By Monica Goyal
Want to see the best extreme sports videos? Want to network with other young entrepreneurs? Or do you want a better way to create great looking proposals? These were just some of the problems companies demoing at DemoCamp Halifax were solving. The very first DemoCamp held in Halifax this past Friday, it was received with the same level of enthusiasm and energy that one would find in Toronto.
Inspired by DemoCamp Toronto, TitanFile lead the organization and sponsoring of the event. There was a notable difference from other DemoCamps. This time around, there was a theme for the event: Women in Technology. As we all know, the representation of women in technology is discouragingly low, so it’s great to see an event focus specifically on women. Ticket sales from the event were donated to Women in Technology Society.
I thought I would highlight a few of startups from the night that might be of interest:
- SXPD: Think comic book video game. Duke Mighten showed a video of someone interacting with a prototype of this comic book game. Created for tablets, the user experience is akin to reading a comic book, in which some of the pages would come to life, and you become a character in the story. These books are short and may be released as frequently as weekly. This project is currently in pre-beta phase, so you should be on the look out for it next spring.
- 4sight ECM: If you are looking for an enterprise solution to managing your company’s document information, this may be a solution to consider. I can easily think of how much time I spend daily searching for documents. Windows just doesn’t seem to cut it, and no matter how much time I spend on fixing my file folder structure, I always seem to forget where I put important documents. From the demo, it looks like you could find documents easily and sort the information by document type. However, beyond the demo, I cannot tell you how well this product will solve most sources of document frustration.
- Compilr: For those in web development, who are interested in all things new, check out Compilr. It is described on the DemoCamp Halifax site as “…an online interactive development environment (IDE) that allows you to code, compile, and collaborate on a variety of supported languages.” You can access your projects wherever you are, and on any device, as long as you have a web browser. From their demo, I was impressed by the software’s ease of use. I would think for programmers this would give you added flexibility, if you happen to work at different locations or on smaller projects. They also offer programming courses through their website.
There seems to be a number of interesting initiatives and events sprouting up in the Atlantic region, along with lots of Government support. You may want to keep your eye on what’ happening there.
Monica Goyal is a Toronto-based lawyer and a technology entrepreneur who founded My Legal Briefcase,
