2008 New Ventures BC Winner Saltworks Technologies is the subject of an article in the Economist this week titled Cheaper desalination: Current Thinking. The online and offline piece takes a closer look at Saltworks‘ fresh way to take the salt out of seawater.

THERE is a lot of water on Earth, but more than 97% of it is salty and over half of the remainder is frozen at the poles or in glaciers. Meanwhile, around a fifth of the world’s population suffers from a shortage of drinking water and that fraction is expected to grow. One answer is desalination—but it is an expensive answer because it requires a lot of energy. Now, though, a pair of Canadian engineers have come up with an ingenious way of using the heat of the sun to drive the process. Such heat, in many places that have a shortage of fresh water, is one thing that is in abundant supply.

Ben Sparrow and Joshua Zoshi met at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, while completing their MBAs. Their company, Saltworks Technologies, has set up a test plant beside the sea in Vancouver and will open for business in November.

Read the rest of the article online. Congrats to Sparrow and Zoshi on the amazing International coverage.

Mike McDerment of Toronto’s FreshBooks is on his way to the West Coast next month and he has two stops planned.

On the evening of November 24th, the Vancouver Enterprise Forum is hosting an Evening with Mike McDerment at the Vancity Theatre.

Mike McDerment is the co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, planet earth’s leading online invoicing app for service oriented professionals, freelancers and teams. Back in 2003, Mike built FreshBooks for his design firm and scratched his own itch. Since launching in May 2004 FreshBooks has touched over 900,000 lives and Mike and his team dedicate themselves to being a great service for people who love their work, and want to focus on it – instead of focusing on their paperwork.

Tickets are $45 and available online.

The following day, McDerment will be leading a workshop on a topic he knows a little about – How to Build a Web App Business. This workshop is stop #2 on a three city tour outside of Toronto that includes Boston and Chicago. McDerment will address many of the questions that entrepreneurs have when building a Web App business.

Thanks to the Bootup Entrepreneurial Society for hosting this workshop at Earl’s V Lounge in Yaletown. Tickets are $100, includes lunch and refreshment, and can be purchased online.

After a short summer break, the VEF Momentum team is kicking off its 2009-2010 series of speaker and networking sessions with VEF Momentum Connect: Bootstrapping to Success.

The speaker for the evening will be Jason Bailey, Founder and CEO of KITN Media and SuperRewards. Using his own finances, Jason co-founded Super Rewards with two fellow entrepreneurs with the premise of monetizing virtual currencies. Almost immediately the service took off generating millions in revenues.

In July, KITN Media and Super Rewards were acquired for a rumoured $50 Million.

Bailey will share his lessons and experiences on bootstrapping a start-up company with a killer business model and what young entrepreneurs can do to replicate Super Rewards meteoric rise to the top.

Bootstrapping to Success takes place on Tuesday, November 10th at 6:00pm at Nuba Restaurant. Tickets are $10 and you can register online.

This week at the New Media BC Annual & Extraordinary General Meeting, the decision to merge the associations representing B.C.’s digital media and wireless technology sectors was approved. The new entity will be called the Digital Media and Wireless Association of BC or DigiBC. The vote was unanimous.

The new association is expected to have a management team of four to five people and a board of directors with 20 to 24 members. Seven special interest groups are planned for DigiBC covering areas of mobile and wireless, video games, animation and visual effects, Web 2.0 and social media, e-learning, human resources and talent, and capital.

Connect ’09, the BC Innovation Council’s (BCIC) premier event for technology start-ups and innovators took place last night in Vancouver and over 650 members of BC’s tech industry were in attendance.

Capping off the evening’s festivities was the presentation of the annual BC Innovation Council Awards and New Ventures BC Finalist Lungpacer Medical picked up the Emerging Technology Award. The Emerging Technology Award  recognizes a new venture at the pre-investment stage that has developed an innovative technology in BC and includes a cash prize of $25,000 which is to be used towards commercialization services for the technology.

Congrats to Founder & Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Andy Hoffer, Professor of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology at Simon Fraser University.

Lungpacer Medical Inc. was recognized for its Transvasular Diaphragm Pacing System. Its system has been developed to assist with the mechanical ventilation of critically ill patients in hospital intensive care units. Lungpacer electrodes are intravenously inserted into the body of a patient to rhythmically pace the diaphragm. This prevents or reverses rapid atrophy that can occur with muscle disuse in these patients. The Lungpacer technology results in faster recovery of a patient’s ability to breathe naturally, allowing them to leave intensive care sooner, thereby lowering hospitalization costs.

New Media BC announced this morning that Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr, will be the Keynote Speaker at the Fusion Venture Forum 2009 on November 12th in Vancouver.

Butterfield is a firm supporter of Vancouver’s Digital Media industry and was part of the original team that grew Flickr from a tiny Vancouver based operation to a worldwide phenomenon. He and his co-founder Catherine Fake sold Flickr to Yahoo reportedly for more than $30 million, barely a year after launching it in February 2004. The original plan had been to create an online game that never quite took off. Flickr remains one of the most noted digital media success stories from this region.

Butterfield will open Fusion ’09 by sharing his success story with some 200 attendees, mostly Canadian founders with early to growth stage ventures. Twenty of Canada’s up and coming digital media companies will present their latest ventures to top tier investors from North America, including Google Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and SoftTech VC.

Deadline to  register for Fusion’s Bootcamp and Conference is October 20th.

This year the folks behind the Angel Forum are launching the inaugural BC Angel Investor of the Year award and they’re looking for nominations.

Angel Investors play a vital role in commercializing early-stage companies that include many of the best and brightest emerging companies in BC. These companies create jobs and stimulate the BC economy. The award benefits include respect and recognition by peers for contributions to the angel investment and entrepreneurial industry in BC.

Nominating worthy Angels is simple – there are only four questions requiring your input in this nomination survey. Unfortunately the deadline for nominations is tomorrow, Friday October 9th.

Looking for funding for your business? On November 16th, the first Ivey BC Entrepreneurship Forum will bring together investment-seeking companies with the venture capital and the angel community in British Columbia, at RBC’s offices in Vancouver.

The afternoon event will include presentations by companies seeking funding as well as a discussion panel and presentations from experienced investors. The day promises to offer outstanding networking opportunities for investors and companies alike.

Register online for the event and if you’re interested in pitching, apply online before October 13th.

New Ventures BC in partnership with ACETECH is pleased to offer this year’s competitors a complimentary registration to attend the ACETECH Best Practices Workshop on Sales Strategy and Sales Process, presented by Ralph Turfus. This hands-on workshop is designed to help CEOs understand their role in the sales process, effectively manage the pipeline, forecast revenue and close deals.

When: October 26, 8:00 am – 12:00 pm
Where: 1111 West Georgia St., (Terasen Gas Building, corner of Thurlow)
Who: For technology CEOs in the early commercialization phase with at least one customer live with their product, and less than 25 employees.
Register: Use this link to register and enter the promotional code “partner” on the registration login page so that you will not be charged.

Presented by Ralph Turfus, past CEO of Class Software, and leader of the ACETECH Growth Strategy Program, this is one of the most powerful workshops delivered by ACETECH with an average CEO rating of 9.6/10. This workshop is exclusive to technology CEOs, and is not transferrable. You must meet ACETECH eligibility criteria to attend this session.