Pawly at Ontario's Celebration Zone

The day was July 28, 2015 and Pawly was super excited to participate in the Ontario Celebration Zone. Running from July 10 to August 16, the celebration zones showcased the best of Ontario including, music, theatre, dance, book readings, art installations, comedy and community showcases, great cuisine during the Toronto 2015 Pan Am games.

The beautiful and picturesque Toronto Harbourfront Centre played host to the celebration zone.

The Ontario celebration zone at the beautiful Toronto Harbourfront

 

Our witty robot, Pawly, had been excited weeks prior to the event at the prospect of meeting people from different parts of the world. Pawly had been practising some special moves for the event!

The event kicked off with some amazing Tai Chi and Qigong, giving participants greater inner calmness and a feeling of profound wellness. Tai Chi and Qigong are two mind-body exercises that originated in ancient China.

Tai Chi and Qigong session in progress

Next, the award winning rock band – The Ollivanders set the stage on fire, playing some sick music and transforming the celebration zone into a party zone! Pawly sat on the greens, chilling to some great music!

Pawly chilling to the tunes of the Ollivanders

 

Next up, the Tibetan Canadian Cultural Centre put together a stunning performance in the background of lovely traditional and contemporary music.

 

Performance from Tibetan Canadian Cultural Centre

It was an absolute food fest next up, with chef Christian Pritchard making some mouth watering local and international culinary delights all made from ingredients sourced from Ontario. Yes, you read it right all from Ontario!

Pawly joined the long lineup to taste the chef’s specially prepared jerk chicken only to return back disappointed – empty-handed!

Chef Christian Pritchard preparing his special jerk chicken

Well these events could not fulfill the party apatite of our snappy robot, which disappeared shortly after the aforementioned events got over. We finally found Pawly standing in a line-up to register itself for rock-climbing and zip lining. 

Rock Climbing wall at the Ontario Celebration Zone

A visitor enjoying zip lining at the Ontario Celebration Zone

Along with a skew of cool events for the visitors, the July 28 Celebration Zone also showcased local technology startups companies affiliated with DMZ Ryerson.

 

Pawly’s booth at the event

Overall we had tons of fun at the event. A big shout out to DMZ Ryerson for inviting us to this truly amazing event.

Pawly at Tech TO Meetup June 2015

On June 15, 2015, Pawly was exhilarated to participate in the Tech Toronto Meetup for the month of June. Every month Tech Toronto Meetup brings together smart, fun, and creative people from across the full spectrum of Toronto tech community.

Located at the heart of Downtown Toronto, the contemporary and amazingly modern Telus House building played host to this month’s Tech Toronto Meetup.

The magnificent Telus House. Photo Credit: Busler

 

And yeah, now something about our snappy robot - Pawly had started working out long hours a couple of weeks prior to the event. Already fit and lean, we couldn’t understand Pawly’s recent fitness craze? Finally almost as we were checking into the Telus House, it chose to speak about its gym craze, “You know what guys I’m gonna guzzle up all that free beer an smash a couple of pizzas!” Well well, there you go, we got the answer :)

As soon as we hit the conference room, Pawly grabbed its beer and suddenly started whistling and waving at the visitors, drawing hundreds of visitors at the Pawly booth. 

Pawly Booth

 

After mingling with tech enthusiasts for about an hour, Pawly grabbed a seat to witness the 5X5 session, a session where 5 Toronto based technology companies make 5 presentations each.

5X5 session about to kick- off

 

Vantage got the 5X5 started, and shared some of the lessons learned since it launched.

Vantage Presentation

 

With its powerful predictive analysis and data mining techniques, Vantage, a software product, helps companies to build and optimize incredibly effective marketing campaigns. 

Bitmaker Labs took to the stage next, talked about the jobs in Canada’s tech world, and gave an advise to Toronto budding tech enthusiasts to think like an investor.

Bitmaker Labs' Presentation

 

Being Canada's largest technology bootcamp, Bitmaker Labs empower tech enthusiasts to build their ideas.

