Good morning everyone. You’re invited to join me and the CEOs of Snack and Railz.ai live and in-person on October 20th from 6:00pm-9:00pm. What’s the occasion? TechVancouver monthly meetups are back. Register here to join us and check out our recent events round-up for other upcoming activities you should check out.

Today’s Sunday Briefing is 1,157 words, a 4-minute read. Enjoy!

-William (@notionport)

P.S. You can always send tips and feedback at willam@vantechjournal.com.

The Week’s Top Stories

Burnaby's MintGreen to make North Vancouver world’s first city heated by bitcoin.

As part of an effort to reduce its urban carbon footprint, the City of North Vancouver and Lonsdale Energy Corporation (LEC), its district energy utility, will be introducing a novel heat source to their district energy system. MintGreen, a Burnaby-based cleantech cryptocurrency miner, will be working with LEC to provide heat to North Vancouver from bitcoin mining.

Bitcoin mining facilities produce significant amounts of heat, which until recently, would have been considered an undesirable output. To combat this, miners have gone so far as to invest in venting and cooling infrastructure to remove this heat. MintGreen, however, has built a proprietary solution to capture this heat and sell it to buyers. » Get the full story.

Susan Sarandon collectible launches local NFT platform.

We chatted with Reid Robinson, the co-founder of Vancouver-based cocoNFT, on the auction for the Hollywood star's first-ever non-fungible token (NFT) and his company's place within the creator economy. » Start reading.

Vancouver Esports doesn’t play around.

At Pinnacle 2021, Canada’s first post-pandemic in-person Esports event, our reporter James Matthews witnessed the strength of an ecosystem he had only heard of. » Starting reading.

⏩ Quick takes.

• 📖 Required reading: Former Vanedge Capital investor Annika Lewis shares why she left her firm to go full-time into the Web3 space.

• 🗣️ This is cool: The race to save indigenous languages, using automatic speech recognition.

• 🤝 Connect and learn: Five upcoming tech events to attend.

• 🤖 Timmmmber: Intelligent City’s robots are building buildings.

• 🐟 Fishing for data: The Semá:th First Nation is in the second year of its five-year project to count the salmon in the Vedder River using sonar.

• 🦉 Hoot, sweet space: Vancouver’s biggest social media management company re-imagined its office for the future of work.

• ☑️ Survey: Jelly Academy and Innovate BC are partnering to collect data on what skills are most desired in the digital marketing industry. » Add your views.

Retention Pandemic: How to build up a retention strategy with Global Tech Talent

The post-pandemic landscape creates a new set of challenges for both hiring and retaining tech talent. As local talent pools are drying up, top talent is being lured by dollar bills as tech workers everywhere can now work remotely. 

VanHack, paired with the Global Talent Stream, is your best way to attract and retain global tech talent, with over 240K developers looking to move and relocate to Canada. 

Learn more today.

* Partner Message

🤝 Funding and deals.

• Victoria’s Pani, which develops software that helps water treatment facilities optimize operations, closed $8 million in funding co-led by Blue Bear Capital and Blue Coast Partners. » Read our story.

• Alida said it closed a $20 million Series D funding round by Round13 Growth Fund, a late-stage growth equity investment fund. » Keep reading.

• ICYMI: Omnisearch has secured $562,000 (USD$450,000) from GoAhead Ventures, an early-stage venture fund in Menlo Park, California. » Learn more.

• Deloitte Canada acquired Ouest Business Solutions, a Vancouver-based SAP consulting firm, to support its SAP consultancy business, reports Josh Scott in BetaKit.

• The Province of BC is contributing $2 million from the Innovative Clean Energy (ICE) Fund to support the engineering and design of a first-of-its-kind plant in Merritt to capture carbon dioxide and convert it to clean fuels. » Read more.

• Dapper Labs and Kevin Durant’s Thirty Five Ventures announced a multi-year partnership that will feature co-branded activations across the Boardroom media network. » Get the details.

• Alpha Esports Tech signed an agreement to acquire 100% of Heavy Chips Casino and Sports Betting from Gamesoft Ltd. » Details.

• GameOn Entertainment Technologies announced a partnership that will see Chibi Dinos utilizing GameOn’s NFT Prediction Game product to give their 10,000 digital dinos utility in gaming. » Read more.

• NiceJob, a Vancouver reputation marketing firm that was growing revenue 150% year-over-year, has been acquired by London, ON’s Paystone. » More.

🗞️ In other news…

• The expansion of the Canadian Tech Talent Accelerator program will enable as many as 2,000 young British Columbians to improve their tech skills and knowledge.

  The program is being delivered in partnership with the Province, the Digital Technology Supercluster, Microsoft Canada, NPower Canada and Blueprint. Collectively, these organizations will invest approximately $15.5 million to expand the program in British Columbia. » Learn more.

• Thomson Reuters announced the creation of a new $100 million corporate venture capital fund to support and accelerate “breakthrough innovations that will allow professionals to operate more productively and with greater insights.”

• Yup, a crypto-backed social media platform, has raised $3.5 million in a funding round led by Distributed Global, with support from Dapper Labs and a host of prominent angel investors.

💡 Ideas and insights.

• Michael Gilbert, CEO of agtech unicorn Semios, writing in Entrepreneur: It's Time For the Future of Farming to Be a Dinner Table Topic

• Jonathon Narvey, CEO of tech PR firm Mind Meld, writing in Entrepreneur: 4 Magic Spells for Instant PR Results

• Paul Rubenstein, chief people officer at Visier, writing in Entrepreneur: We're Failing Frontline Managers. Here's How To Equip Them With Better People Insights

• Matt Carlson, executive vice president at Colliers, interviewed global tech thought leader Jason Fried: The Man Who Wrote the Book on Remote Work

• Dave Dinesen, Cubic Farms CEO, writing in Worth: How Adopting A Rockstar Mentality Helped Me Lead Through The Crisis

🌐 More BC tech headlines from around the web.

• Nexii in Construction Dive: 12 contech firms raise a combined $396M in investor funding

• FORM Swim in Yahoo! Style: Are these $259 smart swimming goggles worth buying? I tried them to find out

• BBTV in tubefilter: BBTV Is Making A Docuseries With Musician, Motorsports Lover T-Pain

📅 See you soon at these events.

Vancouver Tech Journal

Five upcoming tech events to attend

Fall is always a busy time for networking events, and now that in-person activities are back, there’s even more choice for those of you hoping to connect with the community. To make things easier, I’ve put together a list of key events I have on my radar, am attending, or speaking at within the next couple of weeks. See you there…

Read more

a year ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · William Johnson

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