VANCOUVER - The message is getting out! For the world’s greatest innovators, artists, musicians, writers, actors, programmers, game designers and change makers of all kind - Vancouver is the place to be! And TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is leading the way in bringing the world’s best ideas worth sharing to this beautiful city for three years in a row!

BCIC is pleased to have had the opportunity to welcome TED delegates to experience our exceptional world-class tech sector! Last year, BCIC hosted the ‘TED Best of BC Tech Showcase’ at the iconic offices of Hootsuite, spotlighting a dozen of Vancouver’s innovative tech companies to a select group of special-interest delegates.

On Monday, guests joined us for a one-of-a-kind expedition of tech in Vancouver! In collaboration with Wavefront and Creative BC, BCIC offered TED delegates two tours of Vancouver’s high technology and digital media thought leaders. The tours spotlighted the innovators who are pushing BC’s burgeoning tech and creative sectors forward with their world-class originality and technological expertise. Read more about it here.

Vancouver is a city of innovative people who have embraced technological ingenuity in brand new ways and we chose to showcase some of the very best!  Below is a complete list of all companies, accelerators and organizations that participated.

BC Accelerators and Companies Tour

• Welcome and opening remarks by BC Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services Minister, the Honourable Amrik Virk, followed by a tour of Wavefront Wireless Accelerator Centre (twitter.com) ’s multi-level accelerator space and it’s brand new Rogers Wireless Innovation Centre (wavefrontac.com) .
• Awesense (awesense.com) spoke to their unique made-in-BC Smart Grid Technology (twitter.com) that helps distribution grid utilities to easily locate energy losses helping them dramatically improve overall grid efficiency.
• Mobify (mobify.com) , North America’s leading mobile shopping platform, demo’d their custom e-commerce solution and showed off their Yaletown headquarters’ beautiful murals.
• Recon Instruments (reconinstruments.com) gave TEDsters a number of brand new Recon Jet sunglasses and Recon Snow goggles to play with!

BC Creative Media Tour

• Centre for Digital Media (thecdm.ca) , a maker-lab collaboration between BC’s four leading universities, showcased the brand new R&D student project Holographic Interactive Experience, Magic Box (blogs.thecdm.ca) . 
• DeNA Games (denastudioscanada.com) , a global game studio with it’s collaborative space in Vancouver’s Yaletown, gave guests a chance to try their latest 3D games on the Oculus Rift.
• Sony Pictures (imageworks.com) Imageworks Inc, the blockbuster visual effects and character animation company headquartered in Vancouver, showed guests around their studio and screened some of their latest work on Hotel Transylvania 2 (imageworks.com) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (imageworks.com) .
• The National Film Board (nfb.ca) , Canada's twelve-time Academy Award (en.wikipedia.org) -winning public film and digital media (en.wikipedia.org) producer and distributor, showcased their Immersive Art Application, Circa 1948 (circa1948.nfb.ca) .

Thank you to all companies for taking part and showcasing their great offices and innovative work!

As for the upcoming TED Talks, this year the city will be hosting live streaming in even more venues where people can watch the entire TED conference for free (huffingtonpost.ca) . And for those who are looking for more than a screen, don’t miss TED’s best friend, Vancouver’s grassroots innovation conference BIL (2015.bilconference.com) .