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Nominations Open for Leaders Summit

21incMy first experience with 21inc came through the Emerging Leaders Summit in 2010 where fifty of Atlantic Canada’s most promising leaders under age 35 gathered in St. Andrews, NB.

The leaders were chosen from a pool of 407 nominations and engaged in curriculum focused on providing them with the leadership skills and knowledge needed for the 21st Century.

It was a fantastic program where I met some amazing people – people who I have kept in touch with ever since.

21inc is now accepting nominations for the latest Emerging Leaders Summit, and there was a great article covering it in today’s Telegraph-Journal.

Be sure to take a look, and send in your nominations!

 

FUSION Saint John

The following article was written by FUSION Saint John’s Claire Ryan:

A regional “action tank” that works to develop, support and encourage leadership across Atlantic Canada is looking for exceptional leaders between the ages of 20 and 35.

21inc. has opened nominations for the second edition of the Emerging Leaders Summit, an intensive three-day leadership experience, designed to encourage and support young Atlantic Canadians who have been identified as leaders or who have demonstrated considerable leadership potential in their field or workplace. The selected participants will take part in sessions led by some of the region’s most highly respected educators, practitioners and mentors, while networking and collaborating with peers from across the region.

“With the present economic situation and the challenges the Atlantic provinces have to overcome, it’s pertinent to assure collaboration among the next generation of leaders and offer them the tools necessary to take the lead and face the challenges,” says 21inc.’s executive director Nadine Duguay.

21inc. is reaching out to its network of alumni and supporters for nominations, with the target of receiving 500. Nominees will be asked to submit an application package, from which 50 participants will be selected by a panel of regional judges. Applicants will be evaluated on criteria including: demonstrated leadership, achievement and a commitment to serving or enhancing the community.

“Participating in the Emerging Leader’s Summit was a challenging and refreshing experience that helped me grow as a leader and transition into a meaningful career path,” says Angélique Wojcik Simpson, who participated in the 2010 Emerging Summit and is manager of international recruitment at the University of New Brunswick as well as the president and project manager at Interlingual Translation. “I met a wide variety of inspiring colleagues across Atlantic Canada who have, in the time since, encouraged me to strive for excellence and work toward the best for our province and our region.”

The Emerging Leaders Summit will take place in St. Andrew’s October 20-23, and is held in conjunction with the Ideas Festival, 21inc.’s bi-annual forum that brings young leaders together with the region’s established business leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, artists, educators and policy makers. The Ideas Festival will be held October 23-25, with the theme of “The Internalization of Atlantic Canada.”

“In many ways 21inc. sets participants on fire and leaves them with a strong network of movers and shakers to help them get things done,” says Wojcik Simpson of her own experience as one of the seven people from Greater Saint John who participated in the 2010 Summit,

The nomination period for the Emerging Leaders Summit will be open until Friday, June 7. More information on the nomination and selection process is available on 21inc.’s website: 21inc.ca.

Claire Ryan is on the FUSION Saint John board. Reach her atcryan@mtlpr.ca

 
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Saint John Whiz Crowned Champion

Published on 2013-05-16 by in News, T4G, TourOff

Today’s Telegraph-Journal featured myself and the idea that I pitched at T4G’s Geekfest event, check it out!

Geekfest 2013

One of New Brunswick’s tech stars is still the Ultimate Geek.

Shawn Peterson received the honour for the second year in a row on Tuesday night at Toronto’s GeekFest – an innovation competition that pitted him against 11 other finalists.

GeekFest is run by T4G, a Toronto-based IT consultancy with offices in Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton.

The 28-year-old IT consultant from Saint John walked away with $10,000, winning for his work on the app Touroff – a mobile platform for downloadable walking tours of cities.

Still in development, Peterson said the idea for his app came to him in 2012 when he toured the province as part of 21Leaders New Brunswick, a program for emerging entrepreneurs in the province.

“We were going to these different communities and having people show us around,” said Peterson. “It just struck me how great of an experience that was, and it got me thinking: why can’t I get that same experience wherever I go?”

Peterson said the content of the tours will be supplied by third parties, and will be a mix of user-created free tours and paid tours run by professional operators.

“It’s like how you would go purchase an app on your phone,” said Peterson. “You can find free apps; you can find premium apps. This should be a similar concept.”

He said he hopes to get a working prototype of the app ready within the next few months.

Touroff is currently available solely on its website, where only a handful of local tours are available.

Peterson said a major advantage the app will have over the website is that tours can be available offline.

“If you’re travelling somewhere where roaming fees might be an issue, you can download the tours in advance,” said Peterson.

“You’ll also be able to utilize the GPS on the mobile device,” he added. “It’ll be really good at knowing where you are and where the next point in the tour is and providing directions to guide you to that point.”

