Japman Bajaj

It was a long time com­ing, but #GenY­OTT got back on track with a fan­tas­tic evening of fun, net­work­ing, and edu­ca­tion last night!

Once again, #GenY­OTT had over 100 reg­is­tered atten­dees, a now com­mon occur­rence for the events. But what was remark­able about last night was the large amount of first-time-attendees! I have never seen that many new faces at a #GenY­OTT, and it shows that there’s sig­nif­i­cant trac­tion being made in the com­mu­nity when more than half of yesterday’s atten­dees were first-timers.

Among the first timers I was priv­i­leged to meet were Ben Myers, from Nap­kyn, Travis Boisv­enue from Medi­aStyle (which is the brain­child of #GenYOTT’s first ever guest speaker, Ian Cap­stick), Esha Abrol, from EDC, as well as owner of at least two of her own small com­pa­nies, Nimit Malavia and Sab­rina Per­saud, Anny Le, Dylan Blan­chard, Gor­don Smith, a mem­ber of the Cana­dian National Cycling team, and others!

The event began with my break­ing two royal rules. I showed up late, despite being an orga­nizer, and, pos­si­bly even worse… I wore a blazer! Yes, I wore a blazer to for­mal­ize myself up, and I fully blame David Hicks for this. Not because I’m try­ing to impress him or any­thing, but because this blog post last month about dress­ing well has res­onated with me, and I’m attempt­ing to make the effort.

Brian Alk­er­ton, one of the founders of the #GenY­OTT move­ment, deliv­ered the pre­sen­ta­tion today, and I thought he did a great job at mix­ing humour and con­tent to keep the crowd engaged. He talked about mak­ing mis­takes early (or for the entre­pre­neur­ial nerds in the audi­ence, the “fail hard, fail fast” rule), and learn­ing their asso­ci­ated lessons to make you stronger. His unique sense of humour had every­one laugh­ing and learn­ing all at once.

This month, #GenY­OTT focussed in on a part of our com­mu­nity, Isabelle Rivard, aka @Spoonsie, who will be bik­ing from Van­cou­ver to Austin, TX, to raise money for Can­cer research. She’s aim­ing for a $10,000 goal, so if you want to help her reach her goal, check out http://www.isaonabike.com

Once again, we were at Foun­da­tion, which pro­vides us a fan­tas­tic venue with a large open area, as well as access to the bar. It’s a great place to hold an event, but as a com­mu­nity move­ment, we’re always look­ing for sug­ges­tions for other venues. So, as it is with any aspect of #GenY­OTT, if you have any sug­ges­tions or con­cerns for future events, or the future of the com­mu­nity, leave a com­ment or give one of us a shout!