www.ChrisLaBossiere.com

Last night was a hugely successful Startup Edmonton event, called Launch Party. The rockstars of this event were not necessarily the companies being profiled (Although they are all great), but the amazing volunteers who took it upon themselves to hold this party.

Launch Party Founders and Organizing Committee: Mark Donovan, Ken Bautista, Cindy Fulton, Cam Linke)

Photo by Mack Male

Startup Edmonton is more than just a party planning group. It is part of  a sophisticated community building strategy by some fantastic community leaders. Their goal is to create a tech community environment which rivals other creative class cities. An event based organization, Startup Edmonton includes under it's banner:

• Startup Drinks
• DemoCamp
• Launch Party
• Founders & Funders
• Startup School
• Startup Weekend

Also, loosely associated and organized by most of the same great people, is:

• TEDx Edmonton
• artsScene Edmonton

The idea behind having all of these great events, is simply to create an environment where Edmonton's "Creative Class" can collaborate, socialize, grow businesses and ultimately to stay in Edmonton. As an internet application company owner, I can tell you that these types of initiatives really help us find employees, market ourselves locally, and perhaps more importantly market Edmonton's tech products to the World.

I have said it time and again. the volunteers behind these initiatives are doing this without budgets, bylaws, government mandates or ANY staffers. In my opinion more is done by the groups and volunteers above, at least for the local startup tech community, than several government funded economic development organizations and programs combined. It's understandable that our economic development organizations focus on large, often patentable technologies, and of course attempt to capitalize on the $1B worth of research being done at the University of Alberta. However the small software companies being created here in Edmonton are also a significant part of the fabric of our creative class community, and will be integral to creating jobs, and sculpting entrepreneurs.

These are the companies which were highlighted last night at the party, ours included.

FJstartuptimelapse from Rob & Lauren on Vimeo.