HN meetup: Waterloo, Ontario
meetup.com
meetup.com
So it puts a smile on my face to hear that there's still a Hacker scene for me to come back to :).
On a related note, we're hiring at Top Hat Monocle! http://jobs.startupnorth.ca/job/insanely-smart-web-developer...
Granted, last time I was in Waterloo was 2 years ago - but all of the (admittedly very cool) things going on there are little cakes compared to the hulking behemoth that is RIM - or soon, was RIM.
It's a little like Redmond - there are startups in the Bellevue/Kirkland/Redmond area, but if you remove MSFT none of that means terribly much.
Sure RIM laying off all employees would kill Waterloo but they have a lot of cash in the bank ($8 Billion?) and have been ramping up R&D -- they aren't going anywhere for a while.
We just picked it because we have a couple of Djange and App Engine experts and so it seemed like a good idea.
Wouldn't it be more wonderful if could organize our own hacker dojo (where people just drop by and discuss what they are working on OR brainstorm about cool stuff to build).
We don't have as many members or as much space as the Mountain View Hacker Dojo, but we put on a pretty good open house (if I do say so myself) every Tuesday from 7 to 10!
...for those unaware of how much more awesome Waterloo has become.
But very close to work. Didn't know there were tech startups around that area.