we're making Halton a high tech hotbed!
Kickoff
After thanking Grace Attard, the Creator and Owner of the e-Spot for donating her unique establishment to us for the meetup, Chris and Rick overviewed the progress since the July meetup.
- Rick guest blogged on Communitech's site about the Birth and Growth of Silicon Halton. This helps us further generate awareness.
- Chris & Rick had a introductory meeting with Jeff Zabudsky the new President of Sheridan College. We were pleased that Darren Lawless, Dean, Sheridan Applied Research also joined us. Representing a hi tech leader in Oakville, Mike Branch President of Inovex accompanied Chris & Rick. Mr. Zabudsky is certainly community minded and we're confident that we'll be able to forge a strong long-term relationship between Silicon Halton and Sheridan.
- Chris & Rick also met with Sumon Acharjee, the new CIO @ Sheridan College. Sumon is also very interested in Silicon Halton and how we can work together.
- Ken Lowe wowed the crowd with the metrics presentation (captured in the slide deck).
- We've expanded our team by two - two members have stepped up to take on the Location Manager role, one for Burlington and another for the Oakville area. Thanks!
The New Member Badge
Members asked for use of a logo that they could place on their business cards, website, marketing material, and possibly kitchen wallpaper. After JellyBean Solutions drafted 4 prototypes, members voted and selected this badge. Our usage guidelines are "Use common sense". You can find the logo here.
The Program
We had a unique mini-presentation by Kevin McCullough, a recent graduate of Sheridan's Bachelor of Applied Arts Animation program (4-year program). Kevin briefly explained the process to create the his project. Noteworthy was that it took 2+ days to render the project on his Mac.
Matthew Psutka of 60 Plus Computing presented his new company and his value proposition.
Alan Payne, a Computer Science and Computer Engineering Teacher with Halton District School Board. High Skills Major program - a new initiative by the Ministry of Education to have high school students exposed to Industry Sectors as part of their diploma programs. He provided an overview of the Skills Major in Information and Communications Technology Diploma Program at TA Blakelock. The result? A member has expressed interest in participating in the program. Members can join his conversation on LinkedIn here.
Maximum cruising altitude not attained
In the spirit of truthiness, we recognized that this meetup was not our best. A combination of an unexpected condensed meetup window, intros which ran over and slide deck content that could have been skipped, resulted in greatly reduced networking time and importantly, needing to defer the planned workshop on our Unconference. We're going to make some structural changes for our August meetup. Join the conversation on LinkedIn here. Give us your thoughts.
Recap Video and Pix
Our quick overview of how the event went, about our bumping in to two Silicon Halton members and what's planned for Meetup #10 on August 17th in Milton
Here's where you can register the next meetup. Also, pictures here.
Thanks
- Thanks to e-spot for donating their unique facilities to us. If you're a small biz or solo-preneur, you could find great value with having access to e-spot business-office like facilities. Grace offered Silicon Halton members a group discount if 5 or more members join symultaneously. If you are interested, please ping Rick or Chris.
- Thanks for Travis at SnapOakville.com for covering our event. Pictures here.
- Thanks to JellyBean Solutions and Sekey for their creative designs for our logo.