Tech Venture Challenge 2009 – Youth Entrepreneurship Celebrated

Another edition of Tech Venture Challenge (TVC) is behind us, and was it a “blow your mind” edition or what … The 2009 TVC, in my opinion, had the strongest competition that I have seen in my eight plus years of association with the challenge. All three presenting teams deserve a huge round of applause, even from those who were not there, because they validated the fact that “tech entrepreneurship is well and truly alive in Ottawa”. There was very little to discern between the three finalists – all of them had a “mature” product positioning, all of them nailed the presentation and all of them left a strong impression that TVC or no TVC they are going places. All I can say is …. WOW.

But having said that, last night also cemented TVC’s role in encouraging, developing and showcasing entrepreneurship in Ottawa. Kudos to the people behind the competition for bringing the Ottawa community together to stand behind its best and the brightest. TalentBridge – in its first year – was closely involved with TVC 2009. I served as a member of the board and I was also a judge for the first two stages of the competition. Sonia and Ammar – with their big smiles and infectious enthusiasm – also came out last night and provided support for the event at Centrepointe Library. While I have been associated with the competition before, especially during my Foundry days, I got to see first hand the amount of effort/initiative that goes into making TVC happen (or to paraphrase it, towards creating a platform for the best of our young entrepreneurs to wow us with their individual and collective brilliance). The work that goes behind the scenes, and the efforts of some TVC stalwarts are truly worth celebrating. TVC has always been a very grateful initiative, and the contribution of all the members and volunteers are always highly appreciated and recognized. But a group of individuals have to be pointed out for all that they do to bless Ottawa with such a great event, primary among them – Jill Woodley, Coralie Lalonde, Ken Charobonneau, Mark Pearson and Luc Lalande. Again all I can say again is … WOW and Thank you all.

The three finalists for this year were:

• VSM Technologies
• SATESS
• Smart Rotors System

A big congratulations to all of them, and an open offer of support from all of us in TalentBridge. We are happy to help in any way possible, and we are already putting in place specific plans to get together with all of them (and potentially other applicants from 2009 also) to see how we – at TalentBridge – can better “bridge” with TVC.

For more information on TVC, please visit the TVC website at http://www.techvc.org/