Are you ready? Ottawa’s Startup Weekend kicks off May 24

Ottawa’s Startup Weekend kicks off May 24.

Nicole Belanger is a member of the Startup Weekend Ottawa organizing team. You can find her at @nskbelanger, and Startup Weekend Ottawa at @swottawa.

There are no two-ways about it: entrepreneurship is trendy right now. News of multi-billion dollar acquisitions and overnight successes like Pinterest and Instagram have piqued an interest in tech startups for many people.

But entrepreneurship isn’t all about big-dollar deals or splashy features in Inc magazine. No — it’s a lot less glamorous (and a lot more rewarding) than that. And one of the best ways to get a taste of the startup is to participate in Startup Weekend.

54 hours of insanity

Startup Weekends are 54 hour events where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products and launch startups.

Sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation, an organization dedicated to advancing entrepreneurship, these weekends held around the world are an experience unlike anything else. Having the chance to come together and spend an entire weekend (and I mean the entire weekend — very little sleep happens) with like-minded, entrepreneurial people from your community is an incredible opportunity to grow your network and flex your entrepreneurial muscle.

The Startup Weekend experience

It is almost impossible to describe the Startup Weekend experience in a blog post — the atmosphere is electric and the energy that comes from a room full of hackers and hustlers working together towards a shared goal is beyond words.

For more information about Ottawa’s Startup Weekend, visit Ottawa.startupweekend.org

This video from Startup Weekend gives a great overview of what it’s like to be a part of your community’s weekend, but here is a breakdown of how a Startup Weekend works:

Friday night

Arrive in the evening, get some food in your stomach and have a drink or two while meeting your fellow participants. As soon as the evening festivities are over, we launch right into a no-holds-barred pitch session. Participants line up to pitch their startup ideas. These ideas are then voted on and teams are formed around the winning ideas. Teams work late into the night on their ideas.

Saturday

Doors open at 9 a.m. and after a quick breakfast, it’s go time. As teams work on their ideas throughout the day, they will have access to mentors (local tech, design and entrepreneurship experts) who will help guide them as they prepare to launch their companies. Saturday is another late night as teams burn the midnight oil creating and testing their product.

Sunday

Teams put the final touches on their products and prepare to deliver their pitch to the panel of judges who will choose the ultimate winners of Startup Weekend. The winning team(s) get access to resources and prizes that will help them take their startup to the next level after the weekend is over.

Are you ready to flex your startup muscle?

If you think you’ve got what it takes to join the thousands of budding entrepreneurs world-wide who have participated in Startup Weekend, be sure to register for the upcoming Startup Weekend Ottawa, happening May 24-26 at Shopify.

Tickets are $99 and include food and drinks for the weekend. Tickets for non-tech/marketing/business professionals are sold out, but there are still a few developer and designer tickets up for grabs.

Last chance! Don McCullin: A Retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada

Don McCullin’s work will be featured at the National Gallery of Canada until April 14

Mike Cullen (Twitter) is a young public servant who is also a regular contributor to (Cult)ure Magazine as a music editorialist. His passions include music, coffee, writing, travel and comic books. 

This special exhibition of U.K.-based photojournalist Don McCullin is his first ever solo exhibition, and its provocative imagery provides Ottawa and the National Gallery of Canada a unique opportunity to see a somewhat unknown photographer’s work shine to new audiences.

McCullin’s work spans nearly six decades and a variety of environments; from war-torn Africa, to gangs in London, England to elephant festivals in India back to the Glastonbury area of the United Kingdom.  

His work is both stunning in its simplicity, yet thought-provoking in its content and context.

US marine, Vietnam, February 1968.

In recent years, McCullin has pulled himself away from photographing conflict zones, instead taking up landscape, travel and food photography, but regardless of his topic matter, his eye for composition and subject matter is something to truly experience.

That National Gallery has been running this solo exhibition of over 130 photographs (all black and white) since February, and it closes April 14, 2013, so there is not much time left to take in these incredible works. For anyone interested in photography, journalism or world issues, this exhibition is a must see.

Thanks Mike! Did you see the exhibit? What did you think?

