Tag: montreal

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Student Life

La guerra della pizza

Photo by Sophia Loffreda
Photo by Sophia Loffreda

Growing up in an Italian household, finishing everything on my plate and asking for seconds became requirements at my grandparents’ house. Lucky for me, I’ve developed quite an appetite for carbohydrates and homemade wine. Though I was blessed with two Italian grandmothers, whose main priority was to excessively feed their families, I have been repeatedly faced with this question: Which nonna cooks better? I have never been faced with a tougher decision—until I had to choose between these two pizza spots that is.
The beauty of a pizza is that you can top it and spice it up to reflect any culture, whether it may be with pineapple for Hawaii, jalapenos for Mexico or Tandoori chicken for India. It is a blank canvas whose roots go back to Napoli (Naples).
Italians take their pizza very seriously. It is an art form, a combination between the right balance of delicious ingredients. A crust that is perfectly cooked when the bottom isn’t burned and the slice can hold its own. A fresh tomato sauce that isn’t too sweet or too acidic, with a kick to it without being spicy. The toppings must be fresh, and if homemade—even better.
Though this may not be Italy, Montreal isn’t lacking good pizza. In fact, we even have a few pizzerias that have been approved to reach authentic Italian standards. I’ve been assigned on this journey to compare two pizzeria giants and conclude on a winner. The first, Il Focolaio; a downtown gem with a busy clientele. The second, Pizzeria Napoletana; a Montreal landmark and symbol for Little Italy. I suggest you order a pizza before you read on—this will be torture if you have an empty stomach.

Il Focolaio:

Il Focolaio is a family-run pizzeria that has developed quite a reputation since 1984. It’s clean and spacious with an open-kitchen concept that’s fun to watch while waiting for your pizza. There’s a huge Italian flag over the bar, right beside the two televisions that are usually playing a soccer game. The front removable window is a great touch in the summer if you’re not the type to eat out in the heat.
Its prime location in Phillips Square is great for people-watching in the summer on the terrace, but it could sometimes lead to a wait during the lunchtime rush. The service is always fast and pleasant and even with the large selection of pizzas, I have never witnessed a wrong order.
With a choice of 70 pizzas and five calzones, the menu can be quite overwhelming to a newcomer. Lucky for the rookies, the menu offers a legend that helps categorize the pizzas under cheese, meat, seafood, vegetables and even tofu.
The chefs are extremely generous with the toppings and always manage to be consistent with the wood-oven thin crust. There’s just the right amount of tomato sauce to taste without making the pizza too soggy. Even without the spicy oil, the sauce has a little kick to it that brings all the delicious ingredients together. My personal favourite is #59, the Capo Franco: a thin-crust pizza topped with tomato sauce, capicollo, mozzarella, eggplant, garlic and blue cheese.
Grade: A

Pizzeria Napoletana

Pizzeria Napoletana is a Montreal landmark, a beloved favourite since 1948. Even after six decades, this pizzeria is still one of the last remaining Italian restaurants in Little Italy. For some, it is a reminder of the community they grew up in and a taste of the old country. “It’s home sweet home,” said 53-year-old Pizza Napoletana regular Julia Clarizio. “It feels like being at my mother’s around the kitchen table.”
The restaurant may not be in the middle of St-Laurent, but its location on Dante is not one to be forgotten. With an open terrace in the summer, across the street from a park and a church, the restaurant has a very “old paese” feeling to it. The inside is very spacious and has many long tables for big groups. Even after all these years, the fake tree in the middle of the room still stands strong.
What people love about Pizzeria Napoletana is that they haven’t changed recipes over the decades. The technique and ingredients have been passed on from generation to generation. The crust is a little thicker than Focolaio’s, but it’s light and evenly thin throughout the whole pizza. The toppings are perfectly dispersed to get a taste of everything with each bite. The arugula is fresh, the mozzarella di bufala is coated with a touch of olive oil, and the prosciutto is the real deal. The tomato sauce is impeccable and made fresh everyday. Oh, and I forgot to mention, it’s a bring your own wine restaurant—a perfect place to bring your nonno’s homemade wine, or to just save some money off the bill by bringing your own favourite bottle.
Grade: A+

