On the weekend of June 11th I travelled down to Montreal to catch my 2nd Canadian Grand Prix. It was a hot day with lots action. To add on top of that, it was my birthday also. I honestly think these tiny beasts produce the greatest engine sounds know to man. Being the fanatic that i am i of course recorded the cars flying by at full throttle.

All engineers are lined up ready to march in to the building.

You know those times when you see someone you've met before and you try to introduce them to someone else. Two things happen:

1. You remember their name and you have a smooth intro.
2. You totally blank out and you make an ass of yourself.

With the number of people I meet at socials #2 tends to happen sometimes. I've stumbled across a great article on Forbes listing methods of remembering names.

1. Repeat some one's name when shaking hands with them. (Best method I have applied and helped. All you have to do is remember to actually do it.)
2. Turn some one's name into an image. (Not my style)
3. Spell their name out. (I usually connect this tip to #7)
4. Connect name to with information about person. (Most of the time I am introduced to certain people and have this information off the bat.)
5. Wordplay. (Too grade-school for my taste. Doesn't work with some name.)
6. Introduce yourself and spell out your name. (I feel this would be too awkward to actually use on a regular basis.)
7. Record the name on paper and notes on where you met. (LinkedIn is your best friend. Once i see some one's name either on a profile, or on a card, I've got it somewhere in my head.)
8. Ask for the name if you blank out after introduction. (Honesty is the best policy. We are all human after all.)
9. Introduce the person you're with first, forcing the 'unknown' to introduce themselves. (Always my 1st resort, although i have been in situations where the 'unknown' did not introduce themselves leading to more awkwardness. I feel that filling in the person you're with on the situation quickly prior to the 'unknown's' approach helps solve that problem. They can ask what their name is and what they do, taking you out of the equation.)

Happy Socializing! Source

I recently participated in Round 1 of the Lead To Win program. This was an amazing experience and I got approved for Round 2 starting in end of June. This is a step towards the major league of Startups and Ecosystems. On the last day we had we had David Lisk (Industrial Technology Advisor) present. He asked us 4 questions that are supposed to test your readiness and commitment to being an entrepreneur. I found great benefit in answering them while reflecting on the session.

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more photos...

During the weekend of April 24th I was part of the Ottawa Innovation Challenge. The event took place at the Entrepreneurship Centre and consisted of a 48-hour challenge of problems faced by 2 Ottawa local businesses. The businesses were Wedding Republic and Unique Home Sites. Khaleel Jivrai) and I tackled issues such as marketing, product development and a final pitch of the changes to the Wedding Republic team. This was a short period to develop skills for each of these topics, but we were matched perfectly with our partners to tackle all aspects of the competition. As advisors to the teams we had arguably some of the more influential people in entrepreneurship in the Ottawa region. I was very happy to have finally met Stephen Daze, Scott Lake and Manu Sharma who I’ve known of from discussions with others in the Ottawa startup scene and twitter. Sitting down with each and discussing our goals in solving the problem statement provided. After a couple minutes with each of them, I was impressed by the quick wit in marketing and product development that each displayed. It is definitely a great example of how experienced advisors are a great asset to a startup. Although my team did not win I did use the experience as a means to draw some 'Lessons Learned'. Lessons learned: 1. 10 minutes to pitch is a lot of time to say nothing. Keep it brief and hit on the points you were asked to cover. They know their business so there is no point explaining what the product does. What did they ask? What are you proposing? Why will it work? 2. Deliver on what was asked and don't think too much outside the box. Improving on what already exists and works may sometimes be better than introducing too much new functionality. This is especially true if you are a startup with limited cash. 3. Friendly competition will always bring the best out of you. Even though I was competing against a couple of friends I didn't let my guard down. There is no fun in sharing too much information when you’ll eventually find out what everyone else is doing in the presentation. I expected nothing less of exceptional from the team (we were all chose for a reason) so I stepped up my game. I never once thought I would be thinking of the wedding registry space for 48 hours straight. In many ways I feel I am too young to worry about that stuff just yet. :) 4. Consult with everyone you can but don't let everyone tell you what you should do. We discussed our plans with a decent number of folks (organizers, friends, family, mentors, startup founder). In that process we got a lot of feedback; some amazing and other less amazing to our vision of the solution. I had difficulty disregarding some opinions and suggestions as they came from people that were more experienced. Of course, if you hear the same thing over and over again you most likely have to visit that issue. Regardless, we did and I feel that we met the goal of the competition. 5. Have fun! In the end it is an experience and no matter what the results are, you are experiencing this as a group. It is a great opportunity to network with like-minded individuals in Ottawa and potentially bond. I felt very honoured to be a part of such a talented group and will stay in touch in order to help grow this initiative in Ottawa. It is much easier to be successful and have impact as a community (or ecosystem) than as a lone ranger. I'd like to thank OCRI and the OIC planning team for running such an event. They deserve a lot of credit as the event was well organized and they're the visionaries behind the future of Ottawa's technology ecosystem. Cheers, Filip

On Tuesday March 30th I had the great fortune of attending the TEDx conference held by Carleton University. The event took place at the Gladstone Theater (@thegladstone). Having been a long time subscriber in iTunes of the TEDTalks, i was excited to say the least. At the event were some of the more influential and innovative people in the Ottawa area. I had the pleasure of meeting some of them both in person and via Twitter. I say this because there was an intense twitter stream of updates during the event. I could barely keep up with updating my twitter and listening that i resorted to re-tweeting some of the tweets that summed the talks best. Below is a summary of the updates.

