July 4, 2011 9:45 AM

In honour of Canada's birthday, I'm updating my list of Canadian individuals and companies who contributed to digital culture or technology.

My goal is to document an aspect of Canadian history and culture that is overlooked.  I'm fairly loose in my definition of Canadian. Some people or companies got their start in Canada, but were acquired or lured to the United States. Some innovations were done by Canadians while abroad. The point is not to debate citizenship, but rather to document innovations and their Canadian connections to demonstrate that Canada has made and continues to make a significant contribution to digital media and technology.

Update July 20, 2011 - since writing this I've added over 20 more entries (and could add even more). Glad to learn of the contributions of even more Canadians.

People

• Melody Adhami, co-founder of Plastic Mobile and leader in mobile app development
• Chris Albinson, venture capitalist, co-founder of C100, expat Canadian tech network
• Parham Aarabi, professor and inventor of imaging and internet advertising software
• Arcade Fire, music group - their online, interactive and personalized video for The Wilderness Downtown is awesome!
• Ronald Baecker, computer scientist and HCI researcher
• Jim Balsillie, co-founder of Research In Motion
• Michel Beaudet, creator of online humour videos Têtes à claques
• Gilles Brassard, coinventor of the first quantum cryptography protocol, BB84
• Alexander Graham Bell, original telecom inventor
• Tim Bray, father of XML & co-founder of Open Text
• Rhiannon Bury, academic, studies women and online fandom
• Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr, pioneer in use of tagging
• Bill Buxton, principal researcher for Microsoft, pioneer in human computer interaction
• Garrett Camp, co-founder and CEO of StumbleUpon
• Ann Cavoukian, privacy czar, effective in promoting greater privacy controls in social network sites
• Vincent Cheung, creator of image software Shape Collage
• Geof Collis, accessibility advocate and publisher of accessibility news
• Michael Cowpland,  founder of Corel & tech eccentric
• William Craig, founder of iCraveTV, the first company to stream television over the Net
• David Crow, organizer of tech events, DemoCamp and StartUpNorth
• Douglas Coupland, author of Generation X, Microserfs, JPod, etc.
• Ronald Deibert, researcher and campaigner against Internet censorship and cyber-espionage
• Peter Deutsch, leader of the team that invented Archie, the first Internet search engine
• John Demco, creator and first registrar of the .ca domain
• Hossein Derakhshan,  influential Iranian blogger
• Sara Diamond, academic leader founding Banff's New Media Institute and Mobile Experience Innovation Centre 
• Cory Doctorow, activist, blogger & co-editor of Boing Boing
• Michael Geist, prominent Internet law scholar
• William Gibson, author and visionary of cyberculture, coined term "cyberspace"
• Murray Goldberg, developer of WebCT one of the earliest and most popular e-learning platforms
• James Gosling, inventor of Java programming language
• Calvin Gotlieb, "father of computing in Canada"
• Kevin Ham, world leading domainer
• Caroline Haythornthwaite, researcher on social networking, online collaboration & communities
• Graham Hill, founder of environmental blog site, TreeHugger
• Tara Hunt, online marketing and communities expert
• Glenda Hyatt, accessibility advocate and blogger
• Mathew Ingram, tech journalist and co-founder of mesh conference 
• Donna Jodhan, campaigner for web accessibility, launched the first federal court case demanding greater accessibility of government websites
• Brian Kernighan, computer scientist, creator of "Hello, world" program, popular for training programmers (the first code I wrote)
• Justin Kozuch, lead researcher of the 49 Pixels project, a study of Canada's digital economy
• Deidre LaCarte, creator of Hampster Dance, believed to be first Internet meme
• Lake Minnewanka Squirrel, Internet meme of scene-stealing rodent
• Mike Lazaridis, founder of Research in Motion
• Rasmus Lerdorf, creator of PHP and open source advocate
• Pierre Lévy, academic, developed notions of collective intelligence
• mafiaboy, prominent website hacker
• Amber MacArthur, tech journalist and podcaster
• Marc MacKenzie, winner of most beautiful Twitter message
• Don Mattrick, founder of Distinctive Software (predecessor of EA Canada) at 17, now Microsoft SVP of gaming
• Marshall McLuhan, communications theorist and tech visionary
• Sid Meier, game developer of the Civilization series, second inductee into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame
• Lane Merrifield, co-founder of Club Penguin and developer of children's virtual worlds
• Michael Mulley, DIY developer of government transparency website, openparliament.ca
• Ryan North, writer and creator of online comic Dinosaur Comics
• David Ossip, founder of Workbrain, efficiency software
• Emma Payne, author and founder of Wired Women
• Rob Pike, co-creator of UTF-8, a unicode standard
• Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph, pioneers in transmedia storytelling, incl. Interactive Alice
• Jade Raymond, gaming executive for Ubisoft
• Mark Rivkin and Andrew Rivkin, founders of online gambling tech company, Cryptologic
• Ray Muzyka & Greg Zeschuk, co-founders of BioWare specializing in role playing games, 2011 inductees into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame
• Mark Rzepka, pioneer of online pharmacies
• Robert J. Sawyer, scifi author, including his recent WWW trilogy 
• Gerri Sinclair, founder of Canada's first multimedia research centre
• Jay Steele, founder of Viigo, a news aggregator app for Blackberry
• Jeffrey Skoll, co-founder of eBay
• Star Wars Kid, another Internet meme star
• Jennifer Stoddart, privacy czar
• Don Tapscott, tech culture visionary and author of Wikinomics
• Clive Thompson, journalist has written for Shift and Wired
• Ilse Treurnicht, CEO of tech incubator and innovation centre, MaRS
• Jutta Treviranus, researcher on web accessibility, lead author of authoring tool accessibility guidelines
• Steven Turnbull, Facebook Scrabble champ
• Barry Wellman, academic, pioneer in studies of online communities & social networking
• Beatrice Helen Worsley, computer pioneer - possibly the first woman to earn a PhD in computers and her dissertation was first on modern computers
• Tim Wu - Internet governance and policy scholar, coined term "network neutrality"
• Michel Vulpe, inventor and founder of i4i, successfully sued Microsoft for patent infringement
• Bob Young, founder of micropublisher, Lulu and former CEO of Red Hat
• Lorne Abony, e-Business (Petopia), gaming (FUN), and digital music business leader (Mood Media)
• David Cheriton, computer scientist, mentor & initial investor of Google - now billionaire
• Cassie Creighton, 5-year old co-creator with dad, Ryan Creigton, of a popular online game
• Markus Frind, founder of popular dating site Plenty of Fish
• Ganz Sam and Howard, founders of children's virtual wold, WebKinz, pioneered plush toy with virtual counterparts concept
• Cory Horner, early DIY programmer, leader in government transparency, launched How'dTheyVote.ca in 2005
• Simon Pulsifer, prominent and prolific Wikipedia contributor
• Bruce Livingstone, founder of leading stock photo service, iStockPhotos