Peterson said he hopes to produce a “nice and polished” app by the end of 2013, when tours will also be made available in more than 40 different languages.

Peterson added that he hopes to eventually make the app available on all three major mobile platforms – Android, BlackBerry and iOS – but the prototype will only be for one. He hasn’t decided which one yet, but he said it will be a toss-up between Android and iOS.

Touroff’s victory was Peterson’s second Geekfest win after clinching the Ultimate Geek title last yearwith Q-Time, an app that estimated waiting times for hospital emergency rooms.

The top three – chosen by judges from the 12 finalists – present their ideas to an invite-only crowd of about 300, who then vote for the winner.

The runner-ups were Michael Heyd with Pic N Pay, a self-service shopping app, and James Craig with PromoDealz, a digital retail app. All of the top three will have their ideas further explored by T4G with potential for future development.

via telegraphjournal.com (written by Ethan Lou)

 
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Saint John Ward 3 By-Election Results

Below are the unofficial results of the Saint John Ward 3 By-Election:

Candidate

Votes

Brian Boyd

69

Barbara Ellemberg

74

Michelle Hooton

816

Mark LeBlanc

225

Allen Leslie

24

Gerry Lowe

1,028

Anne-Marie Mullin

273

Graeme Stewart-Robertson

264

Voter turnout was 2,782 out of 11,663 voters (23.85%).

Congratulations Gerry!

 
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LNG property assessment

Propertize.ca was referenced in a recent story on CBC NB about the LNG Tax Deal:

Saint John’s Canaport LNG facility once again ranks as the province’s priciest real estate, but a controversial eight-year-old property tax deal it cut with the city has kept its bill low.

You can view the video below:

You can see the assessments here:

A story later appeared online to go with the above video that included my Dad’s story:

Saint John’s Canaport LNG facility — New Brunswick’s most expensive piece of property — continues to grow in value, but its taxes are holding steady because of an eight-year-old property tax deal it cut with the city.

The liquid natural gas terminal is New Brunswick’s most valuable piece of assessed property at just under $300 million.

The facility’s value grew $4.3 million this year, on top of a $4.4-million increase last year.

A 25-year property tax deal struck by former Saint John mayor Norm McFarlane for the LNG development froze its bill at $500,000 a year.

The property tax deal caused protests in the city for weeks.

Eight years later the gap between LNG and other facilities continues to grow.

By comparison, the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station now pays $5.8 million in property tax — 12 times more than the LNG terminal — even though its assessment is $66 million lower.

“I’m assuming they’re sending someone down each and every year to determine what the value is and it seems to be going up a few million dollars each and every year,” says Shawn Peterson, who runs the propertize.ca, a website that provides searchable tax assessment information.

Peterson said provincial assessors do keep track of the LNG plant, although, in the end, it’s salt in the wound for a city forbidden from cashing in on its growing property value.

Last month, former Liberal premier Frank McKenna said the LNG plant may yet trigger an economic rebirth for Saint John, well beyond the modest annual contribution it makes to the city’s tax haul.

Homeowners facing hikes

Meanwhile, New Brunswick has lifted a three-per-cent property tax freeze that’s been in place for the last two years.

That has been causing some tax bill jumps, including in Saint John where some residents and other property owners are facing huge increases.

Isaac Miller is a frequent user of the city’s four-year-old skateboard park.

“It’s really great to have a public park that has no costs,” said Miller.

Provincial assessors slapped the park with a $1,051 tax bill — 150 times more than the $7 it was charged the last two years.

Last year, Walter Peterson did energy efficiency renovations on his 30-year-old eastside bungalow, including new windows and vinyl siding.

Peterson was expecting a bump in his tax bill.

The province added $148,000 to his assessment.

“I almost fell off the chair because it went up 122 per cent,” said Peterson

His house, valued at $121,000 each of the last two years, is now assessed at just under $270,000 with a $4,300 property tax bill to match.

The renovations were encouraged by the province and partially paid for by Efficiency NB.

“Well if I get $269,000, it’s sold. Anyone who wants to come with a cheque, it’s gone,” he said.

Peterson has already filed an appeal, one of thousands the province deals with annually.

Related information:

 
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Eroded land among property taxed in 2013 assessment

Propertize.ca was referenced in a new CBC.ca article about the 2013 NB Property Tax Assessments:

The New Brunswick government begins mailing out over 500,000 property tax bills next week and although most go to homes and businesses, it doesn’t stop there.

New Brunswick’s 2013 Property Tax Assessments includes playgrounds, cell phone towers, public clocks, eroding shorelines and even open stretches of water.

The hills over Saint John’s Bay Shore Beach have been eroding into the Bay of Fundy for decades with several properties worn down to nubs. Saint John’s Duck Cove Community Association owns three pieces of property that mostly eroded into the Bay of Fundy years ago.