Ottawa food producers deliver a taste of Easter

Taste of Ottawa’s Easter edition will be held this weekend at 430 Churchill Avenue.

Nicola Maule is a local writer who is always looking for new events that bring excitement to Ottawa.

A couple of years ago I decided I was going to start trying to live my life a little more green. This included riding my bike to work more than once a month (in the summer), improving my compost recycling habits and eating locally-produced food more often.

Well, guess which one I excelled at? Hands down: Eating local!

Eating locally produced food is getting so much easier in Ottawa with all the new local artisan food producers making delicious everyday items like honey, chocolate, baked goods, coffee, salsas, and chutneys — to name a few.

Farmers’ markets have popped up all over the city, however, in the cooler weather it is sometimes harder to find the local products we love. Well this weekend is an exception! To help you shop for all the Easter essentials, stop by the first annual Taste of Ottawa- Westboro Easter Food Market on Saturday March 23^rd at 430 Churchill Ave. at Byron between 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. 

 This Easter market will feature 18 of Ottawa’s local artisan food vendors selling hot cross buns, gluten free treats, gourmet teas, organic pork from Pork of Yore, ganache-filled chocolate eggs from Koko Chocolates and dark and milk chocolate bunnies from the Hearty Bakery.

Koko Chocolates: ganache filled eggs with flavours of spring mint, lemon lavender, plum star anise and caramel.

 A special appearance will also be made by Major Craig’s Black Garlic.  

Major Craig’s Canadian Black Garlic

Be among the first to try it in Ottawa! Black garlic is made from fermenting and aging regular garlic for around 45 days. The process started in Korea, and has now become a popular method of achieving a unique flavour. Black garlic is said to have a sweet and rich molasses- like flavour with balsamic, caramel, fennel, and licorice undertones.

The Snell House Creamy Garlic salad dressing is the product that turned my kids into salad eaters and they can’t get enough of it. Also, be sure to come hungry and stop by the Relish The Flavour food truck which will be serving a delicious fresh lunch on-site. Come and see why food trucks are no longer just for poutine and hot dog lovers! Also, you can try out some of the newest gadgets from Kitchenalia.

Entrance to the Westboro Easter Food Market is free and there is plenty of free parking. Donations will be collected for the Westboro Region Food Bank.

 For more information you can visit www.osfa.ca or follow on twitter @Taste_of_Ottawa.

 The sponsors for the event are Diane and Jen – brokers from Royal LePage, Givopoly- online concierge gift service, Kitchenalia- Westboro kitchen store and Sheri Creese – broker from Mortgage Brokers Ottawa.

 Bon appétit!

A tour of Ottawa meetups: Live Music Metropolis (Ottawa) and Ottawa Metal Music

Candice So is a freelance reporter who loves to read, write and meet people who are doing amazing things. This summer, she went out west to Edmonton, went further west to Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Macau, and is now back in Ottawa, the city where she was born and bred. On her off time she likes to pretend to cook, to walk her dog and to go for a run, albeit really slowly. 

In the second post of a series, Candice rounds-up of some off-beat, yet fun, meetups in our city.

Today? Live Music Metropolis (Ottawa) and Ottawa Metal Music.

If you’re raring to check out shows in Ottawa, Live Music Metropolis might be a good place to start looking for great live acts and new friends who will see them with you.

Ala’ Qadi moved to Ottawa about three years ago, and he says he turned to Live Music Metropolis as a way of meeting new people and indulging his love of live concerts.

He soon met up with one of the group’s organizers, Mark Da Silva, and the two started exchanging emails and seeing shows together. They later formed Ottawa Metal Music, an offshoot of its larger, more diverse parent Meetup, and decided to gear the new group specifically towards heavy metal devotees.

“I’m a metal fan and Mark is a metal fan, and we were just starting to feel there was more heavy metal and rock out there,” Qadi says. “In the Ottawa and Gatineau area, there are more (metal fans) than you’d think … But many of them just don’t have much motivation to go to smaller shows.”

Both Live Music Metropolis (Ottawa) and Ottawa Metal Music have listings for several shows, often months in advance. Members of the groups can RSVP to a show and then arrange to find other members ahead of time. Meetups often occur just before a show within the venue, if it’s small enough, or afterwards, when members go out for drinks together.

