Montreal Tech Watch

In the same vein as the various X-Prizes setup by private and public organizations, the Netflix prize spurred lots of interest in mathematicians and hackers circle.

The competition invited programmers and scientists all over the world to find a better recommendation engine. It would allow Netflix to predict better if a user would like a movie, based on his previous ratings, and other users’. The winning mark was a 10% improvement.

Now it looks like the Pragmatic Theory snatched the prize, with 10.05% improvement. Pragmatic Theory is made of Electrical engineer Martin Piotte and software engineer Martin Chabbert of Montreal, working in the telecommunications industry, and apparently algorithm crafters in their spare time. Their work came up at the 1st place since March this year, and they’ve reached the final mark by adding work made by Comendo, Yahoo! Reasearch and AT&T.

The Netflix prize came with a $1million prize. Initially, it wasn’t open to residents of Québec, but on 24th of March 2009, when Pragmatic Theory got the lead, Netflix changed the rules to accept as well residents of Québec. That’s good for Netflix, a wise decision (compared to the Régie des Jeux du Québec’s rulings…), and fortunate for all of Quebec residents, since it would have been the laughing subject of tech publications otherwise.

The rules of the competition also stated that the winning team could also commercialize the product of their work, on top of the cash prize. Congrats to the Pragmatic Team, congrats for their perseverance and sheer brilliance, since they present it as only a “leisure project”.

Since MTW and FlowVentures began Montreal startupdrinks last summer, we’ve had regularly an attendance of 60 to 90 people each time, went to two different places (Café des Éclusiers and now Brutopia on crescent), turning into what I call the de-facto meetup for the Montreal technology community.

It’s a great way for new tech entrepreneurs to meet other entrepreneurs, discuss about venturing into the technology space, along with tech-oriented programmers, speak about business with fellow startuppers, angel investors, or VCs, every last wednesday of the month.

For this month, we’re making exceptionnally 2 worlds meet, with a joint event with the Montreal Girl Geek Dinner. It’s a regular event instigated by Tanya McGinnity. Like StartupDrinks, it has now a regular and growing audience, filling rooms every time for their girl geek presentations.

I’m excited to see this happen, as we’ll get most probably 150+ people for the event, and a new talks + drinks formula. Of course, the most interesting thing is getting the 2 communities to mingle — who knows, you might meet a co-founder or get expert help for your startup, or get to know new ideas.

The schedule is as follows:

• Wed. June 17th, 5pm: A Talk by Christine Renaud from e-180 (@180) at Montreal Girl Geek dinner
• Wed. June 17th, 6pm: Montreal StartupDrinks, where it’s all about taking a drink and talk about tech startups and entrepreneurship.

The event will be hosted at Brutopia again, upstairs, on 1219 Crescent Street. Look for Tanya McGinnity, Robin Ahn, also Raymond Luk

If you are interested, DO register here. It takes 30 seconds and we need it to make name tags.

Once again, it’s a community event, and FREE. As such, we need your help as much as possible to get the word out. If you can put it on twitter, or facebook, forward the registration page to friends, then the better it will be. 

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View original job listing
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From the event page

On the 13th of June Foulab will be holding a DIY Party at its 183 Chemin Bates location. From 2pm until 7pm workshops and presentations will be held. From 7pm until 12am chaos will ensue. Spread the word. More details to follow by June 2nd, including workshop and presentation schedules. Bring your own BEvERages.

The next edition of MTEB, a bi-monthly breakfast for tech entrepreneurs, instigated by Ben Yoskovitz from Standoutjobs, is due June 9th at Boccaccinos, 1251 McGill College.

The event is sponsored by Nestor System and Sun Microsystems. It’s a great opportunity to chat and connect with another entrepreneur, angel, or a tech professionnal. Compared to StartupDrinks for instance, you will get time to know more someone and talk longer. Plus it’s a free breakfast, which is something you cannot refuse.

RSVP on Facebook. This is needed to plan for capacity.

Come all to StartupDrinks today. It’s FREE and very simple: register here, come at Brutopia today, get a beer, meet people launching startups, share experiences (lessons, technology, hacking, or marketing, whatever you fancy) all in good, informal company.

Led by our dear friends Arach Tchoupani and Yannick Gingras, MontrealPython is today at La Banque, 175 Roy Est.

MontrealPython7:

Here is our schedule for the evening:

• 18h00: Opening
• 18h20: Announcements
• 18h30: Flash presentations
• 19h00: Break
• 19h20: Main presentation

Our main presenter Olivier Bélanger on “Ounk, un environnement de scripting musical”.

Ça venait de @jeanlucs lundi.

Oui encore une fois, un article qui n’a rien à avoir avec la technologie, et qui n’a rien à avoir avec Montréal, mais comme je suis en plein dans le marketing ces jours-ci, on a l’impression de se regarder dans un miroir, surtout la séquence dans la salle de contrôle.

Probablement une vidéo qui va être encore plus vrai dans 6 mois, comme je sais que le buzz et le marketing viral peut maintenant être contrôlé et généré.

Buzzwords in a newly released product this morning:

• cloud
• twitter
• iphone
• mobility, location-based service
• app store
• apocalypse

Yes, it’s reportage!

(I’m sad there’s no mention of Facebook, that’s also a buzzword these days)

Now available on the App Store

This is not exactly tech. Nevertheless, I’ll have to bow to George Favvas for pulling of this story: SmartHippo advises family on refinancing rates, and then congratulates them after getting the service with a home-delivered cake.

Sounds one of the exceptional stories you used to read on Kathy Sierra’s blog (Creating Passionnate Users) or one of the stunts done by the Zappos team.

Smarthippo, or making the world a better place, one rate at a time

:-)