Still, the province assessed what’s left to be worth $100 and taxed each for $3.21.

“These building were over there and there was land on the other side of the buildings again, but it has eroded. It eroded away to the point that that land is pretty much gone, but I guess they can tax you for space in the sky,” Danny Dineen, the former president of the association.

In 2012 a new public clock the Irving family donated on Saint John’s King Street made news by getting its own $30 tax bill.

Even a floating dock in the Saint John harbour was billed. This year it was for $68.

Shawn Peterson runs the property tax assessment website propertize.ca and said there isn’t a tree standing in the province that hasn’t been assessed for the upcoming tax mail out.

“I mean you name it. If you’ve ever driven by it on the road it’s got an assessment.”

Peterson said every property in New Brunswick has been valued at some amount.

The province and its municipalities evaluate and tax hundreds of thousands of properties every year worth over $40 billion.

Click here for details on the Duck Cove Lane assessments referenced in the above article!

Related information:

 
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Propertize.ca – Updated with 2013 Property Tax Assessments

Last night, Service New Brunswick released the 2013 NB Property Tax Assessments!

In less then 24 hours, I was able to process the data – making it available on Propertize.ca.

Users will be happy to know that most properties in New Brunswick now have data available for 2011, 2012, and 2013 – making it even easier to compare your tax assessment.

Another enhancement was made prior to Christmas, which was the redesign of the website using Bootstrap, making  Propertize.ca both mobile and tablet friendly:

Propertize.ca

Propertize.ca

Propertize.ca

If you haven’t checked out Propertize.ca yet, what are you waiting for?

Don’t forget to share this site with your friends and family.

Send me your feedback!

As always – changes are driven by user feedback, suggestions, and even your angry rants – so be sure to tell me what you think!

Leave a comment below, or send me an email.

 
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Big Data Event Points to Huge Potential

There was a great article in yesterday’s Telegraph-Journal around the Big Data Congress event happening in Saint John, NB this January.

The article features Geoff Flood, President of T4G Limited, and Larry Sampson, CEO of the New Brunswick Information Technology Council, talking about the potential for Big Data and the idea of a Data Science Centre of Excellence.

Geoff Flood

From Facebook posts to Tweets to mobile news updates, we live in a world of constantly flowing data and information.

Much of that data is useless, of course. But much of it is extremely valuable.

Yet drawing out the important bits is akin to drinking from an ever-growing fire hose: the flow of data is overwhelming.

“It’s coming from all directions, all the time. We’re talking about an exponential increase in volume,” says Saint John technology entrepreneur Geoff Flood.

“It’s like nothing we’ve seen before,” he adds. “The sheer volume of data requires a different approach to managing it and analyzing it and interpreting it.”

The sector focused on harnessing and filtering that wave of information is called “Big Data”. And it’s a sector Flood believes Atlantic Canada is well positioned to gain from.

That’s why his technology firm, T4G, is the lead sponsor of the upcoming Big Data Congress. To be held Jan. 24 in Saint John, the conference will bring together national delegates from the business sector, government and academia. It will also feature leading authorities on the future of Big Data. Among the speakers will be Andrew McAfee, a best-selling author and principal research scientist at MIT’s Center for Digital Business.

“The primary objective of the conference is to help people see the potential,” says Larry Sampson, CEO of the New Brunswick Information Technology Council, a co-organizer of the event.

“Big Data is a means of capturing and parsing and dealing with vast amounts of data… so that we can leverage that information to improve the quality of our lives and the performance of businesses.”

As Sampson notes, Big Data is an emerging field within the computer science world – one with the potential to alter many aspects of society, from business to health care.

It’s also a field that New Brunswick is familiar with. Radian6, the province’s best-known technology company, rose to fame – and later fortune – by helping Fortune 500 companies see what’s being said about them online.

More recently, the province’s main tech startup accelerator – Launch36 – helped develop LeadSift. The startup, which recently raised $1.1 million from investors, sifts through reams of Twitter data to generate sales leads for companies.

And the potential for further Big Data job creation is immense.

According to Gartner, a technology research firm, 4.4 million jobs will be created worldwide by 2015 as companies work to harness and filter the Big Data deluge.

Atlantic Canada, argues Geoff Flood, must work cooperatively to ensure many of those jobs are created locally.

That will require universities to provide proper training for mathematicians and analysts. Governments must also embrace the opportunities presented by Big Data.

As well, Flood is hoping the Big Data Congress will lead to the creation of a Data Science Centre of Excellence – to unite the public, private and academic sectors.

“This is something we can pursue. It just requires a commitment and an alignment across government, academia and industry,” he said.