Companies or Projects

• AbeBooks - once the largest used books e-tailer
• Archie - first Internet search engine
• b5media  - blog aggregator
• BiblioCommons - online library catalog enhancements
• BioWare - gaming (acquired by EA)
• Black Box Games  - gaming (acquired by EA)
• Bump Technologies - 3D desktop visualization (acquired by Google)
• Cambrian House - crowdsourcing
• Canarie - research network
• Concept Share - collaboration software for design professionals
• Chilly Beach - online cartoons
• Club Penguin - children's virtual world (acquired by Disney)
• Corel - office and imaging software
• CryptoLogic - gambling software
• Desire2Learn - learning based software
• Discover Anywhere Mobile - location based services software
• Distinctive Software - gaming (acquired by EA)
• Digital Cement - marketing agency (acquired)
• ePresence - webcasting software (acquired)
• Extreme Venture Partners - venture capital for tech startups
• 500 pixels - online photo portfolio
• Flickr - photo sharing website (acquired by Yahoo)
• Fresh Books - online personal accounting software
• eHarlequin - online storytelling and community
• Geotoko - mobile marketing
• GigPark
• gShift Labs - search engine optimization
• gsmprjct technologie - interactive technologies
• Guardly  mobile personal security app
• Guestlist - event management
• HootSuite - social media monitoring
• Ice.com - early e-tailer
• Idée - visual search engine
• InGamer Sports - live event social gaming
• iStockPhoto - stock photos
• J2Play - developed world’s first mobile multiplayer game (acquired by EA)
• Justwhiteshirts - early e-tailer
• Kik Interactive - texting software
• Iceberg Radio - Internet radio
• Lavalife - online dating
• LiveHive Systems
• Long Pen - event software and robotics
• MaRS - tech incubator
• MegaDox - online legal forms and document templates
• mTrip - mobile travel guides
• MyVoice - communication aid
• Naked News - online porn
• Netsweeper - content filtering software
• Nortel - telecom tech
• NowPublic - citizen journalism
• Octopz - online collaboration
• OpenFile - user-generated online newspaper
• Open Text - early web directory, content management software
• Plastic Mobile - mobile app agency
• PlentyofFish - online dating
• Polar Mobile - mobile apps agency
• PostRank - social engagement and influence ratings, incl. Aide RSS
• Pretzil - check-in aggregator
• Quillsoft  - literacy and speech recognition software
• Radian6 - social media monitoring
• Reseach In Motion - mobile devices
• Shopify - e-commerce solutions
• Simply Audio Books - leading audio book e-tailer
• Syncapse - social media management
• Sysomos - social media monitoring
• StumbleUpon - website social discovery
• TakingITGlobal - organizer of IT volunteers
• Task Avenue - location-based task reminders
• Tech Vibes - tech news
• A Thinking Ape - mobile agency
• 20-20 Technologies - interior design software
• Tucows - ISP and application
• UFile - tax-filing software
• Viafoura - online user engagement
• WebCT - early e-learning platform (acquired by Blackboard)
• WebKinz - children's virtual world & game by Ganz
• Weblo - virtual world
• Wild Apricot - software for non-profits
• Workbrain - business efficiency software (acquired)
• Xtreme Labs - mobile agency
• Zerofootprint - environment software

Blogger Profile: Glen Farrelly
Glen's experience in the Internet has covered the full spectrum from coding to content, and from planning to promotion. This gives him a unique ability to help direct a company’s online strategy, while also having the know-how to lead a project to successful completion.

Posted by Sue Ansell at July 4, 2011 9:45 AM

Categories: General Technology start-ups Trends

Comments

40deuce email - http://blog.sysomos.com

Thanks so much for including Sysomos in this fantastic list. We're honoured to be among so many great people and companies!

Cheers,

Sheldon, community manager for Sysomos

Ken Nickerson email - www.ibinary.com

I would add Kobo - www.kobo.com to this list.

Glen Farrelly email - www.glenfarrelly.com

Hi Ken:

I have a few additions to the list already and Kobo is a great addition.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Glen

TrackBack Link