Entries Tagged 'Ottawa' ↓

There was more auspicious startup news this week, this time from Ottawa, where a very talented group (partly made up of some long-term friends and former colleagues) has launched PickupPal. PickupPal is a really great idea, and I think represents a class of website/webapp that we’re going to see more and more of in coming months.

The idea is simple: it’s an online ride-sharing marketplace that uses the familiar socnet/Web2 techniques in pursuit of practical, real-world goals that go far beyond simply building and maintaining your social graph.

The other thing about PickupPal that is especially great is that ride-sharing by definition is environmentally friendly and can help people reduce their carbon footprint. We’re not all lucky enough to live in a city like (central) Montreal with world-class mass transit – and a practical, easy way to help get a few cars off the road is very timely.

in San Diego. Last year at this time I was in San Diego putting the finishing touches on the demo for Trigence, the Ottawa software company I was working for on contract. So, having been there, I wish all the DEMOing companies the best of luck – it’s going to be a rush. DEMO and DEMOfall are certainly among the best tech conferences out there. Here’s this edition’s list of participating demonstrators.

around here but I haven’t had much time to blog about it. Last week I started a great new gig here in Montreal, and Friday night Nadia and I bought a place to live in when we get back. This is the place (ground floor):

We move in at the end of June, so between now and then, I’m borrowing a friend’s apartment on Av du Parc and commuting back to Ottawa on weekends. I miss Nadia and the dogs already!

it’s now official – je reviens à Montréal! Or, I should say, nous revenons à Montréal. As of this week our house in Ottawa will be on the market, we’ve been looking at places in our beloved Plateau Mont-Royal for a few weeks, and I had a second interview for a really great job this morning and I am extremely optimistic that an offer is going to follow at the end of the week.

The only sticky issue will be that I will likely have to be in Montreal for work before we’re entirely set up in our new abode, so I’m also looking for somewhere to rent a room for a month or so (in May). Suggestions and offers to mboyle [at] mikel.org!

Update Apr 12: the offer I was hoping for did come through and I start work on April 30. I have had a couple of nice offers of space to stay for a few weeks and I’ll be following up on those shortly. Thanks for all the well wishes!

about an interesting new initiative called the Government 2.0 Think Tank, or G2TT. It’s a group that’s just being formed to look at how to bring more forward-thinking Internet communications methods to Government in Canada. Definitely something to watch closely. See also Nathan Rudyk’s blog post about the initiative. Good stuff.

via organizer/activist Michael Lenczner: mtl3p: Presenting CivicAccess.ca / AccèsCivique.ca. See the website here: http://civicaccess.ca/ (plus the launch announcement).