“There’s no reason why we can’t do this here. We have as much opportunity as anybody.”

via telegraphjournal.com (written by Quentin Casey)

Learn more about the event at leadingthinkers.t4g.com!

 
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Propertize.ca Helps Identify Tax Cut Winners

Propertize.ca helped provide property tax assessment data which made it easier to identify the largest tax cut winners in a CBC.ca article from today.

A collection of power plants, shopping malls, industrial sites and commercial properties are the big winners in a multi-million dollar property tax cut introduced by New Brunswick’s cash-strapped provincial government last week, a CBC News review shows.

No numbers were given over how the cuts will be distributed, but a CBC review of current tax assessments compiled by the website propertize.ca shows the 10 highest taxed properties will eventually save a combined $3.4 million a year.

NB Power’s Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station will be the single biggest winner with a property tax cut of $759,768, followed by:

  • NB Power’s coal-fired generating plant in Belledune ($411,306)
  • Champlain Mall in Dieppe ($397,579)
  • the new Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (PCS) mine in Penobsquis ($343,633)
  • Irving Oil Ltd.’s refinery in Saint John ($319,546)
  • NB Power’s oil-fired generator at Coleson Cove ($300,251)
  • Regent Mall in Fredericton ($242,360)
  • the old PCS potash mine also in Penobsquis ($238,332)
  • McCallister shopping mall in Saint John ($197,510)
  • Irving Paper’s east Saint John mill ($194,205).

via CBC.ca (written by Robert Jones)

 

 

  • Has Propertize.ca helped you?
  • Is Open Data important to you?

Let me know what you think!

 
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Support for True Growth 2.0′s Recommendations on Enterprise Saint John

Published on 2012-11-29 by in News, Saint John

True Growth 2.0‘s recommendations for refocusing Enterprise Saint John received positive reviews in today’s Telegraph-Journal Editorial:

A steering committee led by Saint John Deputy Mayor Shelley Rinehart has proposed a way to harness Enterprise Saint John’s strengths more effectively, by integrating the city’s economic development policy with the provincial government’s efforts to stimulate development regionally. The idea makes sense – and it’s refreshing to see this council asking how ESJ can be improved, rather than proposing to gut it.

The future of regional enterprise agencies was cast into doubt earlier this year, when the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency announced that it was pulling their federal funding. The provincial government followed suit, and now proposes to replace the enterprise agencies with a network of 12 regional economic development advisory councils. This has led community councils across the province to ponder whether additional means are needed to support local economic growth. At least one municipality – Fredericton – is closing its enterprise agency.

This is not an option favoured in Saint John, where fostering new growth is one of the newly elected council’s top policy priorities. The question before councillors is, how can the city ensure that its efforts complement what the provincial regional advisory boards will be doing?

Deputy Mayor Rinehart has served as Dean of Business at the University of New Brunswick’s Saint John campus, and as chairwoman of Enterprise Saint John’s board. Objectively and personally, she understands the impact that this agency can have on the growth of the city’s industrial, commercial and retail base.

Her committee has recommended expanding energy-related industries; advanced manufacturing and industrial fabrication; financial, insurance and professional services; information and communications technology; health sciences; and tourism. The committee also urged council to review Enterprise Saint John’s board structure and appointments process with the goal of fine-tuning it for a new role – to act as a regional advisor to the minister of economic development.

Like the deputy mayor, we see this as a logical evolution. Enterprise Saint John has always had a regional mandate; if municipalities in the region continue to support it, we see no reason why it could not become the region’s chief champion and facilitator of economic growth.

via telegraphjournal.com

 
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Saint John Style

Published on 2012-11-28 by in News, Saint John, Videos

Saint John Medical School (aka Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick) students created a recruitment video for Dalhousie Medical School MMI weekend 2012:

A parody video called Saint John Style spoofing the South Korean song Gangnam Style has become a hit on YouTube with more than 2,500 views.

The video was written, created and features students from Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick and shows them dancing in lab coats and colourful tights at key landmarks in the city, such as the Saint John sign, in front of John Hooper’s statues and at the skate park.

The intention of the video was to show applicants that Saint John is a good place to study and the student culture is warm and welcoming, Chan said, but they also wanted to raise the program’s public profile because it’s only three-years-old. He said many people don’t realize that Halifax’s Dalhousie University has a satellite medical school program for New Brunswick residents.

Chan and filmmaker and editor, Ron Yan, said what’s different about DMNB is that the class size is small, which means they get a lot of one-on-one time with doctors and tutors in a hospital setting.

“I think one of the biggest things we wanted to convey with this video and what can’t be understated is the chemistry that we have with each other,” Chan said, “and the non-competitiveness and the constructive atmosphere we have with all our classmates.”

via telegraphjournal.com (written by Otiena Ellwand)

 
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