Made in York Region: The Future of Tech Event Recap

On Thursday, November 7, York Region's tech ecosystem came together on a massive scale to execute Made in York Region: The Future of Tech! Presented by ventureLAB, and in partnership with the Regional Municipality of York, this event brought tech titans, entrepreneurs, and government representatives together to show the pure talent that makes up our tech ecosystem. With a goal of showcasing York Region-based companies building transformative solutions, Made in York Region: The Future of Tech started off with a guided ecosystem bus tour, taking guests to three companies making monumental impacts in the tech ecosystem. Mircom, a global designer, manufacturer, and distributor of intelligent building and life safety solutions, opened its doors as the first tour location and took attendees on an in-depth tour of the facility and factory. We then traveled to Compugen, a company that works with mid-to-large-sized organizations to provide strategic IT planning, infrastructure products and services, as well as complete as-a-service offerings to governments and corporations. While on-site, attendees were shown the head office and lab and given the opportunity to ask questions and learn more about their global expansion! We ended the morning by coming back to ventureLAB, a leading technology hub that has supported over 2000 tech entrepreneurs and small businesses. Here, we were able to showcase our newly minted Hardware Lab, home to the Hardware Catalyst Initiative, Canada’s first hardware, and silicon focused incubator. [gallery ids="2970,2971,2972"]

Pitch Competition

New this year, we hosted a pitch competition that awarded a grand prize winner $10,000.00. Nine semi-finalists were selected for the pitch competition, and five finalists were selected to pitch to a live audience!

Semi-finalists:

Cyberworks Robotics Inc.
Dalikoo
Elastic Care (Finalist)
Intelense (Finalist)
Phyxable
SmartONE Solutions (Runner-up)
Stan A.I
TROES (Winner)
Xpan Inc. (Finalist)

This year’s pitch competition winner was TROES, a Canadian advanced battery energy storage systems company, specializing in smart distributed energy storage solutions that integrate TROES’ proprietary battery modules, battery management systems (BMS), enclosures and power conversion system (PCS). A runner-up prize of $5,000 of in-kind services from Bereskin & Parr was also handed out. The runner-up award went to SmartONE Solutions, a Markham-based company dedicated to the development of next-generation Smart Communities, connecting hundreds or even thousands of homes to a central network offering unique community-based services. [gallery ids="2967,2968,2969"]

Exhibitor Showcase

One main highlight of the day was our exhibitor showcase which was made up of 32 companies from all across York Region! Guests spent the day networking and learning more about the products and solutions that each company was developing. 3DCITYSCAPES APA Technologies Inc.Avastus Analytics bdc Beyond Media Concept2Clinic Cyberworks Robotics Dalikoo Elastic Care inField Solutions Innovation York Intelense ISDOP Inc.Kinderdrop Mackenzie Health Markham Small Business Centre MedEssist Mitacs Ontario Centres of Excellence Opilio Labs peopletail Phyxable Seneca SmartONE Solutions Inc.STAN A.I.TAKU Retail Tazwiz TechConnex TROES ventureLAB Verstra Ventures XPAN Inc.

Speakers

Panel: Advancing Technology – What Comes First?

The future of tech is here. From AI to machine learning to autonomous vehicles, technology has vastly improved the way we live, work, and learn. So where do we go from here? This panel will explore foundational technologies: the underappreciated yet exceptionally important pieces of improving technology — the parts you cannot see, but need to power “simple” technologies like your smartphone, or more “advanced” technologies like driverless cars.

Keynote Panel: Founder Stories – Shifting Perspectives: Building the Tech Titans of York Region

Technology is used to enhance the lives of those it touches, but not often do we consider where the idea behind a globally viable product comes from. This keynote panel highlights the story behind the company and provides an intimate opportunity with founders and CEOs to learn from their past experiences.