TEDxCarletonU Photo Album

Presenters (all from Carleton University):

Dr. Banu Örmeci - Associate Professor (Environmental Engineering)

Manuel A. Báez  - Associate Professor (Architecture)

Maria DeRosa - Professor (Chemistry)

Jesse Stewart  - Music Instructor (Music)

Jim Davies  - Assistant Professor (Cognitive Science)

 

Summary (reverse order):

filipmares Awesome night @thegladstone . Great to meet so many of innovators in the Ottawa community both in person and virtually. Cheers. #tedxcu

Japman_Bajaj  "Imagination is all around us. We can make better education modules. Maybe an imagination alone can create movies for us!" #tedxcu

Japman_Bajaj  The Grand Pumbaa back up for closing words. Luc Lalande closing the event #tedxcu

Japman_Bajaj  "If you imagine doing sports, it acutally makes you better at that sport!" i guess the power of positive thinking is real! #tedxcu

Japman_Bajaj  "We spend 20% of our time daydraemaing"#tedxcu

Japman_Bajaj  Our next speaker is all about studying imagination. Jim Davies up! Professor of Cognitive Science at CU#TEDxCU

Japman_Bajaj  "Decreasing infant mortality reduces population growth rates because families don't need to anticipate the death of their babies" #tedxcu

amandaemmanuel  Cost doesn't have to be an obstacle for innovation #TEDxCU

filipmares We have highschool students in the audience that presented at#tedxottawa  #tedxcu

filipmares  "Creativity is our birthright as a specie." #tedxcu

isfan  Jesse Stewart showing a clip of musical instrumentsade of ice. Now that's unusual and very cool. #tedxcu

RiahiSonia  @oak  just heard idea to turn cymbal playing (Jesse Stewart style) into ipad app. I think it could be great :0) #TEDxCU

saraweaver100  Take some time to break your routine and find the beauty in tiny everyday things... Like windchimes or finger percussion on a podium #TedxCU

byronalley  And Jesse Stewart is literally playing the podium. As an instrument. It's awesome. Musical found art. #tedxcu

RiahiSonia Jesse Stewart next...I've been waiting for this!!!#TEDxCU

amandaemmanuel  Making music from found objects...should be interesting!! #TEDxCU

filipmares Intermission is over and the MC Allan Neil is doing a great job.#tedxcu

Japman_Bajaj  "Making fertilizer small is cool, but what about making fertlizers smart?! Lets feed plants ONLY when they needed to be fed!" WOW #tedxcu

amandaemmanuel  Fertilizer that's not getting used by plants is being wasted AND costing Cdn farmers 1 billion dollars!!!!#TEDxCU

filipmares Need to get fertilizer to root of plant. Need a more efficient delivery.#tedxcu

davechale  "Without fertilizers we would need to use 50% more farmland." - Maria DeRosa @ #tedxcu

amandaemmanuel  1/2 of food supply we ha e can be directly linked to fertilizers #TEDxCU

amandaemmanuel  Yeay prof Maria DeRosa talking about pesticide and nanotechnology!!!!!!! #TEDxCU

Japman_Bajaj  "Trust yourself and believe. Whatever happpens, don't give up." Important lesson from #TEDxCU

filipmares Can nanotechnology help feed the world? #tedxcu

Japman_Bajaj  William Kamkwamba's riveting TED talk now being shown at #TEDxCU  Watch it here: http://bit.ly/a4mvXJ

amandaemmanuel  From equilateral triangles to a potential travelling circus tent. That is innovation #TEDxCU

filipmares Dr. Baez talking about how spirals on structure look chaotice from some angles and organic and structured from others. Mindblowing#tedxcu

filipmares "the reciprocal relationship between form & process" AMA crystal & flame #tedxcu  this sounds facsinating!! /via @krusk

krusk  "the reciprocal relationship between form & process" AMA crystal & flame #tedxcu  this sounds facsinating!!

amandaemmanuel  Looking at patterns in fluids caused by vibrations...so cool!! #TEDxCU

filipmares  Ppl here @thegladstone  are 2 quick updating their Twitter that i resort 2 retweet. I will put it togther into a blog post after. #tedxcu

Japman_Bajaj  Dr. Manuel Baez countless award wins, now speaking on architecture #tedxcu

Japman_Bajaj  Solar Water Disinfection. Use a cloth, filter water into a bottle,put it on the roof. let the sun clean it. "This Can Save Lives!" #tedxcu

Japman_Bajaj  Chlorine is cheap, but is not effective on certain microorganisms. Ultraviolet disinfection doesn't add any chemicals to water. -- #TEDxCU

amandaemmanuel  Every 15 seconds a child dies from a water related disease that is preventable #TEDxCU

ampli2de  Canada, take fewer showers. We are the 2nd most water wasteful country in the world. #tedxcu

Japman_Bajaj  Dr. Banu Ormeci on Water, Health, and Sanitation. #tedxcu  "Water is not abundant." Only 1% of the world's water is available for human use

krusk  The setup at #tedxcu .

amandaemmanuel  Ideas are the building blocks of innovation#TEDxCU

filipmares Opening the stage is @luclalande  right now showing the intro video. #tedxcu

I’d like to thank Luc Lalande and the volunteers

Awesome program with great people!