I don’t like to take sides and choose one over the other, because honestly, they’re two of my favourite pizzerias in Montreal. However, if I had to choose which one to bring my cousin from Italy, it would be Pizzeria Napoletana.
Why? Besides the location and homey feeling of the restaurant, it was the tomato sauce that did it for me. You could dress a pizza with the best ingredients, but if the sauce isn’t great, then your pizza is a fail. It’s the nonna of toppings; she may sometimes be overbearing, but without her, the family, like the pizza, falls apart.

Il Focolaio is located at 1223 Square-Phillips St. in downtown Montreal. Click here to visit their website, where you can check out their menu. Pizza Napoletana is located at 189 Dante St. in Rosemont.

Categories
Student Life

Skip the line with LEX-IT


“Pre-order, prepay, pickup—it is as easy as that!” explains Charles Azrak, recent Concordia finance graduate, about his latest business venture. The company he co-founded with his other business partner, Richard Btaiche, a graduate of Concordia’s computer engineering program, is called LEX-IT.
LEX-IT is an ideal solution for busy students or business professionals, too famished and far too impatient to wait in a long line for their lunch or dinner. Once you visit www.justlexit.com, you can access a list of LEX-IT partner restaurants from which you can order food for pickup at a specified time in the future. Food can be ordered through the LEX-IT website or iPhone app. Other smartphone devices are on the way too.
Once food has been ordered, LEX-IT partner restaurants prepare it to your specifications for you to pick up at an indicated time. All you have to do when picking up the food is to tell them your PIN, which is provided when you order through LEX-IT. You can do all of this while sitting and waiting for class to finish, or on your way to your morning class, or in the shuttle while switching between campuses, all conveniently at your fingertips. “Students can pick up their breakfast on the way to the class or a snack during classroom breaks, something that they usually have no time for,” said Btaiche.
Some of the LEX-IT partner restaurants include: Subway, Liquid Nutrition, Thai Express, Gourmet Burger, Al-Taib, Chateau Kabab, Lunchbox and others. Many more are on the way, explained Azrak. “It took us months to build relationships with restaurant owners and to find out the best way to work with them.”
But what’s the best thing about LEX-IT? It’s free—the price that you pay is the same that you would pay if you purchased your food at the restaurant. The way LEX-IT makes money is by taking a percentage of the sales through an established contract with the restaurants. “This [service] is a new concept that we are certain will be used by many Concordia and other university students,” said Azrak.
The idea for the name “LEX-IT” was inspired by Azrak’s friend who, during the period where they were brainstorming to find a company name, had a baby and called her Lexia. “We realized that there was a good definition behind it because the Latin term lex mercatoria refers to a system of custom and best practice. We also wanted for people to view LEX-IT as a way of being, a system of established norms and behaviour. It all really came together,” said Btaiche.
Azrak and Btaiche teamed up on this project in October 2010. “From day one, Richard and I clicked,” said Azrak, beaming as he explained how both of them are similar in their ambition and hard-working attitude. “In addition to us working so well together, we must also give a lot of credit to our board of directors, who provided an invaluable help on our business strategy and legal matters,” said Azrak.
“He is a machine,” said Azrak of Btaiche. “Richard has the best memory, he is a perfectionist, he likes to balance everything in his life. If a pixel is missing in a picture Richard will stop everything and fix it.”
Btaiche spoke highly of Azrak too. “He is very patient, and he is a very positive and creative person, a machine too,” said Btaiche.
Btaiche was one of four students who received a co-op entrepreneurship award during his last year at Concordia. He was born in Lebanon, grew up in Saudi Arabia, and came to Montreal in 2007 to complete his studies at Concordia. Even in Lebanon, Btaiche could not turn off his entrepreneurial extinct, as he started creating small businesses, such as an Internet cafe. “Even when I was very young I was an efficient person, always thinking of ways to save time and to optimize whatever there is,” he said.
Azrak, on the other hand, took a less direct path. Originally from Syria, but born in Montreal, Azrak moved around from Saudi Arabia to Dubai and back to Montreal. “I never really knew what I wanted to do, I switched programs a few times [between MIS, finance, marketing and one semester of law at the Université de Montréal], but I knew whatever I decided to do it was going to be interesting.”
This is not the first start-up idea that Btaiche and Azrak have embarked on. While Azrak was studying finance at Concordia, he teamed up with Btaiche to start a charity that would raise funds to purchase laptops for orphanages.
Btaiche explained to me that starting a business is not as easy as it seems, specifying that they work 12 to 14 hours a day on perfecting their product and growing the business. “People don’t understand the drive and the energy that we have. When it is 1 a.m. on Saturday and you are shooting business ideas to each other through texts and emails, something is wrong,” joked Azrak.
In the beginning, LEX-IT struggled finding technical talent to help build their product, invested large amounts of money, and Azrak took the risk of quitting his job to dedicate himself to their creation.
Many young student entrepreneurs may have their fears of not having enough money, being afraid that the competition would be overwhelming, or that the product won’t sell. For them, Btaiche offered some advice. “I think that Montreal is a really good place to start a business, there are a lot of resources and support that you can benefit from and you should follow your gut and don’t be afraid in venturing and investing some money, because the experience that you get from it and the journey that you go on is really priceless,” he said.
Azrak emphasized the importance of keeping your eye on your goal, maintaining focus, avoiding distractions and choosing your business partners wisely. “If you will ever have business partners, make sure you’ve worked with them before. Being friends with someone does not mean that you will work well together, it is completely different. Also, I suggest reading biographies and books of interesting entrepreneurs to give you ideas and a better understanding.”
Ambitious plans lie ahead for the LEX-IT team. “What we are focused on right now is making sure that Concordia students love LEX-IT. We want them to just LEX-IT every day! It takes a lot of work, often through trial and error, to come up with the best experience, but with the support of the students, university community and our partner restaurants, we are certain to get it done,” said Azrak. “Our plan is to revolutionize the way people order food, one order at a time.”

