TEDx Edmonton is a wrap! And what a great day it was.

No doubt more recaps about TEDx Edmonton will be reflected on and written about by many of you. We’re looking forward to reading and hearing more from you as you spread the ideas you heard, and as you spread a few of your own ideas along the way. You can already check out some photos from the day here (lots more to come), and stay tuned for the presentation videos that we’ll edit and post in the coming weeks. Send us your links and photos, so we can share them here too. In the meantime, some final thoughts and thanks:

To our presenters – Tim Antoniuk, Shawna Pandya, Andrew Hessel, Shafraaz Kaba, Theresa Howland, Grant Skinner, Cameron Herold, Sean Stewart and Krystle dos Santos – thanks for taking time out of your super busy lives to share your passions, stories, music (and madlibs) with us. Same goes to my fellow hosts, Cam Linke, Stephani Carter and Michael Brechtel. It was great to share the stage and this journey with you.

To our event partners and my fellow organizing committee members – all your hard work, dedication and contributions helped us put on a show to remember. From setting up the venue, to the set design, to the camera work, to the audio and even dealing with a glitch (or crash) or two – you were all fantastic.

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Earlier this week we (Startup Edmonton) held the very first Launch Party Edmonton at the Matrix Hotel. It was a huge success, with over 250 entrepreneurs, investors, developers, designers, and interested people from around the city came out to celebrate our tech startup community! It was way beyond our expectations and everyone we talked to was pretty pumped to see an event like this happen in Edmonton.

It was a great time and our featured startups got plenty of love and attention during and after the event (and the kudos continue to pour in). We can’t wait to get going on the next Launch Party!

Edmonton Journal: Tech startup umbrella group shines spotlight on Edmonton (front page of the Business section!)
Global TV: News Hour Final
Edmonton Sun: The Kids Are Smart
TechVibes: Launch Party Edmonton A Huge Success
Chris LaBossiere: Edmonton’s Rockstar Tech Community
FotoJournal: Launch Party Recap
Mack Male: Recap Launch Party Edmonton
Twitter activity at #startupyeg

Some pics from the party:

That’s me, Mark, Cindy, and Cam, my Startup Edmonton Organizing Committee compadres. Being tourists in the photo booth.

Rob & Lauren from FotoJournal also put this awesome time lapse video of the evening:

A huge thanks to our event partners who generously supported this first event including Microsoft BizSpark, Venture Alberta, Cardinal Venture Partners, Robots and Pencils, Yardstick Software, Mailout Interactive, Digital Alberta and artsScene Edmonton.

Check out more photos of the event here!

A week ago I was lucky to be in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games! I’m an avid (fanatic) Olympic fan so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be at the games when it was only a province away. I spent five busy days going to events like short track speed skating (even more exciting in person!), cross country skiing in Whistler, and of course, men’s hockey. I had tix to Norway vs Switzerland (which was suprisingly an exciting game), and Russia vs. Czech Republic (so much firepower in this game). It was also great to meet up with friends, party at the international ‘houses’, and just bask in the atmosphere of an Olympic city.

I snapped lots of pics and posted them here!

I was on the hunt for Quatchi and friends (the best Olympic mascots ever!) and was so excited to finally track that sasquatch down.

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Two very exciting news items to share today.

Earlier today, we publicly launched seekyourownproof.com, bearing our new identity and that of our new partners at Discovery Kids (US).

We’re also proud to announce that we’ve closed a $1M round of financing with Foundation Equity II LP, a venture capital firm headquartered in our hometown of Edmonton.

A few years ago, we set out to create a new kind of brand experience for connected young minds. One that would blur the lines between entertainment and education, nonfiction and fiction, and the online world with the real world. To add to the mix, we wanted to share our curiosity and a love of storytelling, mystery, science, history and the unknown. We might also add that our background working in the educational, museum and cultural heritage space was another contributor. And thanks to seed investments from Telefilm Canada and the Canadian Film Centre, Seek Your Own Proof was born.

During the development of Seek Your Own Proof, we’ve been lucky to earn industry recognition, including ”Most Promising New Company” at the Canadian New Media Awards; “Best Pitch” at the international Pitch It! competition at the KidScreen Summit in New York, the largest kids’ entertainment industry event in North America; “Best of Show” at the Fusion Digital Media Venture Forum in Vancouver; and, most recently, Grand Prize Winner at the TEC VenturePrize competition in Alberta. All of this provided valuable feedback that helped shape our product and company into what we’ve launched today.

It was shortly after VenturePrize that we first connected with the team at Discovery Kids. Over the next few months, we worked to finalize an exclusive, long term deal that will see Seek Your Own Proof become a featured creative property and brand within the Discovery Kids family. It’s the perfect brand fit that will expose Seek Your Own Proof to the millions of kids and families across North America and worldwide who know and love the Discovery Kids brand. Discovery Kids is also part of Discovery Communications LLC, the world’s number one nonfiction media company. Discovery reaches more than 1.5 billion cumulative subscribers in over 170 countries through 100-plus worldwide networks and brands, including Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Science Channel, Planet Green, HowStuffWorks.com and TreeHugger.com.

We’ll have more official details and releases to share in the coming weeks. In the meantime, do check out the site and sign up for an agent account today!

Check out our launch trailer on YouTube:

Great post this morning on Techvibes asking “Does your city have the 5 things necessary for a Local Startup Ecosystem?” The five necessities were social density, great workspaces, events, proximity to money, and creative diversity. I think this was bang on and is definitely something many passionate people (myself included) here in Edmonton are working on through initiatives like Startup Edmonton, artsScene Edmonton, ENTS, Democamp and more. We’ve still got a way to go, but if we can get everyone working towards a common vision for a great startup ecosystem in Edmonton, we’re on our way.

