Hosts Drew and James open the show with some cool news. Then jump pretty quickly into the meet-ups around town. Drew gives a quick review of the Warcraft movie. The guest for this episode is Peter Thompson from AtlanticFusion. The interview starts at 0:30:00.
Thompson has just settled down from a nine month trip to various cities. He has been in Vancouver for a little over a month now, but he is already planning to make an impact. Before Vancouver, Thompson started his career in Calgary. He spent some time in oil and gas, as one does in Alberta. He then transitioned to a retail company which worked on the technology side of retail, such as POS systems.
Thompson eventually made his way to San Francisco. He spent about three years there being involved in various projects and companies. He got his first intro to Code For America there, and also his first intro to “civic tech”.
Further into the conversation, we talk about some of the ways Canada (or Vancouver) can actually become a “Silicon Valley North”. We also touch on some of the reasons why civic tech is important, but also why “civic tech” may be a bad name for the movement. The city now has a lot of projects that can now be started because the city of Vancouver has made the decision to open up their data and be more involved in the open data and tech scene.
The discussion moves to Code For America and some of the awesome things that they are doing. He explains some of the things that they do and what the movement means. He reflects on what the appeal was of getting involved with the community.
The Vancouver Tech Podcast is a weekly show focusing on the growing tech industry in the city of Vancouver. Get caught up on the events and meetups around town, startups, new businesses, developers, designers, community programs, and news. Each episode includes an interview with an outstanding member of our community.
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