For more information, visit www.justlexit.com. and just LEX-IT!

Categories
Opinions

The technology war has reached our bookstore, and Google won

Photo by Dean Sas via Flickr
Graphic by Sean Kershaw

Do you remember when companies stuck to what they did best? Google was a search engine, Amazon sold books and Apple sold computers.

Those days are over. All three companies have beefed up to offer a wide variety of services, and as a result, they encroach on each other’s territory every so often in an attempt to expand their customer base. Google, Apple and Amazon now offer music and storage services, as well as tablets.

This level of competition is advantageous to us, the consumers, because it drives prices down and offers a wider variety of choices.

This semester, Concordia’s bookstore started offering a decent range of e-books (textbooks, novels, etc.) through a partnership with Google and 22 other universities in Canada and the United States. “We are proud to sell Google eBooks because they offer students ultimate flexibility,” the website boasts. “They can be read on virtually any device, at any time.”

The key word is “virtually.” As a proud owner of an Amazon Kindle e-reader, which I bought for the sole purpose of reading, I was excited knowing that thousands of books, possibly some that I would need for class, would be made available for me.

Then I read this: “Google eBooks will work on the following devices: Android, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Computers, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo Reader.” It adds: “Google eBooks are not currently compatible with Amazon Kindle devices.”

After repeated attempts to get an explanation from the bookstore as to why it was exercising what seemed like e-reader discrimination, I got a reply from Ken Bissonnette, the operations and text manager at the bookstore. He started out by saying that the bookstore had sold roughly 450 copies of e-books that were required for courses in January, but “there are no plans to include the Kindle.” After demanding more precise explanations, he finally said: “At this time I don’t see Google using Kindle.”

This statement proves two things: firstly, that a partnership with Google clearly entails preference to Android-based tablet users, which is understandable, and secondly, that the bookstore itself is clearly unaware of student trends, and the advantages of making their e-books available to Kindle users.

