Are you a first time CEO or founder worried about how to take your new technology to market?

On behalf of the Discovery Foundation Education Program, ACETECH is delivering a Market Entry Program for very early stage technology companies. Taught by Ralph Turfus, the program provides a structured process and one-on-one mentoring from an experienced technology CEO to help you get to market faster with less risk.

The program includes:

• 3 full-day interactive, educational sessions ( April 13th, May 11th, and June 9th)
• 3 one-on-one mentoring sessions with an experienced technology CEO (one session per month – April to June – to be scheduled with the mentor)

You leave with:

• A completed positioning statement and value proposition
• A strategy to go to market
• Priorities identified to achieve early adopter customers
• Training to sell to early adopters
• Actionable tools and templates
• Access to contacts and resources

The program leader, Ralph Turfus, is the founder and past CEO of Class Software, a company he grew to 130 employees over 28 years and sold in 2004 as sole shareholder. Ralph has invested in more than 60 tech companies and he’s seen patterns emerge between those who succeed and those who fail.  He is a recognized leader in the BC technology industry as a member of the Premiers Technology Council and the leader of the ACETECH Growth Strategy Program.

The mentors in the program are all experienced technology CEOs. They will ensure the adoption of the best practices that are delivered through the program, and hold you accountable for results while providing a sounding board for business ideas. Mentors include Paulin Laberge, Phil Holland,  Theresa Carbonneau, and Roy Leahy.

The Market Entry Program is valued at $1,795 however the cost to participate is only $295 as $1,500 is subsidized by the Discovery Foundation Education Program.

If you’re interested, the application deadline is April 2nd but apply online now as there are only 20 spots available.

Small Business BC is celebrating B.C. entrepreneurs’ winning ideas by hosting their Successful You Business Contest & Awards again this year. Founded in 2003, this is a free annual province-wide competition open to all new and existing small businesses.

The contest will continue to have the two Business Plan based award categories, the Business Concept Award and the Business Growth Award. A judging panel will review all business plan submissions that meet the eligibility requirements and select the top business plan in each of the two categories. One winner selected per Award.

New this year, there will be two Nomination based award categories, the Company of the Year Award and the Small Business Champion Award. A judging panel will review all nominations that meet the eligibility requirements. One winner selected per Award.

The submission deadline for entries is noon on March 31st and the awards ceremony will be in June 2010.

Vancouver’s first every CloudCamp is taking place this Saturday, March 13th at Discovery Park on Great Northern Way. CloudCamp is a FREE full-day “unconference” where early adopters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas.

You will learn how to take advantage of cloud computing to do things you could not do before, to save money, to be more flexible and agile. You can get your questions answered about security, privacy, and compliance. You can learn about and understand the differences between public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid clouds. Hear from your peers who are building and developing on the cloud about how they have stopped buying and installing and maintaining physical servers.

If you’re interested in attending, be sure to register online. Coffee and lunch are provided and the full-day event gets underway at 9:00am.

BCIT’s Peter Thomson Centre for Venture Development is hosting a six-week Growth Strategies Boot Camp for Technology Companies starting later this month.

The economy grew by 5% last quarter, the largest single growth number since 2000, surpassing all expectations. Is your technology company prepared to take advantage of the tremendous growth opportunities that are currently in the marketplace. The Discovery Parks Foundation is pleased to have BCIT’s Peter Thomson Centre for Venture Development offer a one time limited seating opportunity for technology companies to participate in a part time growth strategies boot camp. There is no cost to your company and you will be accessing experts in technology and business to create a plan to see your company leveraging current market opportunities.

During this 6 week boot camp you will learn more about:

• Marketization of Product
• Venture Capital Acquisition
• Property Protection
• Growth Strategies
• Cash Flow
• Marketing
• B2B Presentations
• Partner Negotiations
• Operations and more

The six-week part-time program runs from March 30th to May 8th, on Tuesdays from 5:30pm-8:30pm, Saturdays from 9:00am-4:00pm, and by webinar on Thursdays from 5:00pm- 6:00pm. In-person class time is at the BCIT downtown campus at 555 Seymour Street.

This Bootcamp is fully funded with NO COST to participating companies. In order to qualify, you must operate or plan to operate a technology company within the lower mainland area and have a focus on growth.

To take advantage of this one time opportunity during such aggressive market growth please contact Simonetta at 604‐412‐7651 for further information and to arrange for an interview.

Northern Voice is a two-day, non-profit personal blogging and publishing conference that’s held in Vancouver.

