These days, it’s difficult to paint Victoria’s high-tech sector as a quiet industry chugging along behind closed doors. But for anyone who hasn’t yet taken a peek inside one of the region’s economic engines, Discover Tectoria offers that chance on Friday.
The biennial event at the Crystal Garden will bring together about 70 local tech firms, new startup companies, 1,200 students and 3,000 people to experience what makes the industry tick. The event, which started in 2003, used to be about spreading the word on what had been a fairly quiet industry.
Dan Gunn, executive director of the Victoria Advanced Technology Council (VIATeC) which organizes the day-long event, said Discover Tectoria is more about spreading the word through the education system and to the public about the reach and impact of the high-tech scene.
Tectoria is the nickname they’ve given the city as technology has grown to be the top industry.
“It has changed a little, from getting policy makers, media and the business community to understand the size and breadth of the tech sector, then it was about recruitment — letting people know there were jobs in the tech sector,” said Gunn.
“Now it’s about two things: making sure students from high schools and universities and colleges find out about career opportunities when they graduate and we are now promoting it more broadly, for anyone in Victoria to come and discover the event.”
VIATeC has contacted Island school boards and paid for buses to bring high school students from as far afield as Port Alberni.
There’s plenty to see.
Crystal Garden will be separated into sections with an innovation showcase to show off projects and inventions created locally, a video game lounge to highlight the growing game-design industry, a start-up alley that will feature 18 new companies just finding their feet and a trade-show floor for the region’s more established firms.
There are also presentations and speakers including CBC’s Bob McDonald, host of the science program Quirks and Quarks, and Victoria student Ann Makosinski, who won the top prize in Google’s annual global science fair with her Hollow Flashlight and was recently named by a Time magazine panel as one of the 30 people under age 30 who are changing the world.
Makosinski will talk about her experiences at Google’s science fair and how she came up with the idea of making the flashlight.
There will be sessions on “coding for kids,” designed around improving web literacy and presentations from Camosun College’s chemistry department — called the Mr. Wizard Rocketsauce Show — that demonstrates just how cool science can be.
Gunn said it’s all designed to appeal to a broad audience, and especially connect with young students.
“We wanted to bring [Makosinski] out to showcase her to both the business and school communities, showing science fairs can be a really good discovery moment for students where they learn independent study. They learn about scientific method and get to delve into something they are interested in and can be rewarded for it,” Gunn said.
“Bob McDonald lives in Victoria and we thought it would make sense for him to come out and talk about the larger trends he sees on the tech landscape.”