While Apple clearly has a stranglehold on the tablet market share, the Kindle has the same kind of monopoly for e-readers. “During the last nine weeks of 2011, Kindle unit sales, including the Fire tablet, increased 177 per cent compared to the same period in 2010,” according to an official Amazon statement last month.

Kindle device sales in 2011 were nearly triple the 2010 total; this is due to its low starting prices and to Amazon’s “focus on an ecosystem and content for users, an approach closer to what Apple uses for the iPad, rather than focusing on hardware specs.,” according to Flurry Analytics.

The point is, the Kindle is prevalent among the student population and universities should opt to include the Kindle if they want to achieve substantial e-book sales. No one I know owns a Sony or Kobo eReader, and I certainly don’t know any students who want to strain their eyes by reading an 80-page document on an iPod or iPhone, let alone an iPad, which uses a reflective screen that simply won’t let you read in the sun.

Photo by Dean Sas via Flickr

In 2009, Princeton University carried out a pilot program (three members of faculty and 51 students) using e-readers in a classroom setting. One of their goals was to reduce the amount of printing and photocopying. “Most students surveyed in the Princeton pilot (94%) said they did use less paper, reducing by as much as 85% the printing they normally would have done in the pilot course,” according to the report.

Can you imagine if the Concordia bookstore sold the world’s most popular e-reader (which is already attractively priced) or at the very least made its e-books available to Kindle users? Not only would their e-book sales skyrocket, but the university would save an enormous amount of paper, which would certainly help Concordia’s efforts to become as sustainable as possible, and to be a model for other schools to follow.

More e-book sales would likely lead to more coursepacks and textbooks becoming available to the student body and subsequently, students wouldn’t be as turned off by the outlook of reading 80 electronic pages. So, will the bookstore bow down to Google, as so many others have done, or will it figure out a way to let us, the Kindle users, in on the fun?

Categories
Arts

Where stories and histories meet

Do you remember your childhood imagination? Mine was a vibrant mix of superheroes, nightmares and the stories told by my grandmothers, both Italian immigrants.
From their terrifying narratives of leaving behind a war-torn country to their folktales about wolves that would eat disobedient children, their stories were entertaining, imaginative—and scary.
Personal Mythologies, a new exhibit on at the MAI gallery until Feb. 18, explores exactly that kind of personal, imaginative headspace. Featuring two Montreal-based artists, Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo, whose work is inspired by his family’s escape from El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980s, and Marigold Santos, whose work reflects her family’s emigration experience from the Philippines to Canada, Personal Mythologies is intellectually and emotionally engrossing.
Hanging before the gallery’s windows like haunting dreamcatchers are several installation pieces by Santos featuring braided artificial hair, stapled paper and knotted cords, reflecting her fascination with ‘the woven.’ She says in her artist’s statement: “[The woven] becomes a form of talisman” with the “ability to invite, and repel.” Taking note of the whimsical and eerie elements included in Santos’ pieces—a braid, a jewelled necklace—viewers construct and weave their own stories, connecting the pieces.
“When I was looking into my own culture and paralleling my own experience of history with that of a culture and folklore that existed before me, it was a way to experience this mixing of eastern and western culture,” Santos said of her art. “I came to the idea of an identity based on a combination of different cultures that I could re-create.”
War, death, the afterlife and the lives left behind by war are all themes that Personal Mythologies invites readers to contemplate. In the centre of the room, Monument, an installation work by Castillo, incorporates earth, dolls, shoes, moss and plants to create an organic-looking space paying tribute to those left behind by war. Facing Castillo’s installation, Santos’ HEX (Secret Signals Hands), a series of large, finely-detailed illustrations of hands forming letters spell out: HOW DO WE TALK TO THE DEAD?
Across the room, Castillo’s illustration and painting piece My Tyrant, My Protest, My Myth showcases his finely-detailed drawing and ethereal execution of watercolour-like paints, depicting soldiers, priests, men with tattooed faces, muscled and contorted dogs, beasts and war imagery of all kinds. Bathed occasionally in red and always rendered with the same amazingly precise lines—Castillo cites Albrecht Durer as one of his influences—each individual face invites the viewer to look closer and appreciate all the subtlety those fine lines create.
One of the great triumphs of Personal Mythologies is the mix of intriguing subject matter and spell-binding execution: both Castillo and Santos trained in print-making, and it’s a joy to walk through the exhibit admiring their skillful drawings. From Castillo’s postcard-sized portraits of Canadian soldiers, civilians and bizarre beings, to Santos’ series Secret Signals: 1, 2, and 3, featuring otherworldly-looking women in pastel and acid tones and incorporating string and braiding motifs, most of the artworks in Personal Mythologies are so detailed—and the lines so fine—that it’s almost impossible to believe that someone has drawn them so precisely.
“I draw in a very organic way that really fits my style, and I don’t tend to plan out my pieces,” says Castillo. “Mylar allows me to draw and paint on both sides of the sheet,” he says of his use of the polyester film medium, which seems to make the paper glow with a pearly sheen, “and it creates a different effect than paper does.”
It’s clear that curator Zoë Chan has put together the ideal exhibit: works by Santos and Castillo seem to speak the same visual language, but the viewer is able to see each artist’s style and techniques as distinct and appreciate their uniqueness, creating an exhibit that is both harmonious and dynamic.
I don’t usually write this personally about exhibits, but I left the MAI thinking about Personal Mythologies all day long. If you’ve got love or want to think up your own stories, Personal Mythologies is a must-see exhibition.

