montréal trailblazers
Art and science collide in spectacular fashion when Montréal’s creative and tech-savvy entrepreneurs turn learning, sharing and networking opportunities into unforgettable interactive experiences.
Idées au cube (ID3)
Creating emotional connections
Imagine walking through a typical congress centre and suddenly coming upon a magical digital river. As you walk along the projection, virtual footprints set currents and waves in motion. Eventually the seasons change, and as the rushing water freezes over, you hear the unmistakable sound of cracking ice with every step you take.
For a conference goer, it’s an unforgettable experience that provides a real and lasting emotional connection to the event, explains Nathalie Gélinas, vice-president and producer with ID3. The 80-foot interactive digital river was created for the World Congress on Information Technology when it was held in Montréal in 2012.
Great content, plus the combination of technology and artistry, helps cement that emotional connection. — René Lepire, ID3
ID3 specializes in preparing event attendees to be receptive to new concepts and ideas. During a congress’s opening ceremony, the company will combine video with music, lighting, live performances, and even sound effects, to help event planners convey key themes, ideas or concepts. “When you create an emotion at the beginning, you can come back to it again and again during the congress so that people can relate to it,” Gélinas explains.
Great content, plus the combination of technology and artistry, helps cement that emotional connection, says René Lepire, chief executive officer, ID3. And when you do it in spectacular fashion, it’s something people talk about during, and well after the congress is over.
E-180
Creative peer learning
Conferences and events are fantastic for networking. But finding that perfect stranger can sometimes be hit and miss.
Enter E-180, Inc. Founded in 2011 by Christine Renaud, CEO, and Alexandre Spaeth, chief technology officer, the company’s mobile event app takes the guesswork out of making meaningful business connections. The goal is peer learning—described by Renaud as “brain dates”—since the app matches people who have something to teach with those who want to learn.
“We ask our event organizers and attendees to help transform their event into a peer learning community,” Renaud explains. E-180 has worked with such high-profile events as C2 Montréal, as well as the 2014 Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Marrakech, Morocco. E-180 also worked with Tourisme Montréal on its MTL à Paris trade mission.
“The way we measure success is whether we fostered peer learning among the attendees. We empower people to live up to their full potential,” Renaud says.
e-180.com
MONTRÉAL’S INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT) SECTOR
Montréal is a world leader in ICT with more than 120,000 workers in 5,000 companies. The city’s ICT sector represents nearly 10 per cent of private jobs in Greater Montréal, $12-billion of Québec’s GDP and more than $5 billion in exports.
Lucion Magical
light and sound
When it comes to personalizing the conference experience, audience engagement is key. To help facilitate conversations amongst large groups, Lucion developed Speaktree, an animated projection whose branches grow as audience members use their smartphones to text in messages. Speaktree can be a gatherer of ideas and feedback, a collective writing tool, and even a debate platform.
For Lucion’s team of artists, designers, musicians, filmmakers, screenwriters and technicians, anything is possible. In Brussels, Lucion has projected images and video onto 30-foot spheres placed along city streets. Recently, Lucion worked with Société de transport de Montréal (STM) and Tourisme Montréal on their bid to host the 62nd International Association of Public Transport World Congress and Mobility and City Transport Exhibition. When Congress representatives sat down to hear the pitch, Lucion projected onto the table a spectacular, and persuasive, multimedia presentation, says Lucion founder, Bernard Duguay. Montréal won the bid, and the Congress will take place May 13–17, 2017.
It’s an exciting time for events and business gatherings. Says Duguay: “Creative people are joining with scientists and designers and writers. I think it’s a beautiful era as we reinvent light and connect light with sound. It’s the chemistry of particles.”
lucionmedia.ca
MOMENT FACTORY DAZZLES
Founded in Montréal in 2001, Moment Factory is a new media and entertainment studio specializing in the conception and production of multimedia spectacles combining video, lighting, architecture, sound and special effects. Over the years, Moment Factory has created more than 300 installations, events and shows around the world for such clients as Cirque du Soleil, Nine Inch Nails, Madonna, Disney, Microsoft, Sony, Quartier des Spectacles de Montréal and the Los Angeles International Airport.
momentfactory.com
Space & Dream
Enhancing the meeting planner toolkit
By the time Montréal celebrates its 375th anniversary in 2017, Space & Dream will have essentially reinvented the traditional travel guide. A source of high-impact visual and interactive communication solutions, Space & Dream is developing an app for the Montréal en Histoires project that will enable users to interact with Montréal’s rich history as they walk the city streets.
The app uses geolocation, audio and 3D video to turn a smartphone into a sort of historical viewfinder. When a user points their smartphone at a street corner or historical building, the screen displays a photo of that exact location from decades ago. When the user scans left or right, the historical image also scans left or right. “Your phone becomes a window into a city’s past,” explains Guillaume Langlois, Space & Dream founder and CEO.
The company employs technologies to enhance, augment and amplify immersive and interactive experiences. This includes the use of virtual reality headsets, and the company’s own Panodome system, a unique projection environment featuring curved screens that surround the viewer.
While Langlois likes to push immersive experiences to the limit, it’s not technology for technology’s sake. “People fear technology because they think it leads them astray from simplicity. But it’s quite to the contrary because technology works intuitively,” Langlois explains. “I like technology to be an invisible support that enhances, supplements and facilitates a message.”
spaceanddream.com