Make sure to pay attention to Amy Rae’s Canpages video. The Canpages app contest has been extended for entries until April 12th: winmoney.canpages.ca.

Compass Engine

Mack Flavelle from Compass Engine talks location based gaming everywhere.

Drupal Geo with Open Layers

Mack Hardy from Affinity Bridge explains how you can click together some off the shelf Drupal modules and get incredible geo functionality.

Canpages API Contest

Amy Rae from Canpages, talking about their API and their API contest

The Business of Geo

Parveen Kaler from Smartful Studios talking about the Business of Geo.

I think Bruce is still promising the other presentations, so we’ll have those up when they’re done. Thanks, Bruce!

It also happens to have been downloaded 250K times and lets anyone that can do HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can build a cross platform mobile app. Here’s a list of some of the apps built with PhoneGap.

Bring your laptops, bring some BEvERages of your choice, bring $5 for pizza, and we’ll see how many apps we can build in one evening. Tuesday, March 23rd, 6pm until late.

Let us know you’re coming on Upcoming.

We just pushed publish confirming March 4th as the date for DemoCamp Vancouver 10: Geo Edition – #democampyvr10.

This edition will also be using the theme of “geo”. From the growth of GPS in virtually every phone to location aware applications of all kinds, we’ll be focusing on showcasing demos that connect around space in some way.

Matt Galligan will be coming to town to tell us about his new platform SimpleGeo for easily running your location infrastructure for you rather than building it from scratch.

Interested in doing a 6 minute demo / presentation? Contact us – we’ve got room for about 5 people to present.

Read on for full outline and presenters »

It’s something I’ve been thinking about as well. I get a lot of young entrepreneurs coming through my office, and many of them would love to just be handed a manual so that they can educate themselves. Steve Blank’s 4 Steps to the Epiphany should be on local shelves, and there are a number of other business, marketing, and tech books that we should be able to just grab from a local store.

(To Americans that may be reading this and just screaming “Amazon” at the screen, Amazon.ca is a neutered version of the .com, and while we can order from the .com as well, shipping + the border take longer and cost more)

So, I suggest that anyone interested in having books like this in stock band together and approach some local stores about having a really great Startup / Entrepreneurship / Social Media section. As Tris found out, Chapters et al all get marching orders from Toronto, so the big box stores are going to be hard to deal with.

The two stores I have in mind (conveniently located in Gastown, of course) are Biz Books (focused on Film & TV because of VFS proximity) and the SFU Bookstore in Harbour Centre. I’ve sent Biz Books an email suggesting the idea to them, so we’ll see what they say.

Books to recommend? Leave comments and links below, and we’ll approach the stores and see what they say.

From their business development page:

To further our mission we would like to make available to select partners, individuals, and businesses the main floor of 163 East Pender Street. We hope that this open shared work space can contribute to the revitalization of the inner-city by providing a space for creative professionals to flourish, for ideas to percolate, to cross pollinate, for businesses to grow, a place where stuff gets done.

What we’re offering is a work surface, be it a desk, a chair, a table, a couch, or the bay window, wherever you’re most comfortable. Of course we’ll offer wi-fi and other niceties such as an electronic white board and a projector to facilitate discussion and creative thinking. There’s a fridge for your food, a microwave, filtered water cooler, and secure storage for your bike. The price is a flat $200 per month and includes keyless access.

We’re looking for creative professionals, progressive thinkers, the socially responsible and ecologically conscious who want to be surrounded by others of like mind. Folks who want more than a cubicle and a 9 to 5 and dream of bigger things and a better Vancouver to call home. If this sounds like you, contact Andrew “Muskie” McKay 778-328-7672 or write coworking@bobics.org

They’re looking for people to get in touch if they’re interested in the space, and hope to be up and running by late November.

Company registration goes until this Friday, so apply now. Investors and members of the public are also welcome to attend, and can register here.

We’re excited about the great speaker lineup, and looking forward to seeing lots of great pitches and great discussions on investment in the digital media space.

Here’s the full version of the press release (also see the post on Techvibes).

NEW MEDIA BC ANNOUNCES NEW RATES FOR FUSION VENTURE FORUM AND BEST IN SHOW JUDGES

Organizers New Media BC are pleased to announce that with the support of the National Research Council Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) and Bootup Entrepreneurial Society, all entrepreneurs can participate at the Fusion Forum for no additional cost above the regular attendee price of $100. All companies attending the Fusion Entrepreneur Boot Camp held on November 5 as well as the twenty selected to pitch to top tier investors during the Fusion Venture Forum on November 12, will pay this same affordable rate as conference attendees.

“Our community has a history of producing some of the most notable digital media companies in the world,” says Maura Rodgers, Executive Director of Bootup Entrepreneurial Society. “We challenge our best entrepreneurs to step forward and show the international investors what our community is made of.”

The package includes full access to the event, including networking lunch and reception. Presenting companies will also have free access to “Entrepreneur Bootcamp” training sessions, presentation coaching, and a chance to pitch at the Forum on November 12th and potentially have one-on-one meetings with visiting investors from Silicon Valley.

“New Media BC is thrilled to have the support of NRC-IRAP and Bootup Entrepreneurial Society to provide such great value to BC and Canadian entrepreneurs.” said Rochelle Grayson, Interim President at New Media BC. “We have lined up first-class investors and industry experts, and we are looking forward to showcasing the best digital media talent and opportunities BC and Canada has to offer.”

The deadline for registrations has been extended to Friday, October 30th to allow entrepreneurs to take advantage of this special rate. Reimbursements will be made for companies who have already signed up at the full rate.