Personal Mythologies is at the MAI gallery (3680 Jeanne-Mance St., suite 103) until Feb. 18. Admission is free. For more information, go to www.m-a-i.qc.ca.

Categories
Sports

Slumping Stingers can’t hold leads

Carabins' players celebrate one of their five goals. Photo by Navneet Pall

The Concordia Stingers women’s hockey team knew it had to win games against teams it had beaten in the past if it was to climb out of the basement of the standings.

Carabins' players celebrate one of their five goals. Photo by Navneet Pall

The women could handle a 4-0 defeat two weeks ago to run-away leaders McGill, but the other games would have to be capitalized on.

The losses last Friday and Saturday thus came as a hard pill to swallow as the Stingers remain at the bottom of the league.

Though Concordia scored first in both games, the Stingers were unable to hold onto leads against the Montréal Carabins and the Ottawa Gee-Gees.

In the Friday night game at Montréal, Audrey Gariepy scored first, but the Carabins came back with five straight goals.

Second place Montréal is a team the Stingers had beat once and lost to twice in the first half of the season. It is a team that coach Les Lawton knows his team can and needed to beat if they are to challenge for second place.

If Friday night’s loss was a tough pill to swallow, Saturday’s was a shot of gasoline.

Ottawa and Concordia were tied in points going into the game, but Ottawa topped Concordia 4-2, further dismantling the team’s ambition of moving up in the standings.

The Stingers scored first when Emilie Bocchia converted a first period power-play goal, her second in as many games. Ottawa tied it up, but Concordia came out in the second period blazing. Catherine Rancourt put one in 52 seconds into the second period retaking the lead.

It was all Ottawa from then on, however, as the Gee-Gees scored three straight goals to win the game.

The women now sit at the bottom of the standings with six points, two back of Ottawa, though the Stingers have a game in hand.

The Stingers’ next game will be at home against Ottawa on Sunday, Jan. 29 at  3 p.m.

Categories
News

Panties and dildos and fishnets, oh my!

Photo by Sarah Howell
Photo by Sarah Howell

In a flurry of feather boas and strobe lights, Salon de l’Amour et de la Séduction (or Everything to Do With Sex Show) set up shop at Place Bonaventure last Friday.

The three-day event catered to the sexually curious, offering body painting, body casting, massages, seminars on sexual topics, and table after table of vendors selling sex toys and lingerie.