Ottawa Metal Music’s next meetup is tonight at Mavericks on Rideau Street. Live Music Metropolis is also meeting tonight at Pressed.

And on the other side of things, smaller bands from outside Ottawa will often contact the organizers of Live Music Metropolis to see where they can get gigs, if they don’t have their own promoters. It’s a way of networking, Qadi says, adding that Live Music Metropolis (Ottawa) even has a partnership with a Live Music Metropolis in Nashville, Tennessee.

“It’s growing to be a community now,” Qadi says. “It’s less of a Meetup now and more of a platform to suggest shows.”

The next show on the Live Music Metropolis (Ottawa) calendar is on March 19, with one show featuring bands Dear Rouge and Farewell Davidson at Pressed on Gladstone Avenue. Ottawa Metal Music’s next Meetup is also slated for March 19, featuring Swedish band SOILWORK at Mavericks on Rideau Street.

Do you have a meetup we should check out? Comment below. 

A tour of Ottawa meetups: The Rideau Hash House Harriers

Candice So is a freelance reporter who loves to read, write and meet people who are doing amazing things. This summer, she went out west to Edmonton, went further west to Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Macau, and is now back in Ottawa, the city where she was born and bred. On her off time she likes to pretend to cook, to walk her dog and to go for a run, albeit really slowly. 

Ottawa gets a harsh reputation for being “the city that fun forgot.” While it’s a cute and catchy nickname, I’d like to think of it as a misnomer. There’s actually a lot going on among Ottawa’s locals, if you take the trouble to look for it.One great resource is Meetup.com, a website for finding groups of strangers who share similar interests and are looking to make new friends. New members can join Meetups and then RSVP to different events before checking them out.

So, I’m embarking on a round-up of some off-beat, yet fun, meetups in our city.

First stop? Rideau Hash House Harriers.  

It’s a strange name that stems from a strange tradition – and one that has nothing to do with either hash slinging or smoking pot.

“Hashing” comes from a longstanding ritual that started among British soldiers in Malaysia in the late 1930s.  As a way of cutting down on their beer bellies, the soldiers started a running group featuring a “hare,” or a person who would lead the run and mark a trail. The rest of the group, known as “hounds,” would chase after the hare’s trail by following the scraps of paper the hare had left behind.

But what really sets hashing apart from a typical running or jogging group is the prize at trail’s end – a glorious mug of beer.

Or a soft drink, or water. The tradition has now expanded to hashers around the world, inspired by the idea of running and being rewarded for it.

Rideau Hash House Harriers

“What always trips off the tongue is (that we’re) a drinking group with a running problem,” says Peter Wilson, one of the organizers of Rideau Hash House Harriers, one of Ottawa’s local hashing groups.  

He adds that hashing is just as much about being social as it is about being active. “You can join the Running Room and run 15 kilometres. But you’re not going to talk to anyone,” he says.

“(But in hashing), most people run at a fairly slow jog. Most of the time, people are chatting away as they’re running … It’s a reasonable amount of fitness without going nuts.”

Wilson’s group meets every two weeks, running for about an hour or more during each Meetup. Joining a hash costs $5 a session to cover the cost of a drink at the end of the run.

Wilson adds that there’s a great deal of camaraderie among members of the hash.

For example, most hash members will eventually get nicknames and will refer to each other by them during their runs. And as Wilson says, some of the names are strictly NSFW. Some choice ones on the Meetup discussion board include Rubber Duck, Pussarella and Twisted Knob.

So for those who like the idea of going for a run and then rewarding themselves, this may be the Meetup for them. The Rideau Hash House Harriers’ next run is scheduled for March 21.

Do you have a meetup you think we should check out? Comment below!

Ottawa in one word?

We love this video!

Courtesy of Ottawa Tourism:

What key word comes to mind when you think of our city?

