Today we’re launching Startup Support Communities, a new initiative aimed at kick starting local connections and conversations around creative and startup culture here in Edmonton. It’s about joining the conversation – share thoughts, ideas and solutions with fellow creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, supporters, and students from around the community:

• Conversations for change – How can we create a more creative, entrepreneurial city here in Edmonton? What are you working on? How can the community help? Big picture change only happens as a result of lots of small actions. And it starts with conversations that we can convert into action.
• Feedback on courses – Talk about programs, courses and workshops you’d like to see. Tell us what things you’d like to learn and improve at, and we’ll make it happen.
• Local developer forums – Working on something? There are plenty of developer and design forums online, but wouldn’t it be great if you could connect with someone locally too? Great things can only come from local collisions of ideas and people.
• Post event conversation – We love community events – DemoCamp, TEDxEdmonton, Pecha Kucha – we all feel awesome as they happen, hashtags trend, but then the magic dissipates. Keep the conversation going.
• Spreading startup culture – How can startup culture permeate organizations, large and small? How can you bring creativity and innovation into the boardroom? How can you cultivate a corporate culture around hiring entrepreneurs, not just employees?

We’ll continue to cultivate our communities on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, but we’ll also be working to bring some of the action together, because cross-community pollination and conversation is great.

Best of all, it’s free and hyper-local. All #yeg, all the time. All you need is a user voice account or you can sign in with Facebook or Google. Check it out and let us know what you think! »

Thinking about applying to our new Flightpath Accelerator Program this summer?

Preflight is a part-time, 4 week pre-accelerator workshop that helps “pre-startups” in Edmonton take those first early steps to become fully-fledged startups. Perhaps you’ve already started building something at a hackathon? Maybe you’ve been working on a concept late nights and weekends? Maybe you’re looking for a co-founder to round out your team? Preflight helps you build what you’ll need as you make a commitment towards becoming a full-time startup. Maybe you’ll apply to Flightpath or another accelerator program somewhere in the world. In either case, your journey to a full-time startup life begins here.

Dates: Spring (March 19, 2012 to April 17, 2012)
Time: Part-time, evenings and weekends, plus courses/meetups on Mondays (5:30-7pm) and Wednesdays (5:30-9pm) over 4 weeks
Program fees: $499 per participant (you’ll get a weekly group dinner, two mentor sessions a week, two evening courses, and a drop-in membership for two months (value of $250) in our new downtown space to work on your startup)

Preflight registration is open, so apply today »

Looking to hone your skills and knowledge as you get your startup rolling? We're excited to announce our new lineup of startup courses and workshops – for entrepreneurs, taught by entrepreneurs. Whether it’s connecting with other startups, building a product, or reaching out to customers, our courses and experienced industry mentors help get your startup rolling.

From evening courses to day long workshops, here's a sample of what we’ve got in store:

Entrepreneurship + Startup Courses

Activate Your Startup: Taking the First Step
Business Model Generation for Startups
The Hacker Way: Lean Product Development for Startups
Building and Managing Your Community
Customer Development for Startups: More Than Just Sales

Technology + Building Courses

Everybody Can Code: Programming for Non-Programmers
Developing in Rails
Developing Apps for iOS (Advanced)
Introduction to Android Development

Design + Creativity Courses

Long Live Rapid Prototyping
Designing for Mobile
Great Landing Pages That Convert
Designlab: Cross-Platform Storytelling

Spring Session begins April 2012 and registration for all courses is open now!
Sign up today »

P.S. Members in our space get 15% off all courses and workshops. Bonus! 

Join us for a special event next week presented by Startup Edmonton, iNovia Capital, and our friends at GrowLab in Vancouver.

What makes you different from other entrepreneurs trying to build start-ups? You are competing with thousands of entrepreneurs for the same resources, talent, and capital. How are you going to make sure that you attract the best people and funding? Is it about who you know or is it about how great your product is or the reach you have in the community?

It’ll be an awesome chance for local startups to meet and hear from Jason Bailey, one of the founders of GrowLab, and CEO of East Side Games, along with Kevin Swan, Principal at iNovia Capital and also a mentor at GrowLab.

Date: Wednesday, February 22 (5:30-7:30pm)
Location: Hudson’s Downtown – 11248-104 Avenue
Cost: No cost, food provided, cash bar

Space is limited, so register today at http://growlabedmonton.eventbrite.com.

The latest edition of Startup Hackathon + Global Game Jam wrapped up on Sunday night. 94 attendees formed 18 project teams and worked straight through the weekend powered by no sleep, lots of sugar, caffeine, and pure creative adrenaline. The result was an amazing collection of app and game prototypes created in the span of a weekend.