Social Density – The success we’ve had with our startup has been the result of having a solid supporting network of peers and mentors that have provided us with the guidance, experience, and honest feedback that every entrepreneur needs to have around them. But for us, that network has composed primary of people outside of Edmonton – people I’ve met in other cities and through conferences. I’m starting to meet more entrepreneurs in town (which is awesome), but I think what we still need are more local mentors who have the (relevant) experience we can all draw from. Note: we’re working to get more of these kinds of mentors up to Edmonton through events like Startup Weekend and Startup School.

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Hey look at that! I made the 2010 edition of “Digital Media People to Watch in Alberta” on Techvibes.com. Thanks @superblue for the write up – you did get the “never sleeps” part right. I say sleep is a burden. As for being unstoppable, let’s hope I can live up to that description! Be sure to check out everyone else on the list – it’s awesome to have entrepreneurs like them driving our emerging startup and tech community in Alberta and beyond!

Digital Media People to Watch in Alberta in 2010

Digital Media People to Watch in BC in 2010

Digital Media People to Watch in Ontario in 2010

The holidays are over. Sniff.

It’s been an enjoyable couple of weeks operating in holiday mode. Lots of parties, food, gorging myself on boxes of chocolate, devouring sugar and shortbread cookies, assaulting my eyes with video games and movies, enjoying time with family and friends, and a whole lot of chilling out mentally. Definitely needed the break after the exciting year that was 2009. Being part of the team at RED, learning all about the agency world and showing them the world of interactive. Working hard on our new venture Seek Your Own Proof, winning VenturePrize and closing a couple of big deals on the financing and distribution side (which we’ll be able to announce details around our launch next month).

I also took on a few more things in 2009, getting actively involved in starting up new community initiatives like artsScene Edmonton, Startup Edmonton and TEDx Edmonton. My intent? I’ve been lucky to have had many opportunities to travel during my career, meeting many other young entrepreneurs and creatives in urban centers like New York, San Francisco, Vancouver and Seattle. In these places, there’s the perfect mix of creativity, technology and entrepreneurship. The challenge has been finding more of this mix and these people in my own backyard. These initiatives are giving me that opportunity. Over the past year, I’ve gotten to know and work with many more passionate, ambitious, creative and smart young people who long for the same vision for this city. So my hope is that the events and initiatives we’re planning for 2010 will help to mobilize our generation towards transforming Edmonton into the creative, world-class urban community we believe it can become. (Side note: Interesting enough, an article in today’s Journal addresses this exact issue).

So as I get fired up for my third act in 2010, I thought it was also time to update my site/blog in preparation. Big things are coming this year, so I’ll hope to share the experiences, the stories, and the journey along the way with you all.

This weekend, I was invited to give the keynote presentation at the SaskFilm (SMPIA Showcase 2009) Interactive Luncheon, talking about transmedia, cross-platform storytelling and Seek Your Own Proof. I also participated on a panel presentation with Andrew Lane (nitch) and Caitlin O’Donovan (Corus Entertainment) as we live-juried their “Future is Multi Platform” competition. We were asked to provide our input and advice to the producers who were selected to present at the luncheon. It was a fun time and best of all it was great hanging out with my Toronto peeps Andrew and Caitlin (since I’m so detached from the Toronto digital media scene). Anyway, I posted my keynote presentation deck online to share.

A few days ago, Avenue Magazine unveiled the inaugural list of Edmonton’s 40 Under 40 and I was proud and honoured to be among the selected group.

From Avenue Magazine: “When trying to imagine the future of Edmonton, one has to picture the future faces that will shape it. These faces are of urban planners mapping the new city, community workers enhancing our quality of life, entrepreneurs enriching the local economy and artists sending our brand out to the world. In Avenue’s inaugural Top 40 Under 40, we seek to honour the brightest and most talented individuals under the age of 40 who are excelling in their careers, giving back to the community and raising the city’s profile. They are the generation of today making a better future for the people of tomorrow.”

I was recognized for my professional and community accomplishments, which included getting artsScene Edmonton off the ground in 2009. I’m really excited to have artsScene and our mandate of growing Edmonton’s creative community profiled in the issue and hopefully that adds to the momentum we’re building into next year.

Be sure to check out the full list here – it’s a fantastic group of young people who are already playing a role in shaping the future of our city!

Photo: 40 Under 40 winners (cover boy, fellow artsScene Edmonton committee member and Next Gen Chair) Cary Williams, Ken Bautista and (Edmonton blogger extraordinare) Mack Male. Thanks for the photo Mack!

Like many of you out there, I’ve spent a lot of time being inspired by TEDTalks from TED.com. J.J. Abrams’ mystery box presentation from TED is still one of my all time favorites:

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx, where x=independently organized event. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.

I’ve been working with my fellow artsScene chairs in Edmonton (Michael Brechtel) and Calgary (Sarah Blue, Alex Middleton), along with other passionate young professionals like Cam Linke, Stephani Carter and Jasmine Antonick to bring TEDx to Edmonton, Calgary and Banff. A few weeks ago, we received an official license from TED green lighting events for the coming year!

TEDxEdmonton will be an incredible opportunity to be inspired by leading creative professionals, technology experts, entrepreneurs and business and cultural leaders from across the city and around the globe, and learn how they are driving the creative economy. Built around the unique TED Talks format, themes will include creative entrepreneurship, creative sustainability and creative technologies.

More information will be released over the coming months at tedxedmonton.com and tedxyyc.com, so be sure to sign up for our mailing lists and follow us on twitter at @TEDxEdmonton and @TEDxYYC.