About Auroralinx Northern Tech Collective

Auroralinx Northern Tech Collective provide Central and Northern Tech collaboration in BC. A monthly meet-up with exciting new networking opportunities in the technology field! With a range of diverse speakers on topics from serverless computing and security within IT to leveraging Blockchain technologies and the role of DNS in IT security. 

Auroralinx Northern Tech Collective

OUR OBJECTIVES

The Auroralinx’s vision is to bring collaboration between community, academia, business, and government in the fields surrounding Information Technology and Computer Science. We will facilitate the growth of the technology skillset in Central and Northern BC.

We do this by creating a discussion forum where people having an interest in these disciplines can discuss items of mutual interest.

Sharing ideas, issues, and opportunities, will help keep the participants abreast of current developments in these fields and help enhance the attractiveness of working in the Prince George’s region. We feel that professionals in these sectors can contribute to the innovation and automation our world has experienced, and as the north embraces technology we see great opportunities that are both exciting and engaging.

Keeping participants abreast of current developments will inform computer science program growth for secondary and post-secondary institutions in the north while connecting professionals in the area by providing a platform for networking.

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TARGET AUDIENCE

1

Information Technology is the Business

Those organizations where Information Technology is the business; the reason it is in existence (AIHS, Medical Software; Noratek, Inspection Management Software; AscenTech Solutions, provides a wide range of IT services for businesses).

2

Information Technology Supports the Business

Information Technology supports the business in organizations such as these (Northern Health, Canfor, Sinclar Group, Royal LePage, City of Prince George, UNBC, CNC, Regional District of Fraser Fort George, and School Districts).

3

Human Resources For Companies Using I.T.

Organizations that generate human resources for working in the above two groups (Elementary and Secondary Schools, CNC, UNBC, and other private trainers).

Proposed

base

Initial discussions with UNBC, CNC, and SD57 indicate they recognize the need to play a lead role that will help inform them of current trends and developments in the field so that their program offerings are responsive to market needs. The best elementary, secondary, and post-secondary institutions worldwide understand that the curriculum must be dynamic and evolving – reviewed and updated/changed annually.

CNC, SD57, and UNBC have the physical facilities to accommodate such a group. The group size for any meeting may change because of interest in the topics. We think that is working smarter, utilizing existing infrastructure!

Adding virtual support to the meet-ups will definitely expand the ability for all central and northern tech enthusiasts to participate from all locations in BC.

meet up participants

1. IT and Computer Science professionals working in business, industry, and government organizations.

2. Academic leaders in the Information Technology/Computer Science field.

3. Currently, SD57, CNC, and UNBC have offered to sponsor these events but there is definitely room for more! We continue to reach out to other potential partners such as industry (Canfor, Telus, Shaw, Northern Health..) to support objectives of Central and Northern BC techies.

4. The City of Prince George Economic Development Department has initiatives to help employers and organizations market Prince George to prospective employees and are very open to being involved as appropriate with this group initiative.

5. Anyone interested or involved with technology.

auroralinx northern tech collective founders

Larry Chrobot

Larry believes technology doesn’t need to be a scary thing, but embraced in business. Surround yourself with brilliant technology professionals and watch them fly! With over 30 years of experience in business related to natural resources, GIS, sawmilling, transportation and medical software, he wants to help grow the northern BC technology community by encouraging those in industry, government, and education to come out, network and collaborate.
You can find him refereeing on the pool deck across the country as a national swim official – which all started out with supporting local swim teams. When not close to the pool, he spends his time completing board of director duties, teaching swim officiating clinics, curling and spending time with his family travelling or simply enjoying a campfire. 

MARK VEJVODA

Mark is a technology enthusiast with over 25 years of professional experience in software engineering and his desire is to see the technology community thrive in our local community.

As a Senior Lead Architect for UKG, a multi-national IT company, he has an immense understanding of how technology works and isn’t afraid to experiment with new hardware, and software in any environment – business or pleasure!

When he’s not hacking on an open source project or a raspberry Pi or creating YouTube content, Mark enjoys an active lifestyle hiking around the region with his family and volunteering within various community groups. Always there to lend a helping hand, he is an early adopter and has a fun and influential style about him that you can’t help but want to listen to him talk about tech. We are sure that if you live in or have visited Central/Northern BC, you no doubt have seen him driving his EV to all corners of the province!

AGENDA FOR MEETINGS

We will be keeping our agenda format fairly flexible to best represent what fits the group and the presenters. However, in general we will see an agenda that reflects something like the following:

Two Tech Topics

Each topic is 30 minutes: ideally – one hardware-related and one software-related. This includes time for questions and answers. (For presenters: to make it easier for you, sometimes the presentations may have already been given out to other audiences but will work for the current group as well.) Local show and tell and Q and A definitely encouraged! What does that mean? It’s about discussing interesting projects that people are actively working on or completing and also time for sharing ideas, getting opinions or just needing some help from attendees.

Pulse Check

Time for a more in-depth discussion on the topics presented will happen during and after the presentations. Show and tell and share your experiences, including interesting projects that people are working on locally and globally. We will have a break between presentations for some hospitality and preparation for the second speaker.

Networking

We are always encouraging and making time for networking at the end of each meeting. People are more than welcome to stay longer after the meeting time if they like.

GUIDELINES FOR PRESENTERS

HELP US KEEP THE MOMENTUM GOING

Contribute to the growing community of technology enthusiasts by adding to our discussions with your knowledge and experience. Presentations may be from community feedback and prioritized according to community voting on these subject areas. While we desire open community participation, we also require some guidelines to be followed including:

• The duration of formal presentations is 25 minutes, followed by five minutes for questions and answers.

• Please ensure that your presentation duration does not exceed 25 minutes. To ensure that everyone gets the most that they can from the experience, the presentation schedule will be strictly enforced by each Session Facilitator. Usually, presentations with more than 20 slides are difficult to present within the available time.

• Presenters are asked to verify that all necessary presentation materials are in place and tested in their presentation venue, well before the session begins. Presenters are requested to find an opportunity in advance of the presentation to familiarize themselves with the venue and podium environment. Specific information will be communicated to presenters upon acceptance and confirmation of their topic.

• Bring your own laptop to the presentation prepared with everything you will need for the topic, typically projectors are available to connect your device for the audience to see your material.

• Speakers should upload their presentations to the Facilitator at least 1 day in advance of the session that they are presenting in.

• Presenters should complete the biography form below, which will email a copy to the Session Facilitator, who will be available in the presentation venue 20 minutes before the session begins.

Presenter Contact Form

Contact Us
Would you like to be our next speaker? Have questions about what it is that we do? Let us know by sending an email and we’ll be in touch shortly!

Address

101 – 1584 7th Avenue
Prince George, BC
V2L 3P4

Email

info [at] auroralinx.com