List of hackathons in Canada in 2015

Join this hackathon for an vibrant and educational hardware experience. Learn about some of the coolest toys and get hands on experience with info sessions from Protocase experts and great mentors! You will be provided with Arduinos and Raspberry Pis to get you started! Come learn about or improve your hardware skills, have fun and play with your ideas!

DemoCamp is for the regional technology and startup community to come together and share their projects, give advise, and create connections. The event involves a keynote talk + Q&A followed by a series of 5 minute live tech demos plus 5 minutes of audience Q&A. Anyone interested in locally built technology and start-ups is welcome!

An "unplugged" version of CapCHI, moving away from the usual format with a more casual night of Lightning Talks, a series of 5 minute presentations from a wide range of professionals and academics in the HCI, UX, and/or Design worlds. Also, if their is some extra time left, floors will be opened for anyone to inspire us with their own story.

  Everyone is using Big Data to get that competitive edge. Big Data is everywhere these days. You cannot read the news without someone mentioning it. But what does it mean for you and your organization? Are you being left behind or missing opportunities that you cannot afford in today’s economy? This session will provide you with background necessary to assess where you are at and what opportunities might be available for you. This session is specifically for Executive Directors and their technical teams. This session will also help select organizations far enough along to be involved with further discussions and getting involved in “Data Dives” or “Hackathon’s”, which will be coming soon to Fort McMurray. Facilitator - Bryan Jackson Bryan Jackson is a business professional with a diverse background ranging from building Process Control systems to Director of Aboriginal and Stakeholder Relations. He’s always been curious about how systems work.   In particular, his interested in complex systems which is why working in the Social Profit Sector is appealing. All of the challenges they face every day are complex. Bryan is currently on secondment from Suncor Energy at FuseSocial as the Chief Imagineering Officer. He is using his experience in business, computer science and problem solving to help our community build a socially and environmentally prosperous region with a high quality of life for all.

Join the conversation @innovateforward   On the evening of December 2nd we will be celebrating the launch of the LOFT’s second physical lab space, along with all of the initiatives it will continue to drive and support. In our quest to spark innovation within our internal organization, we want to take this opportunity to open our doors to the larger entrepreneurial and university communities in Toronto. This innovation capability will reach far beyond the greater Toronto area  and support both the company as well as the city of Toronto in becoming a renowned leader in advancing technology. We hope to find ways to support the wider innovation ecosystem here in Toronto and identify areas for collaboration as we launch.  We are thrilled to announce that we will also be hosting a special guest speaker, Jeremy Gutsche!   Jeremy Gutsche is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning innovation expert, one of the most requested keynote speakers on the planet, and the founder of TrendHunter.com, the world's #1 most popular trend website, attracting over 2 BILLION views from 100,000,000 total visitors. Prior to Trend Hunter, Jeremy grew a $1 billion portfolio for a bank and today, over 300 brands, billionaires and CEOs rely on his unique expertise to FIND BETTER IDEAS FASTER. He has been described as "a new breed of trend spotter" by The Guardian, "an eagle eye" by Global TV, an "Oracle" by the Globe and Mail, an "intellectual can of Red Bull" by Association Week and "on the forefront of cool" by MTV.    Evening Agenda Time Activities Location 2:45 – 4:00 pm Live prototype demos of top 10 hackathon teams Auditorium, MaRS Discovery District 4:15 – 4:45 pm Judges deliberation and participant experience assessment Auditorium, MaRS Discovery District 4:45 pm Doors open to reception Multipurpose Room, First Floor MaRS Discovery District         5:15 – 5:20 pm Welcome remarks and introduction of guest speaker 5:20 – 5:40 pm Guest Speaker: Jeremy Gutsche 5:45 – 5:55 pm Manulife and innovation remarks 5:55 – 6:05 pm Announcement of winning teams, prizes, photo-op 6:05 – 6:15 pm Closing remarks 6:15 – 8:00 pm Reception commences  

