Git, Rails and/or Django
- Autonomously conceived, designed and built a sophisticated, polished, interactive website
- Experience with automated testing environments
- Maintained or contributed to open-source tools

Experience:
- At least one self-built website that you can show us, preferably more complex dynamic web applications

To apply: Send a resume and cover letter to James McKinney, Executive Director at james@opennorth.ca or 1200 St-Alexandre, Suite 408, Montreal, QC, H3B 3H5.

Bringing Much Needed Tech Innovation to Healthcare

Friday and Saturday 24 and 25th of February, 138 developers, 28 designers, and 66 health professionals went to HackingHealth to bring tech innovation to healthcare. Using the “hackathon” model well-known by web developers and tech entrepreneurs, they brainstormed and developed together new solutions to fix specific problems in the healthcare industry.

Notable projects were Text Rx, a tool documenting text messages between nurses, doctors and specialists to paper or electronic medical records. It’s a useful service that was ideal for the hackathon, and could also be developed in the short timeframe of the event by using Twilio.

HemoTrack (@hemotrack) also received attention, with a new mobile app that promises to cuts costs of hemophilia treatment, by collecting real time usage of Factor VIII, bleeding events and uploads information to an online site.

The project that won the audience’s hearts and minds

The 3D Kinect project was voted as the most innovative solution amongst the 19 registered projects. Using off-the-shelf Microsoft Kinect, it uses the 3D depth sensors to scan a patient’s body and classify burnt body areas.

The application can then estimate the severity of the burns, and then help doctors give proper care. The proposed application specifically addresses the loss of bodily fluids by severely burnt patients, by calculating the right amount of fluids that needs to be given to the patient.

Martin Coulombe, engineer by profession, gave the pitch friday night, and was assisted by a team composed of one plastic surgeon, 2 software developers and a communication specialist.

A future commercial success?

Experienced entrepreneurs and other professionals during the hackathon saw also the potential of the project. A few other projects during the hackathon did not have an appropriate business model, as project instigators were planning to convince governments of planned savings. While very helpful to patients, other similar projects did not take into account potential market friction. While it still needs more work in the software and needs also proper testing, the 3D Kinect project was clearly the project with the highest potential at HackingHealth.

It might be too early to ask, but with the created momentum, what’s next for the ideas and projects at HackingHealth? It’s not just about the 3D Kinect project: the teams and structure brought together at the event are the results of more than 3 months work of gathering partners & support, and it’s an asset that organizers should leverage to support future tech healthcare innovation.

This weekend, the new organization HackingHealth.ca (@hackinghealthca) is enabling tech innovation in Montreal and in Canada by inviting doctors and health specialists to pitch ideas to programmers and techies. The goal is to bring much-needed innovation in healthcare, and in a way, launch new health startups.

The hackathon was planned at the Sauvé House in the beginning, but due to the popularity of the event, it was changed in the past week to the Thompson House. Backed by a team of volunteers, the organizers welcomed health professionals from all around the country, startups, programmers, designers, investors, plus of course the organizations supporting the event.

The Sauvé Foundation was the first organization to support the event. Others joined in, such as the BDC and Nightingale, the main sponsors of the event.

As you can see, the house was packed, and more people are expected to come saturday morning. The attendance proves that healthcare needs new solutions now.

Here, organizers and presenters are checking in details of who is going to present, and in what order.

John Brohan from Android Montréal suggests an application to know if an elder person has fallen. An accelerator sensor will send information to an Android tablet and can alert if there is a problem.

Pablo Duboue, Free Software fan and hardware hacker, offers his natural language processing expertise to teams. He also had a RFID project which aimed to transfer healthcare files to patient’s Nokia N9 phones.

It was interesting to see healthcare professionals from Edmonton, Alberta and around the country to pitch their problems and solutions. There’s much to do, and they received a well-deserved applause from the audience.

Meanwhile, a few programmers were already working on applications at the back of the room.

Martin is passionnate about the potential of the Microsoft Kinect, a hardware device available in all hardware stores, which can get a 3D reading of people, with also image recognition capabilities, a microphone and more sensors to enable new applications. He presented a project to cater to heavily burned patients.