Those feeling less vanilla could also check out the whips and bondage over in the dungeon area and watch demonstrations on topics varying from “Erotic Bondage For Lovemaking” to “Art of Sensual Spanking.”

Over at the main stage, this year’s entertainment included performances from “Queen of Burlesque” Roxi D’Lite, male exotic dancer Assassin and Spidey the hypnotist and magician.

Categories
News

Artists protest Bonaventure police shooting

MNA and Québec solidaire spokesperson Amir Khadir attended the protest. Photo by Navneet Pall
Artists and activists gathered inside the Bonaventure metro station last Wednesday to remember Farshad Mohammadi, the 34-year-old homeless man who was shot and killed by Montreal police at the station earlier this month. Organized by Stefan Christoff and the Howl Arts Collective, protesters spoke out against Mohammadi’s death, describing the incident as an act of police brutality. Demonstrators also sang songs and performed poetry at the vigil.

Police opened fire on Mohammadi on Jan. 6 as he ran away after stabbing one of the officers in the station. Mohammadi’s death has sparked debate in the city about the treatment of Montreal’s homeless population. The Old Brewery Mission estimates that there are nearly 30,000 homeless people in the Greater Montreal Area.
Categories
News

How do you solve a problem like the 105?

Commonly described by words such as “extremely uncomfortable” and “having to wait,” the 105 bus is used by many Concordia students use to get to the university’s Loyola campus in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

“It makes me not want to go to school”, says Danica Bourque, a psychology student who takes the 105 bus everyday to get to class. “There’s nothing worse than a jam-packed bus.”

However, that may change in the near future as there has been some recent talk at the Société de transport du Montréal of reintroducing trolley buses in some areas of the city — and the 105 bus line is one they’re seriously considering for the switch.

Electric trolley buses roamed the streets of Montreal from 1937 to 1966, until they were replaced by diesel buses.

Trolleys are generally bigger, more comfortable and less noisy than an average diesel bus, not to mention environmentally friendly. The STM estimates the cost of converting the 105 from bus to trolley at $750 million.

“I think it’s an excellent idea if there’s more room in them, I’m tired of feeling like a sardine every morning and every night”, says Margarita Miseros, a psychology student who is frequently at the Loyola campus.

The Montreal Gazette reported that the 105, which runs up and down Sherbrooke St. west of Decarie Blvd., carries an average of 17,000 passengers per day. Concordia students and staff alike showed their discontent with the 105 this summer by starting a petition on the Internet to ask the STM to boost service on the line.

Despite passing every three minutes during rush hour, the 105 bus line often remains crowded, a problem that STM vice-chairman Marvin Rotrand says they’re trying to fix.

“On this particular line, every time we add service instead of easing crowding, it attracts more riders,” explained Rotrand in an article by the Montreal Gazette.

San Francisco and Moscow are two of the biggest cities that still rely on tramways for their public transportation.

Categories
News

Biking in a winter wonderland

Photo by Sarah Howell
Photo by Sarah Howell

The sudden arrival of winter weather in Montreal means that many students have had to swallow another metro fare hike and escape into dingy metro stations to commute to and from Concordia.

However, the number of bicycles waiting outside several classes point to an increasingly popular alternative mode of winter transport: winter biking.

Kelly Pennington, an urban planning student, commutes to and from her classes at Concordia by bike.

Sporting lobster-claw-styled cycling gloves, she enthuses that the rewards of a brisk and refreshing winter commute to school easily surpasses any challenges she faces riding in less-than-ideal circumstances.

According to a recently published study by civil engineering and applied mechanics researchers at McGill, the amount of people using their bikes to get around in the winter per day numbers in the hundreds and has been increasing steadily over the years.

Community bike co-ops catering directly to students have sprung up across the city, like Le Petit Vélo Rouge at Concordia, The Flat Bike Collective at McGill, Université de Montreal’s Biciklo and BQAM at UQAM. They sell and fix bikes, as well as offer workshops specifically centered around the problems cyclists may face when riding around Montreal in the snow.

Nonetheless, many winter cyclists face challenges beyond the cold weather.