  Join the conversation @innovateforward   Overview 'Unleash Toronto' will be the second hackathon hosted by the LOFT. On December 1st, members of the Toronto start-up community will join our organization’s brightest individuals from across the Investment, Group Functions, U.S., Canadian and Asia Divisions. Over the course of 2 days they will pitch, build and refine new business offerings and/or products and services that answer the following question: “How might we help customers redefine and reimagine what it means to invest with Manulife through the use of new business models, channels technology?”     Prizes & Judging Criteria The First Place team will receive $10,000 cash, and the Top 3 teams will receive an exclusive networking dinner with Manulife Executives, and a working strategy session with LOFT Leadership! Submissions will be judged across several categories: a.    Clarity of the Entry in framing the problem or challenge b.    How well does the value proposition of the Entry fit its intended market needs? c.    Did Participant/team focus the presentation on the Entry ? d.    Did the Entry prototype capture the core idea of a compelling end product? e.    Did Participant/team present feasible post-Competition milestones and hand-off strategy for the Entry? f.    Should Manulife pursue this initiative? g.    Importance of the Entry h.    Urgency of the Entry   2-Day Agenda   Please click the "Register" button above  to complete your registration for  Unleash Toronto, and refer to the link below for a PDF copy of the terms and conditions of the Participation Agreement.  Click here for access to a PDF copy of the Unleash Toronto Participation Agreement  

Drinks on us. HackerNest Tech Socials are a fun, relaxed way to connect with your local tech brethren. Atmosphere: chill, friendly, unpretentious, agenda-free (no sales pitch, yo), and brimming with UltraSmart(TM) people. Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, hi-5 us in person. :) Rough lineup (pretty much always in development) - quick intro  - sponsor appreciation & love  - announcements Sponsors make this growing movement possible, so we treasure and build deep, long-term relationships with the companies that endorse us. We're always looking for new friends! Sponsors: Brainstation: Powering the next generation of creators Venue: Wanna show off your office? We're always looking for big open spaces with 200+ (standing room) capacity that are easily accessible. About Us: HackerNest is an international nonprofit uniting local tech communities through unpretentious Tech Socials and hackathons. We cram lots of smart, accomplished people into a room with free drinks. Our relaxed, down-to-earth events attract a diverse and highly technical membership. Strict no-douchebag policy.