All pitches received a lot of attention from the audience. Investors were taking notes, as well as programmers and other talent looking for ideas to work on. What’s also interesting is that a brand new web application was created for the event. It’s called sparkboard, with a list of projects, team members, project discussion, and more to enable collaboration.

David Chouinard, also TEDxMontreal organizer, pitched the idea of taking care of online accounts of dead relatives. The first technical barrier was how to know if the person died, and he was exploring various natural language processing ideas to solve the issue. Daniel Drouet, from local startup ajah.ca, and a data extractor guru, discussed with David various technical ideas.

As the evening progressed, hackers were invited to meet those who pitched and create teams. Most teams were looking for front-end and back-end techies.

Here, organizers and sponsors are asking what attendees and VIPs were thinking about the event. There was a lot of energy, and everybody agreed that it was about time an event like this was coming in Montreal, Canada.

A few teams were already busy brainstorming, making plans and downloading software.

L’article suivant a été écrit par Miguel Molina Cecchetti (linkedin | Twitter), Montréalais, Vénézuélien, citoyen du monde, mais aussi entrepreneur
Traduit par Laurence Robitaille (linkedin)
Publié pour la première fois dans le MIT Entrepreneurship Review

Dans l’économie globale actuelle, on entend souvent parler de start-ups internationaux qui ciblent des marchés internationaux et dont les membres se trouvent dispersés dans différents pays; ainsi que des défis que de telles conditions génèrent. En plus des défis de base, les start-ups internationaux se heurtent à de nombreuses complications, par exemple devoir naviguer un nouveau cadre légal et culturel, planifier en tenant compte de plusieurs réalités géopolitiques, ainsi que gérer des dynamiques socio-économiques teintées par les valeurs et émotions des différents membres de l’équipe. Utiliser une langue de travail commune comme l’anglais aide certainement à atténuer certaines de ces difficultés. Mais il est également crucial d’avoir une structure organisationnelle et un cadre d’opération qui répondent adéquatement aux conditions internes ainsi qu’aux réalités du marché. De plus, une volonté constante d’être sensible aux diverses origines culturelles doit être présente quand vient le temps de communiquer entre membres de l’équipe ou de prendre des décisions stratégiques.

Ceci décrit bien notre environnement chez Ateneo Digital. Nous sommes une petite équipe qui inclut deux co-fondateurs (Olivers de Abreu et moi-même) ainsi que deux principales collaboratrices, Constance Semler et Laurence Robitaille. Je suis né au Venezuela, mais à deux ans j’ai déménagé avec ma famille aux États-Unis, voyageant régulièrement jusqu’à ce que nous nous établissions de façon permanente à l’étranger, en 1997. Olivers est originaire du Venezuela, où il vit encore maintenant. Constance et Laurence sont nées, respectivement, aux États-Unis et au Canada, bien qu’elles soient toutes deux des polyglottes ayant accumulé diverses expériences internationales. À partir du moment où l’équipe a été mise en place, nous avons été confrontés à plusieurs épreuves intéressantes liées à notre nature multiculturelle, et nous avons dû être extrêmement créatifs afin de les surmonter. Dans cet article, nous partagerons avec vous quatre des plus grands obstacles auxquels nous avons fait face en tant que start-up international et comment nous les avons surmonté.

Choisir un cadre légal

Olivers et moi voulions qu’Ateneo soit une compagnie américaine. Le système légal des États-Unis est bien défini et développé, et les entreprises ainsi que les propriétés intellectuelles y sont protégées. Le système américain permet également une flexibilité dans la prise de décisions étant donné qu’il suit le système de common law, qui se base sur des règlements antérieurs pour guider des décisions futures. Par contraste, le système légal vénézuélien suit le droit civil et base les actions futures sur un code écrit déjà existant. Ainsi, sous la loi vénézuélienne, nos protocoles d’entente, nos accords de confidentialité, et tout autre type de contrats auraient dus être écrits de façon beaucoup plus détaillée. Le système légal canadien a aussi été considéré étant donné qu’il suit la common law, mais nous l’avons vite rejeté, car il demeure moins bien défini que celui des États-Unis.

