Hear all about it!

Kudos to STIRR Canada alumni James Hildebrandt of Psyko Audio Labs Inc. who attended the inaugural STIRR Canada event in May. James appears on the cover of the June 2008 issue of Calgary Inc. Magazine, sporting his innovative surround-sound headphones, targeted at the gaming market.

From the Calgary Inc. Magazine article:

“Testing the headphones put a wide grin on one avid gamer. “You won’t believe what just happened. I heard this sound,” he exclaimed to friends, ignoring an anxious Hildebrandt . Snapping his fingers [the gamer] added, “And I got him in one shot .” [...] “The hair on the back of my neck went up,” says Hildebrandt.” “And I thought, ‘Now I have something. There is something here to this.’”

The article also profiles other Calgary-based innovative companies in a “celebration of the city’s five latest and greatest bright ideas.”

Media STIRR

Local coverage in the Calgary Herald newspaper about Garrett Camp’s visit back to Calgary and his sharing of the StumbleUpon.com startup experience at STIRR Canada’s inaugural event.

From the Herald article:

“We wanted to have [Garrett] back to Calgary to … help coach the people in the room to what do we have to do to make sure the next Garrett Camp, who might well be at one of the tables, has the opportunity to get mentored, funded and supported here so we can keep some of these great startup stories local, ” said Claudia Moore, a director of STIRR Canada and owner of Calgary-based technology company growth agent Material Insight Inc.“

And many thanks also to Techvibes for their support and coverage as well. Techvibes correspondent, Barcamp supporter, and technology intern, Cam Linke, came down from Edmonton to attend the Founders’ Table event. Thanks Cam!

Event Wrap-up

On Thursday evening, Albertan tech startup founders, funders, and emerging young guns filled the main floor of Calgary’s Bonterra Trattoria restaurant at STIRR Canada’s kick-off Founders & Funders Dinner event. Five hours later, after some great networking and facilitated dinner table conversations, people were still buzzing.

A young startup founder remarked: “I can’t believe the caliber of people I just got to talk with or the amount I learned before dessert came. This has been the most productive tech event I’ve been to in Calgary.”

Participating companies included: Active Conversion, Broadramp, Calgary Scientific, Cambrian House, Cognera, CoolIT, Coril Holdings, Cornerstone Technologies, Datagardens, DirectVoxx, Dynastream, eSchedule, GamesCafe, iNovia Capital, Intervera, Loa Corporation, Mobovivo, Octane Venture Partners, Ph03nix New Media, Preo Software, Psyko Audio Labs … continue

First STIRR Canada event nears capacity

STIRR Canada’s first Founders & Funders Dinner, set to take place in Calgary on May 15th, has received great out-of-the-gate support from the Alberta tech startup community. We anticipate the last spot at the invitation-only dinner event will fill today. We’d also like to thank our first sponsor, Macleod Dixon, for their participation and continued support of high-tech industry events. To find out more about STIRR Canada and how to apply for membership, please email: Info [at] stirr.ca

Founders & Funders Dinner (Calgary)

Meet a local group of tech startup founders and funders for a networking dinner with Garrett Camp, co-founder of the ’social search’ phenomenon StumbleUpon — at Calgary’s inaugural STIRR Canada Event.

This dinner is an invitation-only event.
Stay tuned for future, larger-scale, Tech Mixer events.

Garrett was completing his Masters degree in Software Engineering at the University of Calgary when he and some friends co-founded StumbleUpon in 2001.

In May of 2007, eBay acquired the company for US$75 million. By then, millions of users were “stumbling” across great content on the Internet and sharing their finds. TechCrunch recently reported that StumbleUpon has registered its five millionth user.