Village Gamer

Vancouver – The Zombie Walk has returned to the city. Taking place this weekend on August 15th, those who thirst for brains will be gathering on the north side of the Vancouver Art Gallery at Hornby and West Georgia. The zombies will begin gathering at 2pm, with the walk beginning at 3pm and lasting until 5pm. At this point in time, the route to be taken by the zombies has not been revealed, but you can find out more information on the Zombie Walk Vancouver’s Event Page on Facebook.  Thrill the World Vancouver will also be participating in the Zombie walk; this group is part of the worldwide Thriller dance event. Last year Thrill the World Vancouver raised over $1400.00 for the Vancouver Food Bank during their event which was held at Kits Beach. This year’s Thrill the World dance event will be held at 5:30pm on October 24th. This year reinforcements from across the water will be arriving via BC Ferry from the Sunshine Coast, where a new zombie colony was formed in July.

Toronto’s IGDA Chapter will be hosting a moderated discussion session on iPhone Game Development this Thursday night. The meeting, which will take place at Metro Hall Room 313, will consist of several short presentations from local developers, followed by a discussion moderated by Owen Goss, from Streaming Colour Studios. Presentations will be given by:

Jason MacIsaac and Keith Makse from Cerebral Vortex Games
Dave Wood from Cerebral Gardens
Harry Mack, Audio Designer

The session opens at 7pm, and will be followed by a social mixer at the Elephant & Castle’s back room.

BCTIA has several Vancouver events coming up, open to members, non-members and students. First up is their TechForum on Financing Tech in the Wake of an Economic Crisis, taking place on September 10 at the Sutton Place Hotel. Guest speaker for this seminar will be Doug Irwin, a founding partner of Capital West Partners. As an experienced investment and financing thought-leader, Doug will guide you through the opportunities and pitfalls of the current investment climate.

This will be followed by the annual CTO Roundtable, where BCTIA member CTOs meet to discuss this year’s hottest issues and pressing concerns. This discussion will identify the full slate of topics for the upcoming year of roundtable sessions offered by the CTO Peer Group. Last year topics ranged from technology management to talent strategy. Your input is needed for this year’s lineup. For more information on these and other upcoming BCTIA events, please see their Events Page.

If you are a student considering a variety of career paths in the IT field, don’t forget about the BCIT technology course Info Sessions taking place on August 19th and 26th at BCIT’s downtown campus. The BCIT Aerospace programme had an awesome display out at the Abbotsford Airshow this weekend.

Digital Alberta is subsidizing a delegation of Alberta gaming companies to attend GDC Austin which takes place September 15 – 18th.  If your company is interested in participating and receiving funding to do so, please email Rene Smid to request an application form by August 21, 2009.

For the first time ever, FITC comes to Edmonton for a 2 day festival with some of the most well known Flash designers and developers from around the globe.  Taking place at the NAIT, Shaw Theatre on October 17 & 18th, attendees will experience two solidly packed days of presentations. Topics covered will be both technical and creative, with presenters from around the world who have been hand-picked for their skill and talent, and all are eager to share and meet you. Flash Designers. Flash Developers. Motion Graphic Artists. Digital Artists. Students. Anyone in or having an interest in Flash and digital media should be at this event.

Also, a reminder that registration for GameOn Finance 2009 is open. GameOn Finance is taking place this October 27 and 28th in Toronto.

Vancouver – tweetmyride is a Twitter-driven global charity campaign, created to raise money for 10 charities around the world in the lead up to Vancouver-based Australian, Gavin Romanis, participating in the international mountain bike race, La Ruta de los Conquistadores in Costa Rica from November 11-14, 2009 – known as one of the toughest on the planet.

Inspired by Ashton Kutcher and CNN’s challenge to gain 1 million followers on Twitter, and fuelled by the vibrant biking community of Vancouver, Canada, the basis behind the tweetmyride global campaign is to encourage global giving to a variety of causes. Co-founders Leoni Milano and Gavin Romanis integrated these ideas to create a campaign with global reach, utilizing Twitter to help achieve their goal to raise $1 million over the 4-month period that runs from July 30 – November 30, 2009.

“When I realised how gruelling La Ruta de los Conquistadores was going to be, I knew that I would need more than my own determination to get me through it – so the idea of doing it to help charities across the world seemed like the ideal inspiration” says Gavin Romanis, who has no prior experience in mountain bike racing, but was seduced by the challenge’s combination of travel and outdoor adventure.
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EA Sports has announced that the release date for FIFA 10 will be available in stores internationally from October 2nd for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system, Wii™ home video game system, PC, PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, Nintendo DS™, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system and mobile.

*Volunteer Canada has harnessed the power of social media to aid in matching corporate Canada with volunteer opportunities across the country. Through the Centre for Excellence in Corporate Community Involvement, businesses and non-profits from across the country are joining the nationwide membership of Volunteer Canada in an effort to better communicate and work together in partnership as they exchange ideas, best practices, tools and resources.

