Trying to Increase the Present of Women in the Tech Sector

While looking through The Record, Kitchener-Waterloo’s local newspaper, I could not help but stop at a story titled “Amplifying the voice of women in tech”. After reading a few blog posts regarding issues surrounding diversity in the tech sector and in particular women in tech this article immediately grabbed my attention as a possible part of the solution to this issue. The article discusses a Waterloo based initiative called ‘Code Like a Girl’ started by a tech executive Dinah Davis who says in the article that their “…whole purpose is to amplify the voice of women in tech and to get young girls interested in careers in technology.” (Outhit, 2017) 

This initiative is trying to combat the issue of a male dominated tech sector. It didn’t say the age range of the girls who participated but the ones that they interviewed were 12 and 14. Obviously at these ages these girls would not be thinking about the sector that they are going to work in after they graduate High School and University. So, the question is, is this initiative actually effective in influencing girls to become interested in the tech sector at such a young age? I mean, it can't hurt the current situation because it seems like you can only inspire these young girls to be interested in tech if they aren’t already. I would like to present this initiative as a responsive solution to the posts that address females as a minority in the tech sector. Please tell me what your opinions are on this!

The article can be found at the following link:

http://m.therecord.com/news-story/7218093-amplifying-the-voice-of-women-in-tech

Works Cited:

Outhit, J. (2017, March 30). Amplifying the voice of women in tech. The Record.

Demand for Office Space in Waterloo Region

       Yesterday an article was published in the Waterloo Record on the topic of the demand for office space in the Waterloo Region. In light of the group’s presentation today, which focused on Make It Kitchener and their 10,000 square foot office space, it’s interesting to see that the majority (85%) of leases signed last year were for spaces that were smaller than 10,000 square feet. The article goes on to discuss Perimeter, a develop company that purchased and completely transformed the building on King Street West in Kitchener.  The company leases their buildings to startups and tech companies. The building is a “niche market office space to fledging tech firms.” The article highlights the fact that Shopify, EY and TextNow all made deals that put their offices on or near the light rail transit line.

"In this market, tech and traditional tenants are clustering along the LRT spine, as transit access becomes a key decision-making priority.”

In contrast to our focus on innovation hubs and tech ecologies, it’s interesting to think about the actual structure of the ‘ecology.’ From a real estate standpoint, the market is also booming. An in-depth understanding of how the local tech industry here in Kitchener-Waterloo and the real estate market relate to one another would be fascinating. However, given the exponential increase in property values and properties being sold for much more than asking price, I wonder if this will have any impact on future startups since leases are skyrocketing. How important is it for company offices to be located near the transit line? Will prices go up even more once the LRT system is in effect? In reference to today’s final presentation, do you think it is beneficial for tech companies to locate themselves in the K-W region to access human capital and spillovers from both universities and Conestoga college? Do you think that despite the increase in real estate prices as a whole, the pros of start ups locating themselves in the K-W region outweigh the high costs? Given that the tech companies mentioned in this article typically lease spaces that are less than 10,000 square feet, do you think that this is beneficial? Why do you think successful companies would be drawn to leasing a smaller space (other than for obvious financial reasons)?

http://m.therecord.com/news-story/7213537-tech-financing-helps-drive-demand-for-office-space-in-waterloo-region

Are Humans Becoming Obsolete, Again?

Recently I came across a very interesting TedxSF talk by Jeremy Howard who is an Australian data scientist. This talk is from 2013 and may be dated but nonetheless I found it very interesting. In his talk, he discusses machine learning devices and when he does so he uses an example of playing checkers on a computer. Howard describes how remarkable these devices are through checkers: by programming broad parameters to what you are trying to accomplish (which in this case teaching a computer to play checkers) and then defining all possible approaches to playing checkers. Once this is done, Howard discusses how you can then get the computer to play itself thousands of times and each time it does it would be taking the better approach until it actually taught itself to play better than the programmer! If that was kind of confusing Howard puts it quite eloquently in the talk by saying “Machine learning is giving a computer a broad approach or parameters in which it can create a solution to a problem better than your own solution to that problem.” (Howard, 2013) Algorithms are getting better and better by comparing them to each other, getting a score on how well they do what they are intended to do. This process is continual and new algorithms are created to beat the one before it. Howard even says that there are now international rankings for data scientists.

