The Montreal lead for Startup Canada is about to take on a new position as campus director of Montreal’s “Home of the Web”, Notman House.
Noah Redler is the house’s first full-time hire, a position that will soon become necessary as the long-planned renovations come to a completion in the Spring time. Notman House is home to the FounderFuel accelerator program as well as several tech startups. It’s owned by the non-profit OSMO Foundation, which bought the building from its original owners in late 2012/ early 2013.
“The campus director is someone who will take over the operations of Notman full time. Several volunteers had been doing it on a volunteer-basis for the past few years or so and they really got it off the ground, but as soon as the construction is done there’s going to be full time operations,” Redler told BetaKit.
For over a year now Redler had served as Montreal’s leader for Startup Canada, the Canadian grassroots initiative aimed at mobilizing entrepreneurs with resources across the country. Most recently the movement held their “Startup Canada Day on the Hill”, in which Redler and the team organized the largest contingent of entrepreneurs ever to meet with government leaders on Parliament Hill.
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Redler will continue work with Startup Canada to a lesser degree. Previous to Startup Canada he led another Montreal coworking space in Communoloft, and helped it get off the ground.
One of Notman House’s two main volunteers since it’s been home to startups is Gabriel Sundaram, who doubles as an analyst for Real Ventures. Real Ventures is located in Notman House, as is the startup accelerator that it funds, FounderFuel. Sundaram said he was excited to bring in Redler not only to help the official opening in the Spring, but to manage day-to-day functions.
“It signifies a step towards the spring 2014 opening and we’re bringing Noah in now to drive towards that,” he said. “We’re really excited about working with Noah, not only because of his experience working with startup Canada but with his experience running Communoloft.”
Interestingly, it’s not Redler’s first time working the building. While today’s “Notman House” is associated with the place where tech startups work alongside each other, it’s existed since 1845. That’s the year it was built, for Sir William Collis Meredith. The house takes its name from the celebrated photographer, William Notman though, who lived there with his family from 1876 until his death in 1891.
Somewhere along the way, Montreal’s iconic Just For Laughs Festival used Notman House as an office space, where a 15-year-old Redler had his first job as a general assistant.
Everything comes full circle I suppose.