Torstar Digital Turns Internal For Next Batch Of Startup With Weekend Long Competition

BY: 

Dave Forde
February 23, 2012

Torstar Digital has been making some interesting moves over the last two year, they made a 25% Investment In Blue Ant Media, acquired group-buying service WagJag, all to show they are not the old fashion newspaper they once were.  Recently they held their own Startup weekend to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit of their employees which is a brilliant idea to leverage their internal talent for new business opportunities.  According to Matt Golden of Golden Venture Products, and a competition judge, “What a great way to leverage internal talent and provide a means to seeing an opportunity through. The quality of innovation that Torstar employees displayed this weekend was truly refreshing and impactful. Torstar has really set the bar high and I look forward to seeing what their existing talent will come up with in the future.”

Over a 54 hour weekend, employees competed to develop the next great startup, Chris Eben, lead organizer for the Toronto Startup Weekend helped kick off the event as did Daniel Debow, Co-Founder of Rypple which was recently acquired by Salesforce.com, with a keynote.

Candice Faktor, VP, New Ventures who championed this event for Torstar Digital spoke about the reason for the event “We wanted to give our talented employees an entrepreneurial immersive experience to have the opportunity to showcase their talent and create new businesses based on their deep expertise and understanding of the spaces we play in and assets we have to leverage. We also wanted to give our employees the opportunity to be creative and work with other employees across our portfolio companies and from different functional areas. The results were magical and beyond our expectations.”
The efforts resulted in seven new ventures with the winning title going to the business application “Warm Fuzzy” which assists small businesses in forming human connections with their customers to drive loyalty and retention. The team will get to take home $5000 cash as well as the opportunity to further develop the business for Torstar Digital.

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Dave Forde


Dave “The Connector” Forde has been involved in the marketing, public relations and technology industry across Canada for over 20 years in various sales and marketing roles, he launched The Connected One network of business sites which connects buyers to the right sellers. Profectio and PR In Canada covers news about the marketing and public relations industry each day helping professionals advance their career and businesses. He also serves as an advisor to a number of businesses across the country. Find Dave on LinkedIn and Twitter.


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