The demos (we’ll do a more detailed description with screenshots and links in the coming week):

• Open Appointment – Online booking agent for service providers
• Rezcue – A co-op megaman style platform game
• Escape from the Wolf’s Lair – A 2d castle wolfenstein game
• DreamCache – iPhone app for tracking and tagging dreams
• How to Save the World in 2012 – Choose your own adventure for the new iBook platform
• Family Emergency – Connecting family members with a single number
• Pitch Your Cause – App to connect donors with ideas and charities
• Threads – 3d puzzle game, mind boggingly awesome
• Tonari – Connecting people to exchange/share tasks with their community neighbors
• Giving Elf – A game to educate kids about charitable giving
• Zed Defense – Protect yourself from the zombie apocalypse
• Zombie Safety – Location based zombie survival game using QR codes
• BackupBox – A service to hook FTP up with Dropbox
• Space Fisherman in Space – A game that is exactly what the title suggests
• Purrdy.io – PDF generation as a service – generate PDFs right meow
• Hooked on Campus – Connecting students with each other on local campuses
• Life Goes On – Morbid 2d puzzle game where you use your dead corpses to advance
• Chaos Bomb Extreme – A game featuring bombs, air hockey and plenty of chaos

Some photos from the event (more to come soon!):

Startup Hackathon + Global Game Jam - Jan 2012
By Startup Edmonton  |  View on Facebook

Shout-outs – give our supporters some love

Event sponsor – TEK Systems
Student sponsors – XEA Services, Quercus Solutions and Digital Alberta
Prize sponsors – BioWare, Garage Games, Unity, and Guru Digital Arts

What a great weekend! 54 hours, 94 attendees, 18 teams, and one awesome demo night made for a super successful 2012 edition of Startup Hackathon + Global Game Jam. We hope you all had a blast making, creating, coding, and (not) sleeping.

Tell us about what you created!

As a follow up, we’re looking for some additional info from all attendees/teams. If you could complete the following form asap, that would be awesome. We’re looking to do a profile on every single project to share with the community soon.

http://www.startupedmonton.com/programs/hackathon-feedback

Where do I go from here?

So you built the first version or prototype or level of your app or game, and got a chance to meet and work with other cool and talented people on your teams. So what’s next? Here’s our suggestions for where you could go from here:

1. Organize another meetup/hackday on a weeknight or weekend. Could be somewhere on campus, at a coffee shop, or at someone’s kitchen table. Our friends at Guru can make some space available for you. Just find a way to get the team together again to keep working.

2. Decide what (and when) you’ll launch. Many of the demos we saw were nearly ready for primetime (i.e. a version that you can let people try out, play, and download). Get feedback sooner and use it to refine what you’ve created. Hey, maybe we’ll even see you at our next DemoCamp in March or GamePub night? (nothing like deadlines…)

3. Create a partnership agreement. Doesn’t have to be something super crazy, but some sort of document where everyone agrees to the next steps. We can help you here, just shoot us an email.

4. Keep us posted on your progress. We’d love to hear how you’re doing!

Hi everyone -

Here’s the details for tonight’s Demo Night (Sun, Jan 29):

1. You should plan to wrap up work at the University by 5 pm today.

2. Before you leave, we need your help to clean up the work areas and rooms that we’ve all been using.

3. Demo Night is at Enterprise Square downtown (10230 Jasper Avenue) on the 4th Floor. You can drive or take the LRT (get off at Bay/Enterprise Square Station).

4. Dinner will be waiting for you starting at 5:30 pm at Enterprise Square.

5. Demo Night begins at 6:30 pm. It’s open to the public, so feel free to invite your friends!

6. Demos will be 5 mins each. We have 16 total demos tonight!

7. We want to take team photos as well tonight!

Information for demos: We’ll have a projector and screen, so when you arrive, let us know how you want to demo so we can get you hooked up.

Prizes we’re giving away tonight: Unity 3D Pro License ($1,500 value), Torque 3D Pro Licenses (3), Guru scholarships $2,500, BioWare N7 Mass Effect Hoodie (large), BioWare Dragon Age Origins T-Shirt (large), BioWare Mass Effect Hardcover Comic

If you have questions, just email us at info@startupedmonton.com and we’ll help you out.

This weekend has been awesome and we’re really looking forward to seeing the great things you’ve all been building and creating the last few days!

- Startup Edmonton and GameCamp Edmonton