Phil was invited to speak at Interop this year, and being the Twitter Guru he is, he was a top 5 influencer according to Onalytica! (For those of you who don’t know, Interop is a huge IT conference held every year. It attracts visitors from all over the world, keen to share their stories and cool new products). Stay tuned – you never know where the intrepid @PhilKomarny will show up next!
On Friday, April 4th, Robots and Pencils brought home the Calgary-based Ad Award, The Anvil, in the newest category: Best Mobile Game or Application. The Anvil was awarded for the super fun game, Sasquatch, available on The App Store here. Robots and Pencils worked with the great team at NotBadU to create Sasquatch, the location hunting photo game.
Click here to see the winning entry and more about Ad Rodeo.
Representing Robots and Pencils were Sandra Mills, left, and Vicki Sloot, right – both Pencils.
Sandra Mills, Left, and Vicki Sloot, Right, with the Anvil in hand
In case you missed it, Robots and Pencils’ expansion to the US hit the papers a few weeks back. We’re terribly excited to have Phil Komarny on board as our chief executive and have been pushing strong into the US market. An office is being established in Austin, Texas with one to follow in London, England within the next year.
Check out the full Calgary Herald article here
This past Saturday, we wrapped up another year of Start-up School with the fourth annual Beaver’s Den at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Engineering. Once again our panel of judges were pitched great concepts from engineering students and alumni hoping to gain advice, mentorship and investment in their seed-stage companies.
While all participants gained invaluable advice and connections through Beaver’s Den, there could only be one winner. This year, electrical engineering students Ryan Chee and Steven Zhang impressed the judges with their Smart Home pitch, taking home bragging rights, a cool $1000 in prize money and the promise of additional mentorship and advice. Their Smart Home concept promises to automatically operate the lights and heat within your home, no programming required.
Each year, we help coach engineering students and would-be entrepreneurs in the art of starting a business through Start-up School at the U of A’s Faculty of Engineering. Our own Michael Sikorsky is the faculty’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence, and created the program to highlight entrepreneurship as a viable career path that students can pursue after graduating.
Interested students and alumni are taken through nearly a year-long process of prep classes teaching them how to start and run their own businesses.
The year is kicked-off with Startup School, an intensive weekend workshop that introduces participants to the tools needed to become successful entrepreneurs. Monthly Fireside chats are hosted throughout the year as guiding points and mentoring sessions. All the work over the year concludes with Beaver’s Den – what we like to describe as Dragon’s Den, but nicer.
This year seven engineering student and alumni teams pitched to our esteemed panel of judges, which included Dean Radomsky, Partner Ernst & Young L.P. and Calgary Lead for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards; Leslie Roberts, CEO of GoRobotsInc.com and makers of the Discover Entrepreneurship app course; Jim Bush, President, Evolution Engineering, and President, Inpetro Energy; and Shilo Nevau, a health, safety, and environmental (HSE) expert.
The story on University of Alberta’s website can be found here.
Photo credit: Richard Cairney
Booth 42 at MacWorld 2014. Here, Phil Komarny (@PhilKomarny) and Orest Nazarewycz are showing off PencilCase
The team at Robots and Pencils is absolutely beaming with the 24-hour success of PencilCase. MacWorld 2014 is going extremely well, with visitors crowding our booth, eager to know more. Starting today we’ll be accepting pre-orders on site at MacWorld.
Already we’re featured in 9TO5Mac, Tuaw, ZDNet, App Developer Magazine, IT Business Net, Tech Investor News, PR Newswire, MacTrast, macnn, and have been picked up internationally on Mac Life Germany.
The PencilCase YouTube video has been watched a whopping 5,500 times in a little over 24 hours.
This morning PencilCase made it to the front page of Hacker News. Sitting at #5, there’s amazing buzz around our product. Join the conversation!