Winter in Ottawa: A tour of Petrie Island Ice Fishing Village

“Big Al” Macintyre has been an avid ice fisherman for more than 50 years

Candice So is a freelance reporter who loves to read, write and meet people who are doing amazing things. This summer, she went out west to Edmonton, went further west to Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Macau, and is now back in Ottawa, the city where she was born and bred. On her off time she likes to pretend to cook, to walk her dog and to go for a run, albeit really slowly. 

Al Macintyre tugs on the little fishing line in front of me, poised over a round, freshly drilled frozen hole in the ground.

He smiles as he points to what’s called a tip-up, the piece of wood attached to the fishing line. It tips up and down to show a fish is biting – meaning it’s time to grab the line and wrestle that walleye, perch or pike out of the hole.

Known as “Big Al” to his friends, Macintyre has been an avid ice fisherman since he was a 10-year-old living in Sudbury, Ontario. Now 63 and sporting a greying moustache, red plaid shirt and furry cap, he has all the swagger of a fishing enthusiast enjoying a morning in the backwoods.

Petrie Island’s Ice Fishing Village has about 115 huts

But we’re not exactly out in the country – we’re actually a five-minute drive from Place d’Orléans Shopping Mall. On Sunday, Macintyre gave me a little tour of the Petrie Island Ice Fishing Village, just off of Trim Road but with the feel of a far-off fishing inlet. 

“I can come down here during the week, and there’s maybe four people. I’ll put my lines in, I’ll bring a book, do a little crossword. I’ll see animals – owls and coyotes, the occasional deer on the ice,” he says.

Inside Big Al’s hut

Macintyre has been coming to Petrie Island for the past 12 years, when the village was just 10 little shanties, side by side against a background of snow and ice covering the Ottawa River.

The village has since mushroomed into 115 huts of all colours and designs, dotting the bare white expanse of ice and snow with little curls of steam rising from the rooftops. It stays occupied from when the ice freezes in the first week of January to the middle of March, when it begins to thaw.

We walk by one hut labelled the “Bear Den,” its name etched on a wooden sign shaped like a bear paw. Just across the hardpacked, snowy road, another hut is styled after a red barn, and near that one is a hut in a bright, robin’s egg blue.

Big Al’s ice fishing hut

Macintyre’s own hut is painted cream and hunter green, resplendent with plaid curtains, a bear’s head and moose antlers mounted on the walls. In one corner stands a Coleman oil stove dating back to the 1940s, and against the far wall is a table with pictures of his family tacked up above it.

These huts are like a home away from home to the fishermen who either come for the day or even stay overnight. Many come and bring their entire families, raring to fish and to enjoy some community spirit, Macintyre says.

“A night like last night, we had a couple of hockey games on, and I had some buddies down from Montreal,” he says. “And the guys over there (in the next cabin) are watching the hockey game … And you’ll go in and there are a lot of hunters around here, so someone will offer you a moose steak or something’s cooking on the stove.”

He adds there’s a lot of hockey rivalry on the ice. For example, he’s a staunch Montreal Canadiens fan, but his neighbour, Brian Massé, is firmly on side with the Ottawa Senators.

Massé brought his daughter and son down for the weekend.

“We haven’t caught anything today so far, but we usually get something once a day … But I love the ice fishing, and I love the community here,” Massé says, adding he and Macintyre rib each other about their teams all the time.

The fourth annual ice fishing derby is tomorrow, Saturday February 16th

Although Saturday’s derby is only open to the occupants of the Petrie Island ice huts, on other weekends, it costs $100 for four people to rent a hut for a day. That includes their equipment, hole drilling, bait and heating.

Inside Big Al’s hut

Newcomers are already beginning to embrace ice fishing, Macintyre adds. This year, a woman made a reservation because she wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day on the ice with her husband. And recently, a group of women in pink toques rented a hut for a bachelorette party.

Macintyre says he believes the sport will only grow more and more popular, eventually becoming as entrenched in Ottawa’s wintertime culture as skating on the Rideau Canal.

People just have to be willing to give it a try, he says.

“Some people think ice fishing is just about a bunch of guys getting drunk on the ice. But it’s not like that at all – it’s all families. We borrow things from each other, we become friends with people we know only for two months of the year … It’s a real community.”

Thank you Candice for shining such a wonderful spotlight on ice fishing in Ottawa!