“This online tool will build upon a solid foundation of corporations that have already engaged their employees to give back to their communities,” said Ruth MacKenzie, president of Volunteer Canada. “Through partnership and communication, we will ensure that this engagement meets the needs of non-profit organizations across the country.”

*Microsoft Canada is giving students (proof of enrollment required) a chance to win $5000.00 in tuition aide along with other great prizes. Beginning today and continuing until 11:59 EDT Wednesday September 30, 2009, students and their family members can buy any Microsoft hardware product and enter online to win.

“Microsoft Canada wants to help provide students with all the tools they need to succeed, from money that could be used for their tuition to hardware.” said Charles Chang, product manager, Microsoft Canada Hardware. “It’s a challenging time to be a student. With a shrinking, competitive job market and tough economy, there is added pressure to get a good education and increasingly limited options for funding. ”
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Burnaby – This past Saturday we took in the Vancouver leg of the annual Canary Foundation’s soapbox derby, the Canary Derby. We sponsored Brenda Bailey of Deep Fried Entertainment, who was representing Women In GamesVancouver as part of the Wired Woman team. While the Wired Woman team did finish in the top ten, they didn’t make the trophy round. That said, the whole team had a great time and raised a total of $2,355.00 for the Foundation. Many thanks to our “Silk Spectre” driver, Sanaz Jahanbakhsh. You can check out our photos of the race in our Gallery. In total, over $ 113 000.00 was raised at the Vancouver version of the Canary Derby. I have not yet found a total for the Victoria race which ran yesterday.

Burnaby’s Acting Mayor presented the speed award to Aquatic Informatics, whose cart managed to hit speeds of up to 46km per hour (in a 30km zone), with a final run time of 16.50 seconds from the upper starting line. Finishing in second place was the Rogers Wireless cart, followed by Webnames.ca and BCTIA. Other teams we saw still in the race included Wired Woman, SalesXperts Closers, ACL Systems Ltd., Clearly Contacts, FinCAD, and 6S Marketing. At least three other teams unfortunately succumbed to accidents in the earlier trial runs. Cisco Human Network received the Bent Wheel Award for their crash – hopefully their driver is recovering from his dislocated shoulder.

6S Marketing took home the Style Award with their very stylish and musical Mario Kart – driven in Saturday’s race by Princess Peach herself, while Mario helped out on the crew. The Princess’ royal kart managed to hit speeds of 32km per hour, despite those who tried to sabotage her run by throwing banana peels in her path.

Congratulations are also in order to the Webnames.ca team for winning the Top Fundraiser Award. Canary Foundation Chairman and Founder Don Listwin presented the trophy to Cybele Negris, COO and a co-founder of Webnames.ca for raising $11,476.10. Cybele was also the winner of the event’s Volunteer Award.

The Canary Derby is an outstanding and fun event, raising funds for research in early cancer detection, something which will undoubtedly save countless lives in the future. Congratulations to all of the organizers, volunteers, sponsors and participants for an exciting day at the races.

Village Gamer is already planning to participate next year with the Women In Games Vancouver – Wired Woman team, and we challenge all of our local associations, game, VFX-CGI and software developers to get involved – along with all of the post-secondary schools and peripheral corporations who support the digital and new media industry.

High tech executives are signing up to race in popular fundraiser for research into early detection of cancer at BC Cancer Agency

Vancouver/Victoria – High-tech company CEO’s will design and hand-build a fleet of sleek soap box race cars for the annual Canary Derby Soapbox race which will be held in Vancouver on  Saturday June 27th and Victoria on June 28th, to raise funds for the Canary Project of BC Cancer Foundation for cancer early detection research at the BC Cancer Agency. Canary Foundation of Canada, which is dedicated to funding early detection of cancer, is partnering with BC Cancer Foundation on this international cancer research effort.

Last year the first Vancouver Annual Canary Derby signed up 21 teams raising over $110,000 benefiting the Canary Project at BC Cancer Foundation.

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Investing in the Future of BC’s Science and Technology Industry

Vancouver – The PMC-Sierra Science Fair Fun Run celebrates its 10th anniversary of building BC’s future by supporting science and technology education. The Fun Run is the largest timed 5K race in BC and is one of the technology industry’s biggest fundraising events. All proceeds from this event go to The Dr. Michael Smith Science Fair Endowment to support the promotion and development of Science Fair programs throughout the province. Registration is now open for the event, which takes place on Sunday, May 31, 2009, at TELUS World of Science.

“Without funds from events like the PMC-Sierra Science Fair Fun Run, 60,000 students who participate in local fairs across BC each year would not have the opportunity to advance their projects and develop important skills like entrepreneurship, creativity and confidence,” says Patti Leigh, executive director of the Science Fair Foundation of BC. “Given the economic climate, it’s even more important to invest in our future, and we’re doing that by helping students become the great minds that will drive BC’s innovation economy into the future.”

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