  

It was Turnstyle next! The presentation captivated the audience by comparing businesses and marketplace with performers and audiences in an Improv session. The advice was simple - continuously adapt, innovate, and act fast!

Turnstyle's Presentation. Photo Credit: Tech Toronto

 

Turnstyle helps businesses monetize their Wi-Fi by enabling location-based marketing and analytics capabilities.

Amity was invited to the stage next.  The highlight of the presentation was the advice offered to budding entrepreneurs of pitching to people who can say ‘yes’ (yeah, screw those who say no!).

Amity's Presentation

 

Amity offers software that lets companies effectively manage all customer lifecycles to quickly grow their SaaS business.

Impression Ventures concluded the 5X5 session with a presentation highlighting the differences in business practices of Venture Capital firms in Canada, and the US.

Impression Venture's Presentation

 

Impression is a Venture capital firm focused on investing in financial and related technology companies.

No sooner than the 5X5 finished, Pawly was nowhere to be found. We ran around the conference hall to find it, but to no avail. Finally, we found it hanging by the bar, and enjoying guzzling beer! That was so Pawly-licious! Boy doesn’t it live its life!

Pawly taking a well deserved break at it's booth. Photo Credit: Tech Toronto

 

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed meeting immensely interesting and curious tech enthusiasts and listening to presentations in the 5X5 session. Thank you so much YEDI for giving us the opportunity to participate in this amazing event! We look forward to participating in more Tech TO Meetups in the coming months!

Pawly at Tech Shuk 2015

On May 11, 2015, Pawly was excited to participate in the first ever Tech Shuk showcase event. Tech Shuk is a start-up showcase and networking event for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and young professionals.

 

The event took place at the Toronto Reference Library located at 789 Yonge Street, Toronto. Prior to the event we were like…what? A start-up showcase event at a library; sounds so boring! But OMG! Since when have libraries become so beautiful and contemporary! We were positively shocked and felt its time to step back to the library from time to time.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

   

No sooner did we enter than our snappy robot, Pawly, was stunned to see the magnificent interiors and the amazing ambience. Pawly was pumped up! Even saying things like “and why do you need a gym to pump up, when you have places like these ;)” and off Pawly went, charging to the Tech Shuk conference hall.

Toronto Public Library's stunning interiors. Photo Credit: Dennis Marciniak Photoblog

 

If the interiors were not enough, this was a first evening event that Pawly was attending after a long time; boy was Pawly high or what? We had not seen it that excited and high before :) 

The booth was set up, and we had a score of visitors coming over to experience the super-excited, and ultra-high Pawly! And Pawly didn’t disappoint anyone, as it showed off its cool moves.

Pawly Booth. Photo Credit: JNF Toronto

Besides the demo pit, three companies - WINR Games, Moodi, and Foodee - had the chance to present in front of ‘Lions’, in a Dragon’s Den-style pitching competition – the judges included, Matthew Golden of Golden Venture Partners, Matthew Leibowitz of Plaza Ventures, Ben Zlotnick of INcubes, Daniel Klass of Klass Capital and entrepreneur Yishay Waxman.

WINR Games got the Lion’s Den started! WINR Games delivers free games on their Big Time app and offers a weekly raffle cash prize to players that can go up to $1,000.

WINR Games founder Jeremy Zuckerman making the pitch. Photo Credit: JNF Toronto

 

Moodi went next! The App allows young people to create an anonymous profile to express and track your emotions and get feedback from the community.

Moodi founder Sharon Zohar making the pitch. Photo Credit: JNF Toronto

 

Foodee went in last, to conclude the pitching round. They are an office food delivery service that delivers from small popular local restaurants. 

Foodee's pitch. Photo Credit: JNF Toronto

Pawly swinging around the conference hall. Photo Credit: JNF Toronto

 And did we mention…. hors d'oeuvres were served! Pawly was awe struck to have witnessed such an amazing event, and was unwilling to leave the conference hall. We had to run around Pawly to convince it to leave, shouting out that we promise to bring Pawly back at the JNF Tech Shuk next year!