Prendre le temps d’évaluer de font en comble les trois systèmes légaux a été essentiel pour trouver un terrain d’entente entre les membres de notre équipe, qui avaient des compréhensions et des expériences différentes. Cela nous a permis de créer un cadre légal rassurant pour nos ‘partenaires en contenu’ (les auteurs dont nous distribuons les écrits) ainsi que pour nos clients éparpillés géographiquement, tout en les protégeant eux et nous-mêmes d’éventuelles poursuites et violations de brevets.

Trouver un nom culturellement acceptable et pertinent

Très tôt, Olivers et moi-même nous étions entendus sur un nom – Ateneo Digital – et avions acheté le domaine Internet. « Ateneo » est un mot espagnol d’origine grecque qui veut dire « espace physique où communautés scientifiques et littéraires se rencontrent ». C’est un terme utilisé fréquemment dans les noms d’institutions culturelles comme l’Ateneo de Madrid en Espagne et l’Ateneo de Caracas au Venezuela. Cependant, « ateneo » ne voulait pas dire grand chose pour notre responsable des communications ayant grandit aux États-Unis. Constance nous exhortait à être plus minutieux quant à la définition de notre produit et de notre image de marque avant de nous choisir le nom « Ateneo Digital » de façon définitive. Un quiproquo multiculturel dû à des cadres de référence institutionnels, philosophiques et historiques différents nous empêchait de définir notre image de marque.

Nous avons orienté notre discussion vers la source de notre désaccord – le terme « ateneo », ses connotations, et les champs sémantiques qui lui sont reliés – et nous avons ensuite redirigé les exercices de définition de produit et de notre image de marque. Nous avons partagé, entre membres de l’équipe, des exemples illustrant les diverses façons dont les populations de pays tels que l’Argentine, le Brésil, et l’Espagne grandissent en étant exposés fréquemment au terme « ateneo ». Ce dernier est utilisé de façon régulière dans les écoles, universités, centres culturels, ou autres institutions; ce qui n’est pas le cas aussi souvent dans le monde anglophone. Identifier l’origine culturelle de notre malentendu et l’aborder clairement nous a aidé à résoudre nos différends de façon efficace. De plus, nous avons constaté qu’il pourrait y avoir des malentendus similaires dans le futur, au sein de notre équipe mais aussi avec nos futurs clients. Par conséquent, nous avons changé notre approche par rapport à la communication dans multiples langues. Dorénavant, au lieu de simplement traduire nos communications écrites, nous commençons par identifier quels concepts doivent être présentés de façon uniforme étant donné leur importance pour notre image de marque. Ensuite, nous les adaptons culturellement afin d’être sûrs que nos lecteurs en anglais, français, portugais et espagnol les comprennent clairement dans tous leurs détails. Finalement, nous nous laissons suffisamment de liberté culturelle pour adapter le contenu de notre message à notre public cible. Notre nom, « Ateneo Digital », a passé l’épreuve de ce malentendu initial; et notre mode de communication s’en trouve renforcé : tant à l’interne qu’à l’externe, il est dorénavant révisé dans toutes les langues de façon périodique afin de nous assurer qu’il demeure culturellement pertinent et significatif.

La planification dans des pays qui fonctionnent rarement comme prévu

Disons les choses comme elles sont: il est difficile de planifier quoi que ce soit au Venezuela! Chaque nouveau jour amène toutes sortes d’imprévus, des pénuries d’eau aux pannes d’électricité, en passant par les pluies torrentielles et le classique « Je te retrouve à 7h » quand en fait cela veut dire à peu près n’importe quand après 8h30. Pour Olivers, c’est un environnement familier; il sait quand et comment il est le plus facile d’organiser des réunions d’équipe, quel genre de tâches peuvent être faites à distance, combien il est plausible de planifier pour une journée de travail, etc. Le pendant nord-américain de l’équipe (moi-même inclus) n’avait pas une bonne notion de ces détails souvent intangibles mais pourtant cruciaux. Nous avons appris à accepter que cette entropie vénézuélienne est une condition inhérente à laquelle tous ceux qui font des affaires au pays doivent se confronter, et qu’il ne sert à rien de vouloir trop planifier ou de stresser pour des phénomènes incontrôlables. Prévoir des zones tampons, donner priorité à l’équipe locale dans la définition des tâches immédiates, et gérer soigneusement les attentes de chacun s’est avéré crucial afin de pouvoir mener à terme nos projets dans un contexte si incertain. Ces réalités nous ont forcé à reconsidérer notre plan de développement, reconnaissant que pour pouvoir être compétitifs dans la région, nous devrions repositionner certaines fonctions essentielles de notre compagnie en Amérique du Nord et d’autres ailleurs en Amérique Latine.