Thanks to the Olympics, this year’s event – the 6th Annual – has been delayed and will take place on May 7th and 8th at UBC. Tickets went on sale for the 2010 edition of Northern Voice last week and should sell-out quickly.

Early-bird tickets are available until March 31st and the registration fee includes lunch, coffee, and tea.

DemoCamp Vancouver 10 is this coming week and picks up where Edition #9 left off with a duplicate format that includes longer featured presentations, 6 minute company/code/demo presentations, and lightning pitches in between to keep things moving.

This time around the theme is Geo and the two featured presentations will be:

• Matt Galligan (@mg), cofounder of Boulder, CO-based SimpleGeo, will be talking about the SimpleGeo platform. In the process of writing a location based app, Matt and his cofounder found that they were figuring out everything from scratch. It was hard and painful coming up with a storage engine for millions of geo points, and it was slow and difficult to run giant database queries against those points. And thus, SimpleGeo was born – infrastructure to power the geo layer of your app so you don’t have to build it all from scratch.
• Parveen Kaler (@kaler), founder of Smartful Studios, will be speaking about the business of Geo Location and Location Based Services. Currently, the Geo technology stack is fractured into disparate slices of functionality. We will look at who owns the data and what functionality currently exists. We will look at where data and functionality gaps exist within the stack. This will motivate the types of applications and services that can be built today. It doesn’t make sense for a viable business to build a product without a revenue model. We will enumerate different methods to monetize Geo Location services and how to build a revenue strategy.

DemoCamp Vancouver 10 is on Thursday, March 4th at Ceili’s Pub and starts at 6:30pm. The event is free but be sure to register online.

The British Columbia Technology Industry Association is hosting their Xcelerate program in partnership with ACETECH this Spring and have announced their panel of judges.

What is Xcelerate?

On Tuesday April 13th, the folks behind Angel Forum are hosting a work shop in Vancouver titled Term Sheets and Due Diligence for Investors, Entrepreneurs and Advisors.

Why attend? If you are planning to invest in or raise private equity in the next 12 months, ask yourself:

• Do you know what investors look for in fundable deals? Learn how investors think.
• What key business functions should investors focus their due diligence on to finalize their funding decision?
• Do you have a good overview of the language and post-investment ramifications of a term sheet?
• Do you want to network with private equity experts and other fellow investors and entrepreneurs?

This all day practical Due Diligence and Term Sheet workshop will be a blend of presentations and panel discussions with local experts, with lots of time for Q&A and networking.

The workshop will be led by Bob Okabe, Founder of Prairie Angels and Managing Director of RPX Group in Chicago where he leads the firm’s efforts to assist universities, research institutions and corporations create startups from their innovative technologies. He has made a lucky thirteen investments in startups as an angel investor with one major liquidity event and three other positive returns of capital.  Bob is involved with his portfolio companies, serving on advisory boards, management teams and boards of directors. He has been a lead instructor since 2006 for the US Angel Capital Education Foundation and Board Director.

As they are still finalizing panelists and sponsors, there is a “special” discount available. The first 20 seats are $285 each (~$50 off).  To directly register click here.

The provinces of Ontario and British Columbia have agreed to implement the harmonized sales tax (HST), which would replace existing provincial sales taxes and the federal goods and services tax in those provinces beginning July 1, 2010 and would be administered by the Canada Revenue Agency. The Canada Revenue Agency is offering a number of informative seminars to help ensure that businesses receive the information they need for the transition to the federal administration of the harmonized sales tax in Ontario and British Columbia.

Seminars are being conducted in downtown Vancouver through Small Business BC at 601 West Cordova Street at the following times:

• Thursday, February 11, 2010 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
• Thursday, March 4, 2010 from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
• Friday, March 26, 2010 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

For a full list of seminars across British Columbia, visit the Canada Revenue Agency website. There is no charge for any of the harmonized sales tax seminars.

Are you an investor or entrepreneur looking for an exit strategy from  a private technology company?

Be sure to check out the Angel Forum’s Exit Strategies workshop in Vancouver on March 29th but first ask yourself:

1. What is my exit strategy and why do I need one before or after I invest or look for investors?
2. What type of investor or company best matches my exit strategy and capital/investment requirements?
3. What are the four major steps I should be taking now to plan for a successful exit?
4. What about the timeline, valuation and legal process?

Vancouver’s best experts on exits including: Basil Peters,  Axel Christiansen, Steven Lukas, and Thane Stenner will lead this practical real world workshop.

Register online – the first 20 seats are $285 – a savings of $50 of the regular price.