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!

Pawly at Digifest 2015

On May 9, 2015, Pawly was thrilled to participate in Digifest. Founded in 2002 by Luigi Ferrara, Digifest began as a festival with a focus on digital culture and design. In 2011, the festival was re-launched by George Brown College with an emphasis on bringing together industry, academia and the public to celebrate digital creativity. Digifest features the works of innovators and showcases how their creations are transforming society.

This year’s festival took place on May 7 – 9th, 2015 at the innovative Corus Quay building on Toronto’s waterfront.

Digifest Exhibition Floor

 

No sooner than we set up our booth, Pawly took off to show itself around the exhibition floor, saying hi and showing off its cool moves to exhibitors and visitors alike. Pawly hit the gigantic loop to take a ride, but then we had to persuade it back worrying that Pawly might hurt itself. Boy! Pawly was so charged up for the event! But we’ve got used to it, we mean the Pawly Swag!

At the event, we bumped onto some really crazy new start-ups. One of them was *nocampfirerequired, Oh yeah, the asterisk is a part of their name, isn’t that already crazy?  They were presenting their latest project, GeektroPolis. Geektropolis is an exploration of Toronto’s Geek cultures, and they systematically profile different types of geeks and their subsets, their leaders, gathering places and events.

Well we had a go, and it was quite a journey traversing through Toronto’s geekdoms :)

GeektroPolis Booth

And thanks to Indesology, we were down trying to lift balloons from the sea into a boat with our hands! Well in case you are wondering, we mean sea and the boat in the virtual world, even though we were right next to the lakeshore ;)

Indesology Booth

 

Meanwhile, Pawly’s swag ensured that we had steady flow of visitors and exhibitors visiting our booth to experience Pawly. While visitors took time to admire the championship belt that we won from Global Start-up Day, a global start-up contest powered by Google, Pawly would freak out and say, “Fuck the belt, talk to me, it’s here coz of me! Wanna know why?”  Well yeah, Pawly did the bulk of the talking and that meant we had to run around to keep Pawly hydrated! Screw you Pawly!

Pawly's Booth

   

Overall, we had a great time at the event, showing Pawly around, and getting inspired by the amazing ideas and concepts. We head to the JNF Tech Shuk next!

Pawly @ OCE Discovery 2015

On April 27 – 28, 2015, Pawly was excited to participate in the 10th edition of the Ontario Centres of Excellence’s Discovery trade show and conference. The event plays host to key players from industry, academia, government, the investment community as well as entrepreneurs and students to pursue collaboration opportunities. Renowned keynote speakers and panels ignite discussion, knowledge-sharing and new perspectives.

Discovery was hosted at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto. Over the two days, more than 450 exhibitors and 3000 attendees thronged the conference.

We were thrilled to witness some great new thought provoking ideas and start-up concepts just like us at the event. On the first day we bumped into teaBOT, a retail platform for customized tea through technology. Imagine a variety of fresh loose tea leaves transforming into fresh hot tea at the press of a button. We made our custom blend, and got lost in savouring the exotic and authentic taste!

teaBot's booth

As well, we tried a cool helicopter simulator, exhibited by ACE.  The simulator had a total of six screens, and was so real that we were so scared to crash!

ACE's booth

And on the closing day of the conference, we had eaten our first ever 3-D printed cookies! Thanks to Structur3D. While we can’t say they were the best cookies we’ve tasted, they were definitely the most unique.

Structur3D's booth (Photo Credit: Ontario Centres of Excellence) 

Structur3D is the creator of the 3D printer add-on called Discov3ry, a universal paste extruder, giving creators around the globe the capability to print intricate and complex designs with a range of soft materials. 

Meanwhile, our snappy robot, Pawly, attracted scores of attendees, entrepreneurs and investors to the Pawly booth, keeping us on our toes throughout the two days!

Pawly's booth

Over the two days, we also had the chance to hear from world-renowned thought leaders, senior business leaders, and serial entrepreneurs. On the first day, David Roberts, faculty member, Singularity University, delivered a jaw dropping talk on disruptive technologies. The second day saw senior business executives from Airbnb and Uber talk about their origins and future expansion strategies.

The two-day mega event concluded with Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, speaking about his motivation behind YouTube, and offering advice to budding entrepreneurs. Who would have imagined that cat videos would have led to the creation of such multi-billion dollar company as Google. But then again, we love cat videos; it’s pretty much what we do at the office all day :) (check out this funny video here)

Chad Hurley in conversation with CBC’s Amanda Lang  (Photo Credit: Ontario Centres of Excellence)

Looking back, it was a great experience and we had a lot of fun meeting and talking to myriad of people with diverse backgrounds and interests. And yeah, we were so blown away by the amazing concepts and ideas exhibited at the event. A big shout to all the fellow exhibitors!

We head to the digifest next! Until then, take care and enjoy the warm weather!