Jerry Holds Forth on DemoCamp
Jerry King just posted a polemic essay disguised as a blog comment setting out his thoughts on Toronto’s most recent DemoCamp. Snippet:
Here are two propositions. The first is that Tuesday evening’s presenters at BarCamp reflect a breadth of fresh air, the ushering in of a more democratic and a more cost effective way (e.g. Open Source) to explore their pet projects. And in exploring their pet projects, the presenters self-actualize and that’s good enough for society at large.
The second proposition is that the presenters were symptomatic of something more troubling–a Canadian tertiary educational system which, with the noticeable exception of the U. of Waterloo, continues to pump “technologists” into the workforce.
Yow! His post is unstintingly provocative and deserves further discussion, which is why I’m calling attention to it here.
As a gross simplification I’d say Jerry likes DemoCamp as a “place to start”, but he wants the local tech community to get much more hardcore about grooming our future entrepreneurs. Give it a read and add your own comments to the original post — this one needs more angles.And Jerry, get your blog set up already!
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Rehan said,
March 31, 2006 @ 2:39 am
Thanks, Osh… I learned a new word today — unstintingly. :)
With respect to the university educational system: I’ve watched several of my former UW classmates start successful businesses (and some not so successful, but at least they gave it a shot), and in just about all cases it was because they already had the entrepreneurial bug in them and not because of what they learned at Waterloo. There are other programs out there that are even better at combining business and technology than Waterloo is, like the Skoll BASc/MBA program at UofT; and from my experience in the UW engineering program compared to those of friends elsewhere, there are “no-name” universities that have a more rigorous and perhaps better curriculum. But one of the things that sets Waterloo apart is the energy of the environment, thanks to the exceptional students and the many related business activities in the area.
Needless to say, though, there were also plenty of tech heads that wanted to stay with what they love most and didn’t really care to venture into the business aspect of technology. I think there’s nothing wrong with that; events like TorCamp/DemoCamp can help bring together people wearing different hats and hopefully lead to something better.
BTW, I think it’s an excellent idea to have smaller sections running in parallel, if the right kind of space is available.
John Philip Green said,
March 31, 2006 @ 3:33 pm
Rehan,
You cite a few reasons why UW turns out a lot of entrepreneurs, but I would say the most important is the Co-op Program.
I worked at three early stage companies (in Waterloo, NYC, and Germany) while going through Co-op as part of my CS degree at UW. This hit me at a formative time. Four weeks after my last exam, I founded Savvica. (We demoed Nuvvo at TorCampDemoCamp3.)
We’re now looking forward to hiring some UW Co-ops and passing on the tradition.
John
My Own Pirate Radio » Tech Entrepreneurship in Canada said,
April 1, 2006 @ 12:49 pm
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