            Howard then goes on to talk about algorithm competitions and how good algorithms have gotten. This is what the results of these competitions look like “There was recently a machine learning competition where a computer actually graded hand written student essays. 30,000 of them, more consistently with two teachers than the teachers did with each other. So, we are now at a point where computers can read better than teachers.” (Howard, 2013)  If a computer can grade more consistently than teachers can it makes me ask the question, what is the need for teachers? Are the services that we provide society becoming obsolete by new technologies? Howard relates what is happening now, to the labour jobs lost during the industrial revolution and how people then shifted to the service industry. Well now this technology is encroaching on the service industry. So, what is next? Do you think that society will allow new technological advances to disrupt in the service industry and if so, what will be the next industry that these lost jobs will shift to? Let me know what you think in the comments!

The sources used in this article and Jeremy Howard’s TedxSF Talk can be found at the following link:

https://datafloq.com/read/machine-learning-competitions-connecting-devices-a/327

Works Cited

Howard, J. (2013, November 17). Machine-Learning: Connecting Devices with Algorithms. Retrieved from Datafloq: https://datafloq.com/read/machine-learning-competitions-connecting-devices-a/327

Kitchener-Waterloo...a Desirable Destination

For someone who doesn’t have a pulse on the tech ecosystem environment they may assume that for most start-ups it seems like a dream for them to expand into Silicon Valley from the KW Technology ecosystem. I know that when I began this course that was my preconceived notion. This assumption usually comes from the fact that Silicon Valley is a way more complex ecosystem and if a firm moves there it could be suggested that they are growing to large for their current ecosystem and would benefit from the talent that is in the Silicon Valley ecosystem.

The article that can be found below by Quentin Casey of the Financial Post suggests that companies that are within the Valley are finding value in expanding their operations into the K-W tech ecosystem. In the article, it is discussed how the firm Everalbum, out of Silicon Valley, acquired the Waterloo-Kitchener born start-up Pout. After acquiring, Everalbum decided to stay within this ecosystem and hire the co-founders of Pout, creating a Waterloo office instead of shutting down operations in this region and continuing their growth in the US. The reason they decided to stay? The talent. “If you can find a high concentration of amazing people, you have a good shot at building something great” (Casey, 2016) is what co-founder of Everalbum, Andrew Dudum had to say about staying north of the border.

Although both Canadian companies, BuildDirect out of Vancouver acquired Waterloo start-up DraftingSPACE which is an online home renovation application. After being acquired “DraftingSPACE is looking at office space outside of Velocity and also expects to expand its team to 10 by the end of the year.” (Betakit, 2015) This is another great example of how K-W is a desirable destination.

I also have to mention Google, Intel, Electronic Arts, etc. which are “…global tech companies [that] set up shop in Waterloo even if it was just to recruit and ship out talent.” (Dingman, 2015) Come to recruit the talent and stay to contribute and grow the tech ecosystem, sounds good to me.

I think that it is awesome that K-W is attracting companies, creating jobs and building a larger ecosystem! To check out the topics that I discussed in this post for yourself, they can be found at the following links:

http://business.financialpost.com/entrepreneur/fp-startups/why-more-silicon-valley-startups-will-find-their-way-to-waterloo?__lsa=235c-e159

http://betakit.com/draftingspace-has-been-acquired-by-builddirect/

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/technology/kitchener-waterloo-startup/article25558263/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&service=mobile

Works Cited:

Betakit. (2015, June 10). Canadian Startup News & Tech Innovation. Retrieved March 15, 2017, from Betakit: http://betakit.com/draftingspace-has-been-acquired-by-builddirect/

Casey, Q. (2016, February 12). Why more Silicon Valley startups will find their way to Waterloo.

Financial Post.

Dingman, S. (2015, July 17). Startup city: The high-tech fever reshaping Kitchener-Waterloo. Retrieved March 21, 2017, from The Globe and Mail: https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/technology/kitchener-waterloo-startup/article25558263/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&service=mobile