UX Camp 2015 is set for November 28th! This year we have several exciting speakers, topic and panels that cover the gambit of UX topics. This camp is for developers, designers, project managers, product managers - anyone who is interested in building better products. This year we will be focusing on two streams: Design as a Practice - This stream focuses on the emotional, artistic and practical matters of design. This stream is for project managers, interaction designers, designers and basically any one who is part of the design life cycle. Design for Enterprise - Work in government or a large organization? Have to deal with several layers of bureaucracy to get things done? This stream will focus on navigating the murky waters of enterprise and how User Experience can accelerate your processes. We're still ironing out some of the schedule but here is the tentative plan: HEADS UP: Space may be limited in certain sessions Start TimeTrack A (Design as a Practice)Track B (Design for Enterprise) 8:30am Registration 9:00am Opening Remarks 9:15am To be announced by Jess McMullin 10:00am The Art of Empathy - the role of art in design-based practices by Davis Levine & Keren Perla Actual Strategy through UX by Lejjy Gafour 10:45am Coffee! (provided by NAIT catering services) 11:00am Emotional Design: From Client Management through Product Launch by Jeff Archibald, Claire Devaney & Trevor van Gorp New Ways of Working: The Future of Digital Government by Paul Bellows 12:00pm Lunch (provided by NAIT catering services) 1:00pm Fail Fast with Fake: Prototypes to weed out ideas before build by Ben Franck Product Strategy Bringing Organizational Change - User Experience for Government by Ammneh Azeim 1:45pm A Framework for Deciding the“How” After the “What” by Ashley Janssen Selling User Experience by Bob Evans 2:30pm Coffee! (provided by NAIT catering services) 2:45pm How do we Change?  by Gene Smith 3:30pm Closing Remarks   SPEAKERS Jess McMullin Keynote: Designing Innovation Culture   Organizations need to innovate holistically--from customer experience and touchpoints through to operations, policy, strategy, and organizational culture. To become a resilient organization, innovation must become a deliberate part of that culture. We see this cultural innovation shift occur when it becomes part of the values, capability, and capacity developed by teams and leaders. Jess will talk about his work collaborating with in-house teams to create capability and culture for dealing with complex adaptive challenges.      Jess McMullin is an international leader in design and the public sector, and the founder of Situ Strategy and the Centre for Citizen Experience. Working in design since 1996, in 2009 he dedicated his management consulting and coaching to helping government work better for people. He works with purpose-driven clients to develop their capability and culture to tackle complex adaptive challenges. Based in Edmonton, he frequently teaches and speaks around the world.       Gene Smith Closing: How do we change?       Gene is the president and owner of nForm, one of Canada's leading user experience strategy and design firms. Gene works with nForm's public and private sector clients to create successful digital strategies and deliver high-impact websites, applications and intranets.     Ammneh Azeim Speaker: Product Strategy Bringing Organizational Change - User Experience for Government    Many organizations are trying to break through the market or introduce innovation through their products and services. A product or service doesn’t stand a chance if organization’s structure and operations are not striving to achieve the product vision. We see a lot of that in public sector where product teams tend to feel more vulnerable to organizational silos and political humdrums.  With this talk, I’ll be sharing case studies of working with public sector organizations that are trying to bring forward change in the way a service and product is delivered to public. We will be sharing the challenges the product teams face and how to overcome those challenges.   Ammneh is the team lead for UX design and strategy team at iomer internet solutions. She has been in information technology field since 2002. At iomer, Ammneh provides strategic direction to public and private sector customers and their managed information technology projects.  She is a founder of User Experience Edmonton group, where she has been providing guidance and leadership since 2009. Ammneh has also taught User Experience theories at Grant McEwan University. She is actively involved in IT community and speaks at various events including a speaking engagement at Information Architecture Summit in Baltimore (April, 2013), World IA, acted as a mentor for Health Hackathon Edmonton event and spoke at Startup Edmonton regarding UX research methods and design.       Lejjy Gafour Speaker: Communication with Flexible Documentation   The fundamental process we follow of how we understand design problems, users, and content hasn't changed much, but the documentation we deliver and how we deliver it is a bit in flux. We're experts in cognitive science, usability, and solving problems with design. However device fragmentation forces us to think through flexible experiences with portable content and in turn, to rethink how we communicate to our clients throughout the process.   Lejjy has been at the University of Alberta for 3 years. Currently as a Solution Analyst engaged with Strategic Planning and Execution. He specializes in Enterprise Architecture and User Experience/Service Design. He has also designed and collaborated with the rest of his team to create cloud infrastructure deployments, cloud and storage strategies, enterprise strategies, and enterprise technology infrastructure roadmaps. There is a lot that the UX/Cx/Service Design world can lend to major issues that all companies face that go under utilized, especially when it comes to making strategy happen!          Davis Levine Co-Speaker: The Art of Empathy - the role of art in design-based practices   The Relating System Thinking and Design Symposium 4 took place at the Banff Centre this past year from September 1-3, 2015. During the symposium, an exploratory 3 day workshop was run by Keren Perla and Jonathan Veale titled "Designing for Empathy: Systemic Design and the Art of ‘Homo Empaticus’" as a unique opportunity to explore the use and implications of an artful approach for generating empathy.   This talk provides an overview of the workshop and a de-briefing of our findings. We will share our insights about the value and role of arts-based practices in design and hope to inspire continued experimentation with art in all its creative mediums as alternative ways of developing empathy in your own practices..   Davis Levine is a user experience designer at iomer internet solutions. Davis received his Bachelor of Design from the University of Alberta and has been awarded a Certificate in User Experience by Nielsen Norman Group. With a focus on interaction design, he designs complex applications that are rooted in user centred design. His attention to detail and analytical mindset is a foundational skill set for creating enriching workflows and engaging user interfaces. Davis is an active member of the local creative community and is a booster for downtown Edmonton, active transit, and sustainable living. He drinks his coffee black and rides his bike fast.     Keren Perla Co-Speaker: Generating Empathy in Design Through Arts Based Practices   Director of Foresight and Design with the Department of Energy. She has been a key leader for advancing the use of systemic design across the public sector, applying the approach across a broad range of policy challenges from work on energy futures to social policy and programs, to organizational governance and design. Keren’s academic training is grounded in cultural studies, focusing on the interface of cultural interest and groups. Her superpower is fostering authentic participation and engagement between diverse groups and perspectives.           Ashley Janssen Speaker: A Framework for Deciding the“How” After the “What”   Do your projects often go over budget? Do you question why someone on your team implemented a feature a certain way? Are you unsure how to proceed when starting work? Do you want to ensure your client is getting the user experience you intended, while staying within the scope, resources, and timeline you agreed to? I will talk about a framework that you can use to communicate with your team to help them think critically about the decisions they are making during the planning, design, and development of a project. This framework will give them a reference for being mindful about how they plan a project, how and why they implement features in a certain way, and the impact that has on the project as whole.   Ashley is a Principal at AgileStyle, a software consulting and custom web development company in Edmonton. After graduating from the University of Alberta in 2006, she started her career with the Government of Alberta in business and operational planning. In 2009 she joined her husband and business partner in building AgileStyle. Over the past several years they have grown from two people in a basement suite into a talented, ever-expanding team with a trendy office in Garneau. Like most entrepreneurs, Ashley’s role in the company has transitioned many times over the years but currently her time is spent on business development and strategy. When she is not developing relationships in the web development, business, and not-for-profit communities she is spending time with her Little Sister through Boys and Girls Clubs Big Brothers Big Sisters, playing volleyball, or reading a good book.           Bob Evans Speaker: Selling User Experience in Your Organization   If you've ever had to sell the concept of User Experience to your organization you will recognize that it can be an uphill battle. In this session we will discuss strategies and talking points on how you can convince the higher-ups that User Experience is not only fairly scalable and cost effective, it's critical to the success of any product   Bob Evans is the Senior Product Manager at Localize, a Edmonton-based food data company and a true start-up success story. He is a User Experience evangelist and helped to co-found UX Edmonton which he continues to help run. Has has multiple years of experience working as a UX consultant, information architect, interaction designer and project manager. His current focus is on product parenting, design and delivery. When he's not senior product managing he's probably at the Garneau, prattling on about movies while his wife politely feigns interest.           Paul Bellows Speaker: New Ways of Working: The Future of Digital Government   Digital work requires a diverse and specialized skill set, one that government struggles to hire or buy.  Cities and government struggle to put together teams with the right mix of skills to deliver user-centric, usable web communication and online services. Through our work with the City of Mississauga we’ve begun to uncover some new ways of working that will help them to build digital capacity and learn from their own successes. Whether you’re trying to deliver public services, or trying to work with government to raise their game, it’s important to understand how government teams are finding new success.        Paul has been working with public sector and institutional customers on digital strategy since 1996 when he co-founded Yellow Pencil. Cities, regional governments, health care, and crown corporations are his specialty. Clients include Alberta Health Services, the City of Edmonton, Government of Alberta, Government of Yukon, City of Vancouver, BC Transit, the Library of Parliament, City of Mississauga, Edmonton Airports, Investors Group, CPA Canada, and the City of Red Deer. As well as leading Yellow Pencil’s sales and consulting practice, Paul currently works with government organizations to build new ways of doing digital work in order to better meet citizen needs for service and information.         Ben Franck Speaker: Fail Fast with Fake: Using prototypes to weed out terrible ideas before you build them       In this talk I will explain what a prototype is and the benefits of using one when designing complex software. I will show the various levels of detail a prototype can depict. I will highlight various tools that can be used to build a prototype. Finally, I will share some best practices for building an effective prototype in a limited amount of time.    Ben enjoys doodling and creating interactive prototypes. He has six years of experience building websites and apps for a wide variety of clients including government, non-profit organizations, and local businesses. Ben is a graduate of Austin Center for Design where he learned the interdisciplinary skills of creative design thinking, as applied to solving complicated problems of society and culture. During his time off Ben likes to bake cookies, ride his bike, and snowshoe in the beautiful Edmonton river valley.      Emotional Design: From Client Management through Product Launch Panelists  Jeff Archibald Jeff Archibald is co-founder of a design agency in Edmonton called Paper Leaf, an award-winning shop that builds custom brands, websites, and applications. When not wielding his (figurative) design sword, Jeff often talks at events and sits on design panels to share his knowledge with the community. You can find his articles on design & business in FastCoDesign, Business Insider, and Lifehacker.       Claire Devaney Claire Devaney is a co-founder of Elements Digital Studio, where she leads all things design. Elements Digital is a small but busy studio that focuses on increasing brand equity through custom branding and websites. Claire grew up in a family business and quickly learned that good UX is good business. When Claire isn’t in the studio, playing soccer, or searching for "fresh tracks" on a mountain, she’s a board member for the Advertising Club of Edmonton.         Trevor van Gorp Trevor van Gorp is the co-author of “Design for Emotion”, and the founder and principal of Affective Design Inc., a trusted user experience consultancy with a focus on emotional design. He’s spent the last decade developing a deep understanding of the relationship between design and emotion. During that time, Trevor has created information architecture, performed interaction design and conducted user research & usability evaluations for large organizations including the City of Edmonton, the Edmonton Transit System, Comcast, Ancestry.com, DDB Canada and the Government of Alberta.    His research, comments and design deliverables have been featured in the books “Designing for Emotion”, “Deconstructing Product Design” and “Universal Methods of Design”. Trevor has also given presentations on emotional design at conferences in Canada, the United States and Sweden. You can find him online at: http://designforemotion.com http://affectivedesign.com     Sponsors We could not bring you this event without generous donations from our sponsors. GOLD iomer Internet Solutions   nForm   Loop11 - Twitter | Facebook | Website   SILVER Kina'ole   BRONZE PaperLeaf   Yellow Pencil

