Toronto is proud to be the latest host of O'Reilly's renowned Ignite! series, organized by Peter Horvath and Michele Perras. 

Ignite! captures the best of geek culture in a series of five-minute speed presentations on topics ranging from The Best Way to Buy a Car to Hacking Chocolate. Imagine that you're on stage in front of an audience of hundreds of people, doing a five-minute presentation using a slide deck that auto-forwards every 15 seconds, whether you're ready or not. What would you do? What would you say? Could you stand the pressure? We're ready to see what Toronto has to say!

Check back for updates to the schedule. If you're interested in proposing an Ignite!, please go to http://patatasbravas.wufoo.com/forms/ignite-toronto-presentation-form/

For more information, drop us a line at ignitetoronto [at] gmail dot com, and to learn more about Ignites! check out the O'Reilly site: http://ignite.oreilly.com/show/

We're super stoked that Rogers is the title sponsor of the inaugural Ignite Toronto. They've graciously offered to provide the prize for our Summer Cupcake Contest - so get yer cupcake on folks!

Important Details:

Date: Tuesday August 25, 2009

Venue: Drake Hotel,  1150 Queen St W, Toronto

Time: 7-10pm

Schedule:

7pm - Welcome & Contest Start

Ignite! Toronto's inaugural contest will be for Best Summer Cupcake! We supply the cupcakes and the decorations, you supply the creativity! One entry per person, judging criteria includes awesomeness, tastiness and a special category of "Most Unusual Use of Frosting"

8pm - Contest Judging

By our expert panel, of course.

8:15pm - Ignites!

Greg J Smith - Urban Screens

Game interfaces, augmented reality and the geospatial web - oh, my! How is our perception of the city changing in light of these paradigms? More importantly, how can citizens critically engage these tools rather than be spoon fed their (mediated) perception of the city?

Colin Henderson - Your Bank, What Happened?

The failure of banks, and the evolution of P2P Financial Services

Colin is CommunityLend’s Chief Technology Officer and a long time banking professional. Colin took his first position in banking in his homeland of Scotland and has worked in England, Canada and the US. His extensive experience in the banking industry included positions in branches and headquarters, retail and commercial. Colin is a strong believer in harnessing the power of Internet, and in particular open source, to take us beyond simple automation of existing transactions and towards better capabilities to meet people’s needs.

Lisa Torjman

Mat Lincez - Street Media is Social Media

This presentation briefly explores my interest in street media as kin to social media. The semantic similarities and how mobility and the web -is and will- enable for a further mixing, blending, and enrichment of dialogues (exchanges) occurring between multiple “street level” personas.

Mathew is a recovering graffiti writer; designer, educator, and artist turned principal and wannabe futurist. 

Mark Argo - Adapting With Technology

Karin Abramova - Conceptual Art
This arguably one of the most debated art movements has been the target of a lot of Boo's, WTF's and "I could make that!" from its audiences. This is the art where a concept, an idea in a work of art take precedence over the creation of a traditional art object.

A social media strategist at Cyberplex and a Russian, Karin Abramova likes to ask questions, notice details, document her life and take baby steps in jet setting. Biting a chunk out of [pop] culture, and obsessed with finer things in life, she wants to keep dancing till she's 80.

Brady Gilchrist - The Death of TV

Robin Uchida - Neighbourhood Diaries

Where do stories come from? What is a ‘neighbourhood’? What can we do to encourage both? Children will express their views on these questions in a series of neighbourhood workshops, assisted by writers and artists. “Neighbourhood Diaries. Stories from where I live.” is a Fresh Ground Project on exhibit at Harbourfront Gallery in the spring of 2010.

Robin Uchida is a partner at Torch Partnership. Torch is in the business of undoing ‘business as usual’.  An artist by training, a designer in practice, an entrepreneur by accident, a strategist by design and a teacher by desire, Robin continues to work on adaptive solutions with individuals, groups and institutions. What's more important, the problem you see or the problem you don’t see?

Sandy Kemsley -The Hungry Geek

The hungry geek, or how I combined my passions for technology and food to promote a community farmers' market using social networking.

Justin Kozuch - Community 101

A presentation about the basics of community, some examples of successful communities, and some tips on how to build them.

Justin Kozuch is the founder of Refresh Events, and works behind the scenes bringing together the most engaging and influential minds in Toronto’s vibrant technology scene. During the day, he can be found reading social media marketing blogs, promoting Refresh Events to the community, and networking with industry superstars. In a previous lifetime, he worked as an Interactive Developer, and worked with large brands such as RIM, the Wall Street Journal and Virgin Charter.

Richard Thomas - Poetic Alchemy

Richard is obsessed with new word formation, larval lexicons, protophrases and statistically improbable syllebrity. What role does poetic alchemy and spontaneous craftsmanship of language play in innovation and the socialization of new concepts? This talk briefly discusses new literary monsters and pearls as weak signals of shifts in thinking, and understanding ones power of definition in transforming dream to meme to theme.

Richard is a futurvore, word goblin and a bad design fiction author. Currently he is Principle at Idea Futures, a Design Research and Strategic Foresight arm of Idea Couture, and is responsible for hundreds of horrible words.

Maggie Fox - When Followers Lead: Flock Behaviour in Communities

Leaders lead and followers follow, right? Not always. Researchers into bird behaviour have identified that a few well-placed, co-ordinated "followers" can shift the direction of a flock of hundreds. What are the implications of that for businesses and online communities undergoing change. Can the followers lead?

Maggie Fox is the founder of Social Media Group, one of the world’s largest independent agencies helping business navigate the new socially engaged Web. Maggie is frequently asked to speak to the media and business groups across North America about Web 2.0, and sits on the Advisory Board for SMToday Media, which operates the Social Media Collective and MyVenturePad sites.

Ryan Taylor - Branding Ethics, Greener than Green.

With certifications like B Corporation surfacing along side L3C legislation are we moving towards recognition of a 'lowest common denominator' when measuring ethics in the enterprise? And by creating branded standards are we allowing for the marketing of ethics in the same fashion as the 'green' movement.

Ryan Taylor is founder of the Fair Trade Jewellery Company in Toronto, a social start-up focused on luxury product design, ethical mining practices, sustainable community development and transparent, ethical enterprise.

Nick Stedman - After Deep Blue: Modular Robot System

10:00pm

Wrap and socialize!!

Contest: Best Summer Cupcake!

We've decided that the first Ignite! contest in Toronto will be ever-popular cupcake decorating. We'll supply cupcakes for everyone, as well as decorating materials and icing, etc. You supply the creativity and cupcakey ingenuity. We'll be judging right before the Ignites begin, to get y'all wound up on sugar for the presentations themselves. And huge thanks to Rogers for providing exclusive sponsorship and the contest's snazzy prize!