“One issue is that drivers don’t see this as positive, they think it’s stupid,“ said Pennington, who also works as a bicycle courier. She explained that long stretches of designated bike paths are often not cleared of snow during the winter, and drivers are not only annoyed but also scared at having to share narrower roads.

When the snow is cleared it gets dumped onto the sides, usually spilling over onto the bike paths and forcing cyclists to share the streets with drivers. Pennington said she gets honked at more during these winter months.

Balancing on the seat of her locked bicycle in front of the JMSB building, Karine Imbeault mirrors this experience. She commutes from the Plateau area and says she often gets yelled at.

Both Pennington and Imbeault said that the best way to deal with exasperated drivers is to not be distracted by the honking and name-calling but remain defensive while riding. Remaining visible to drivers becomes even more important as it gets darker earlier so avoiding dark clothing and affixing bicycles with battery-operated lights is advisable.

Imbeault points out that batteries die faster in cold conditions so she finds herself spending more money on them during the winter.

During this season, the type of bicycle used and the unique maintenance required takes on a life of its own. Here are some tips to help you pedal your way through the winter months:

– Modify the handle bars to point towards you. This has the benefit of not only being more comfortable but also allows for proper weight distribution onto the rear wheel which prevents sliding on slippery surfaces.

– Get a single gear bike. All movable parts of the bike will freeze. Having a single gear reduces the potential damage caused by the constant freezing and thawing and reduces the maintenance required. The brake system and the brake pads against the wheel will freeze when left for hours outside classes so you may have to gradually loosen them by periodically squeezing them.

– Let a little air out of your tires when riding over icy or wet surfaces. This allows the tires to better retain their grips on the roads.

Categories
News

Port-au-Prince face à l’avenir

Photo by Navneet Pall
Photo by Navneet Pall

Old and new photographs adorned the walls of the Hall of Honour at City Hall as a silent reminder of both Haiti’s complicated past and the country’s long road of work ahead.

A joint effort between the City of Montreal and the Centre International de Documentation et d’Information Haïtienne, Caribïenne et Afro-Canadienne, the “Port-au-Prince face à  l’avenir” exposition marks the second anniversary of the catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010, killing hundreds of thousands and leaving over a million people homeless.

Categories
News Uncategorized

Our Lady of Grace mural inaugurated Tuesday: photo gallery

The rain didn’t stop camera crews, photographers or residents from attending the inauguration of A’Shop and Prevention NDG’s collaboration mural of “La Notre-Dame-de-Grâce/Our Lady of Grace” on Tuesday afternoon.At 10:30 am, people were already huddled under the eaves of the Couche-Tard on the corner of Sherbrooke Street and Madison Avenue in front of a City of Montreal plexiglass podium for the ceremony.

Roughly 85 people showed up to hear Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough mayor Michael Applebaum, city councillors Richard Deschamps and Susan Clarke, Terri Ste. Marie, director of Prevention NDG, and graffiti artist Fluke, who spoke on behalf of A’Shop, a Montreal artist-run collective with a focus on graffiti culture.

The mural was created using some 400 aerosol spray paint cans rather than paint brushes, and stands six stories tall. It depicts the agricultural roots of NDG as well as points of interest in the city, including Saint-Joseph’s oratory, the two metro stations and the Orange Julep.

Inspired by the work of 19th century Art Nouveau Czech artist, Alphonse Mucha, the mural was created by A’Shop artists Fluke, Antonain Lambert, Dodo and Bruno Rathbone in collaboration with Prevention NDG’s Guillaume Lapointe.

“This magnificent fresco underscores the Ville de Montreal’s preoccupation with matters of cleanliness, beautification, collective participation and alternative solutions to graffiti. Montreal increases its number of murals, year after year, as it invests in its community’s way of life,” Deschamps said in a press release. “Aside from embellishing neighbourhoods, murals garner the respect of residents and passer-by and serve to enhance the feeling of safety in our neighbourhoods. It is definitely an added value.”

