Thursday, May 11, 2006

Canadian Venture Forum - Competing for the Cup

Today was Day 1 of the Canadian Venture Forum, put on by the Toronto Venture Group. The event actually started last night with a networking reception, which I quite enjoyed.

I'm keeping this post really short as it's late, and I'll have a more detailed wrapup later. I especially wanted to share highlights from Mary Macdonald's opening presentation today, which provided a great overview of the Canadian venture market, and how it compares to the U.S. and globally as well. Some very interesting facts and figures, but that will have to wait for now.

Just wanted to post some photos from today. Saw some good presentations, although most of the IP-related ones are tomorrow. Overall, among the IP-based companies, I can definitely say that most are focused on wireless applications. More on that later.

So, what's "competing for the cup" all about? Well, the CVF has it's own Stanley Cup, so to speak. They'll be handing out "Victor Awards" to the top companies at the end of the conference tomorrow. There's something about Canada and trophy-type events. Hockey is the only major team sport in North America that competes for the trophy itself - such a quaint tradition, but I love it. The other team sports are American games, and are largely a product of television - there's no romantic notion of competing for a trophy in these sports - I digress.


"The Cup", also, one of the opening panels with several major VCs

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Some interesting things from the floor - Jeremy Bernard of Diaphonics (biometric voice verification), Fauzi Zamir of VisualGate Systems (video/surveillance over powerline)

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