New Media BC also announced that Fusion’s “Best in Show” judges will be Tom Duterme, Corporate Development Manager at Google Inc., Saeed Amidi, CEO/President and Founder of Plug and Play Tech Center and Steve Hnatiuk, Founder and Partner at Yaletown Venture Partners. The “Best in Show” presenter will receive paid airfare to San Francisco and three month placement at the prestigious Plug and Play Tech Centre accelerator in Sunnyvale, California.

The message we sent out to our Startup Notification List had our offices filled with companies giving 10 minute pitches / talks to Mike Lee. Here are the companies that made it through the door:

• Fundrazr
• Sutus
• Lex Publica
• Mingleverse
• Ayogo
• Scallable
• Blast Ramp
• Mobify
• Layerboom
• Dimerocker

It was a fun afternoon talking with everyone in the waiting area, and I think the companies all made a good impression (even though Mike was pretty tired after his long day). Some videos from DemoCamp Vancouver 09 will be up early next week. Have a great weekend!

Mike Lee, the VP of New Ventures at Rogers, will be presenting at DemoCamp 9. You’ll get an opportunity to hear what Rogers’ plans are to work with and support tech ecosystems across the country, and what their investment plans are. I’m hoping for a lively Q&A as well.

The second featured presentation will be Tim Bray. Tim is a technologist with a long history of being involved in interesting things. Although he’s based in Vancouver, he spends a lot of his time traveling and presenting around the world.

The presenting companies have been selected and are as follows:

• Recotype – Recotype is an open framework for requesting and receiving recommendations on Twitter
• Yummy Republic – a wireless platform to link take-out restaurants with internet to enable them receive online orders and send back confirmation to customer instantly. YummyRepublic includes bespoke GPRS terminals, and several servers to control those terminals.
• Troovy – a web and mobile-based local discovery platform. Users find recommended places and people based on their own travel and feedback patterns.
• Deets.me – cloudy contacts
• Layerboom – Layerboom provides hosting companies with a comprehensive software
  platform which gives them the ability to turn their dedicated servers into virtual private server clouds.

In other news, after we made the call for people to help with DemoCamp, Vince Hodges of Sourdough Labs / Chipped.In / Pennyminder stepped up and said that he is going to help. Thanks, Vince!

Anyone else want to help plan / produce / source startups for DemoCamp? Leave a comment, we’ll do the next one in late November.

Connect 09 is the aiming to be the biggest gathering of the technology industry, and is being hosted by the BC Innovation Council on October 19th. They’ve just opened up a CrowdVine-powered networking site so you can connect with attendees ahead of time. We’ve found it a useful tool in the past when we’ve used it at Launch Party. If you’ve signed up for one of the previous Launch Party networks, you can sign in with the same email/password to join the Connect 09 Network. You can register and buy tickets here: http://connect09.eventbrite.com/

DemoCamp Vancouver is coming up later the same week on October 22nd. We’re going to hold it at our old favourite standby, the atrium space next to the private Steamworks lounge at 375 Water Street. There will be a handful of featured presentations, and we’re looking for a few more 6 minute presentations to round out the evening. There is no charge for the event, but please register to indicate attendance. In particular, if you want to give a presentation, sign up for a “Pitch Presenter” ticket with a description of the pitch you want to give.

We’ll be having some out of town guests give presentations on a variety of things, including an announcement of some new funding sources for startups in Canada.

As always, if you want to be notified of major events and applications, subscribe to the Startup Events notification list, or check the list on Upcoming at http://events.bootuplabs.com. Want your event shared? Add it to Upcoming!

It’s more than a week after DemoIgniteCamp that we had at the Vancouver Convention Center thanks to Microsoft Canada and Joey deVilla. You can find his wrap up post on the Microsoft Canadian Developer Connection blog. My excuse is that I was involved in 6 events in 5 days and am just surfacing again

I really enjoyed the opportunity to get really really techie. As Avi said, “Surprised that the demos (including mine) are all of tools vs. products”. We purposefully kept the list very developer / programming / cool tools focused, and I’m pleased with the result.

We had 7 presentations, none of them really in Ignite style aside from Joey’s. I think it would be fun to do “real” Ignite style presentations at some point, but in Vancouver, the original Pecha Kucha does a good job of that.

The 6 presentations aside from Joye’s were as follows:

1. Clamato — Hot Smalltalk on JavaScript action by Avi Bryant
2. TransitDB – Carson Lam’s online guide for Vancouver Transit users that won the PHP FTW contest earlier this year
3. RestfulX Framework – Dima Berastau’s framework for bringing Rails-esque goodness and RESTfulness to Adobe Flex and AIR development
4. PhoneGap and Ayogo’s use of it for iPhone Game Development
5. Joyent’s Smart – Joyent’s server-side Javascript cloud platform
6. Walruz — Ruby framework for managing complex authorization policies

My sincere apologies to Mobify for not having time to fit their presentation in at the end. It just goes to show that I really do need a gong for timed presentations (/me looks at DaveO).

Thanks again to Joey and the rest of the Microsoft Canada / TechDays crew for making the space available AND for buying a round of truly “Free beer” at the Lion’s Pub afterwards, and to everyone for attending and presenting.

So, this wasn’t really a DemoCamp event, and it wasn’t really an Ignite event. It was a lot of fun, and I’d like to do more like this. As I said at the event, I need help in programming and organizing these events – get in touch or leave a comment if you have some ideas.

We’re also announcing another DemoCamp Vancouver event on October 22nd. If all goes as planned, we’ll be announced some startup funding related news at the event. If you want to present, please follow the link and sign up for a “Pitch Presenter” ticket.