There’s a new way to connect with people across the tech landscape in Ottawa.
Last week, Calgary-based events company Tech Thursday hosted its first networking event in the capital, featuring a panel discussion on Ottawa’s startup support network.
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There’s a new way to connect with people across the tech landscape in Ottawa.
Last week, Calgary-based events company Tech Thursday hosted its first networking event in the capital, featuring a panel discussion on Ottawa’s startup support network.
Ottawa is the third city to which Tech Thursday has expanded after Winnipeg, according to co-founder and CEO Philippe Burns, who said the company began as a marketing channel for Alberta-based Neo Financial before spinning off on its own last summer.
“We just found there was a sort of gap in terms of what events were taking place and who those events attracted,” Burns told OBJ. “So we decided to start an event where, every week, we brought together senior members of the tech ecosystem. That’s how it started.”
Burns said the idea of bringing Tech Thursday to Ottawa came after a one-off event in San Francisco where he met Darryl Bandoro, principal of investor relations for VU Venture Partners in Ottawa.
“We chatted about Ottawa, that ecosystem, and how it might work for something like a Tech Thursday,” said Burns. “From that conversation in early October, we kept chatting and kept looking at, okay, does this work? When I visited, (Ottawa) did strike me as very similar to Winnipeg and Calgary in terms of there being a lot of folks working on really cool tech companies.”
The Ottawa arm is being led by a steering committee of locals, including Bandoro, strategic biotech consultant Liisa Johns, online business strategist Laurie Miggins, Youth Ottawa executive director Jesse Card, and brand and storytelling strategist Paul Newton.
The committee, Burns said, will be responsible for determining which tech topics are most relevant for the local audience for upcoming events.
The weekly Tech Thursday meetings are meant to be informal and casual, Newton told OBJ, with a smaller size that allows for an intimacy and ease of connection compared to larger networking events.
“It’s meant to be a lot of networking,” Newton said. “Just come downtown, socialize, have a drink and enjoy yourself meeting people. That’s the atmosphere we want. There’s no charge to attend.”
The first event in Ottawa last week drew about 20 attendees. For both the Calgary and Winnipeg groups, Newton said growth was mostly organic and quicker than expected.
“It’s that sharing of LinkedIn posts and people inviting their community to come out,” Newton said. “I know they grew to over 150 really quickly in both Winnipeg and Calgary, so we’re hoping to see similar growth here in Ottawa. You get some really great insights from the themes and the panels that we’re bringing out, who share what it’s like in the trenches and the good, the bad and the ugly."
Burns added that Tech Thursday has ambitions to continue expanding across Canada, including launching in Edmonton next week. He said the company has hosted one-off events in the Greater Toronto Area and hopes to solidify its presence there soon.
“It’s really important for us to build really strong local tech communities as we grow into these markets,” he said. “One thing that’s also important is, how do we break down the barriers between traditionally very similar communities like Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg? I’ve already noticed there’s very little interaction between those markets. So as we add more cities, we want to refine the way we make introductions and create a larger platform for employees, founders and investors across Canada.”