Categories
News

‘Fight club for startups’ starts to take off

Computer-savvy Montreal students looking for a leg up in starting a high-tech business will be pleased to hear that Startupifier, a fledgling student-run group, is starting to take off.

The group played host to around 40 interested parties last Wednesday at Notman House for a workshop on Software as a service, or SaaS, metrics.

Notman, which gives the community access to free Wi-Fi in their downstairs “cafe” area while also doubling as office space for startups and event venue, is the type of place where you take off your shoes at the door. Once inside the building, situated on the corner of Sherbrooke Street and Clarke Street, you are greeted by a long hallway leading to winding stairs at the other end. Besides the rows of shoes at the entrance, the only other object in the hall is a Red Bull vending machine, plugged in but with empty shelves.

The clattering of fingers on computer keys emanating from the two rooms on either side of the hallway temporarily ceased for the course of the workshop, taught by serial entrepreneur turned investor Mark MacLeod, who has been a partner at seed fund Real Ventures for the past year.

Founded two years ago, the organization has only in the past year or so started hosting events geared towards providing young entrepreneurs with the connections and the know-how to start their own company.

Startupifier offers four services to students: an academy, an internship program, hackathons, and a garage (also described as an “incubator without money”). The group mostly reaches out to students through its online mailing list, Facebook group, and Twitter account.

Jordan Choo, a Concordia economics student with a penchant for technology, is part of the second generation of Startupifier members; he’s in charge of organizing the workshops.

Nine people are listed as the group’s founders on its website, while five more, including Choo, constitute its “2011 crew.” Choo specified the number of people involved is closer to 20 at the moment.

Both Choo and co-founder Karel Ledru-Mathé expressed a firm belief that what they were doing isn’t taught in post-secondary institutions.

“Universities and companies are two disconnected words in Montreal,” Ledru-Mathé said.

Ledru-Mathé was a business student at HEC when he met co-founder Riku Seppälä at a startup networking event two years ago.

“I was at school [at the time,] working on some ideas to connect students with companies, so I just loved the idea of organizing events for startups among students,” Ledru-Mathé, now a web developer, explained.

“The main thing we’ve been doing is organizing events that show students that it is pretty easy to start something, to do something, and to do it out of school, so don’t only spend your time studying but you can also have a project of your own on the side,” he added.

Startupifier fills a gap in the knowledge necessary for students to become successful entrepreneurs, Choo said.

“We are taught how big companies are run [at school],” Choo explained. “A high-tech startup is run totally differently compared to big organizations, from a cultural level to programming, to just running the business in general, so we are trying to fill that gap so that if a student does decide to start their own company, they are not in the middle of nowhere not knowing what to do.”

In an interview, MacLeod agreed. “We [Real Ventures] invest in tech startups and therefore they are started by people who come from a software background. And I find that the curriculum is totally unrelated to what’s needed practically, right, so you are still learning C++ and really old languages at school whereas most web apps are built on Rails, and Javascript and other interpreted languages so you end up having to learn those on your own,” he said.

He pointed to Stanford University, in the United States, as a model example for how universities should be structuring their classes.

“Computer science students have a course where they build an iPhone app and they are graded on how well it does,” he said. “That, to me, is amazing, and we’re not doing anything like that here. It’s all textbook, it’s all theoretical, so all of the best entrepreneurs that we back are soft top and it would be great if the schools could do more.”

Nonetheless, MacLeod said a university degree does provide “a baseline and set of skills and also gives you a set of relationships.”

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Three tips for student entrepreneurs, courtesy of investor Mark MacLeod:

– Learn on somebody else’s dime first. “I didn’t start with founding my own startup, I joined others before doing that,” MacLeod explained.
– Find a mentor and advisor. “I find that actually the most successful entrepreneurs, not just young ones, any age, even folks who have done this three times, have their own personal mentors and advisers.”
– Don’t go at it alone. “It is actually a rule [at Real Ventures that we] don’t fund companies with single founders,” MacLeod said, “so get a co-founder, and if that co-founder has some experience that you lack, that’s gonna help.”

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