Two days. Three cities. More than 400 participants from across Canada. SportsHack will bring together teams of hackers in Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax to compete in developing innovative sports-related software solutions. This year, in partnership with the Canadian Football League (CFL), SportsHack challenges you to develop real world technologies from the CFL's real world data. The final challenge(s) will not be announced until the event begins, but all of the necessary materials and data will be released prior to the event. Follow #SportsHack15 for upcoming details, so that your team can start planning. We will be hosting a prep event on Nov 19th so that you can access the data sets. Register your team here! At the end of the weekend-long hackathon, regional finalists from the three locations will advance to the national round, where they will have the opportunity to make a virtual pitch to our panel of judges. The winning team will have an opportunity to work with the CFL and mentors to bring their solution to market. This hackathon is a great opportunity to make cool hacks and meet fellow developers, programmers, designers, hackers, data scientists and fellow data-enthusiasts. There are over $16k in national/regional prizes. You get to keep anything you make, including IP. You can create whatever you want, but only sports-related hardware/software will be judged. National prizes include: First prize: $4,500 cash, Support services to bring your hack to market, Time to meet and connect with the host partners of your choice, An opportunity to work with the CFL and mentors, and Four tickets to the 2016 Grey Cup game in Toronto! Second prize: $2,500 cash, and Support services to bring your hack to market. Third prize: $1,000 cash. Atlantic region judges include: Gord Dickie - President GoalLine Julia Rivard - Olympian, Co-founder Eyeread, Partner at Norex Shaun Johansen - CTO and Co-founder of Eyeball    For more information, please visit sportshackweekend.org. Development Partner   Thanks to the CFL’s generous support, teams this year will work on real world challenges to develop products with commercial potential. If you're a sports fan and want to create your own start-up, this event is for you.