Il a été gratifiant de constater que bien que nos efforts aient été ralentis par l’incapacité constante de planifier bien à l’avance dans ce pays, nous sommes aussi devenus plus forts et solides grâce à nos efforts d’adaptation et à notre créativité face à l’adversité. Cet aspect bénéfique pour notre compagnie transparaît, par exemple, dans la façon dont nous avons institutionnalisé notre savoir. Nous avons adopté des technologies simples mais fiables pour nous assurer que chaque équipe soit autonome et que tous nos documents soient toujours sauvegardés et surtout, synchronisés. Nous définissons les tâches en supposant que le chef d’équipe pourrait ne pas être disponible pour consultation; nous développons des instructions concises entre collègues, nous déterminons clairement qui est responsable de quoi, et nous avons la liberté absolue de toujours remettre en question ce qui peut sembler être un a priori culturel. La patience parmi les membres de l’équipe – qui est une qualité bénéfique pour n’importe quelle entreprise – est devenue chez nous presque obligatoire, tout comme le besoin de se mettre réellement à la place de l’autre avant de tirer quelle conclusion que ce soit sur une situation donnée.

Nous avons aussi pu échanger des excellentes recettes – de la tarte à la rhubarbe aux arepas vénézuéliennes – tout en attendant que l’électricité revienne ou qu’un membre de l’équipe se joigne à un appel conférence.

Savoir où trouver de l’aide et des ressources

En janvier nous avons joint l’un des plus importants programme d’aide aux start-up en Amérique Latine : Start-Up Chile. Ateneo Digital avait besoin d’une présence importante en Amérique Latine à l’extérieur du Venezuela, et d’un accès à plus de ressources et d’aide aux entrepreneurs. Nous n’avions ni les ressources ni le temps de faire application à plus d’un programme, et nous devions donc identifier le plus adéquat. Nous avons choisi le Chili pour plusieurs raisons : à cause de son importance comme pôle économique dans la région, de sa jurisprudence solide et reconnue, de l’environnement d’affaires innovateur qui y règne, des accords de libre échange d’une grande valeur, ainsi que d’une infrastructure de télécommunications exceptionnelle. De plus, la structure et l’angle d’approche du programme étaient particulièrement appropriés à nos besoins culturels. Contrairement à d’autres programmes, Start-Up Chile est conçu pour bâtir des liens entre l’Amérique Latine et le reste du monde en regroupant des entrepreneurs à la fine pointe de leur domaine de partout au monde avec une expertise et des expériences spécifiques à la région.

La diversité culturelle de notre compagnie nous mènera sans aucun doute à de nouvelles situations cocasses, voire difficiles à gérer, qu’il est même difficile d’imaginer dans l’immédiat. Cependant, nous croyons que notre ADN multiculturel nous sera extrêmement utile. Les Vénézuéliens possèdent un grand sens de l’humour et une capacité d’adaptation inépuisable quand il faut accomplir des tâches avec des moyens limités; les États-Uniens contribuent avec une bonne dose d’éthique de travail; alors que les Canadiens sont des grands défenseurs d’un équilibre entre travail et qualité de vie. Nous combinons tous ces éléments dans notre compagnie, et c’est ce qui fait de nous un start-up réellement panaméricain.
Notre constat, à date, est que peu importe si votre équipe est localisée dans une seule ville ou éparpillée dans plusieurs espaces géographiques et culturels, le plus important pour les start-ups internationaux en développement est que chacun des membres de l’équipe soit disposé à apprendre; et surtout, qu’il soit ouvert aux changements de paradigmes. Tout le monde sera mené à atteindre les limites de sa zone de confort, ayant bien souvent à les dépasser largement. Prenez le temps d’évaluer minutieusement les défis, sous tous les angles possibles, d’en comprendre les diverses causes, et de décider rapidement quelles mesures doivent être prises pour les relever. Une approche rigoureuse et attentive aux détails multiculturels ainsi que beaucoup de patience seront essentiels à vos efforts, peu importe où vous vous trouvez dans le monde.