$14,000 in prizes. Two days. Three cities. More than 400 participants from across Canada. SportsHack will bring together teams of hackers in Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax to compete in developing innovative sports-related software solutions. This year, in partnership with the Canadian Football League (CFL), SportsHack challenges you to develop real world technologies from the CFL's real world data. The final challenge(s) will not be announced until the event begins, but all of the necessary materials and data will be released prior to the event. Follow #SportsHack15 for upcoming details, so that your team can start planning. At the end of the weekend-long hackathon, regional finalists from the three locations will advance to the national round, where they will have the opportunity to make a virtual pitch to our panel of judges. The winning team will have an opportunity to work with the CFL and mentors to bring their solution to market. For more information, please visit sportshackweekend.org. Need a team? No problem. There will be an open window at the beginning of the competition where we can help connect you with other registered participants. Wondering where to stay? You can stay with us, just bring your pillow and sleeping bag. Don’t know much about football? We’ve got you covered. We’ll have mentors attending that can help show you how to apply your tech know how to the CFL. We're looking for fan engagement solutions. Consider the CFL your first customer. Pre-Hackathon Events Why attend? You're thinking of joining SportsHack this year You want to learn about the challenge You want to learn how to use the tools that will be at the hack You want to start forming you team Date & location November 25, 2015, 6:00pm-8:00pm | RSVP Lighthouse Labs 639 Queen St. W., 3rd Floor, Toronto Development Partner   Thanks to the CFL’s generous support, teams this year will work on real world challenges to develop products with commercial potential. If you're a sports fan and want to create your own start-up, this event is for you.