Bluink: making life easier, one product at a time. That isn’t actually their motto, but it may as well be. Founded in 2010 by mechanical engineer Stephen Borza, Bluink is a product development company that creates software applications to simplify everyday life. They have been up and running for a few years, but from the sound of it, this past year had been a crucial step in the accelerating the company to success. From what Steve Borza called a lot of “serendipity”, karma and networking, Bluink was accepted to a four month stint at Plug and Play in California after a last minute application. The stay proved to be beneficial, and Bluink recently won the FinTech Accelerator Pitch competition in California, for the Injector solution, placing first out of around 886 companies that applied for the program, and 30 that pitched.

With 15 years in the books, LIXAR is one of the more mature software companies in the city. They specialize in mobile solutions for a variety of sectors, with clients throughout North America and abroad. Quietly building its portfolio, it’s chosen to stay under the radar. That’s now changing with their new workspace. As CEO, Bill Syrros says, “It’s even the first time we’ve had a sign on the building”.

CENX is growing; fast. In two short years the firm has hired nearly 100 people, attracted equity from high-profile investors such as Verizon and Ericsson and has grown their revenue by nearly 500%. For the most part, their technology solutions work behind the scenes to help carriers make rapidly informed decisions, to the ultimate benefit of Internet consumers. However, their work culture emanates the feel of a young start-up, working on that next cool iPhone app. Street Art adorns the walls, Nerf guns rest on desks and break-out rooms are named after volcanos (The company’s rationale: volcanos are the ultimate disruptors).

"Flying Under the Radar” has probably never been a more appropriate saying. For nearly two decades, Mxi Technologies has quietly amassed a client base representing more than 20% of the global commercial and military market. For some context, there are over 100,000 flights around the world, every single day. The software company, which builds solutions designed to manage the lifecycle of aviation assets, has significant brand recognition in all international markets. It’s most recent victory was winning a contract with Southwest Airlines, America’s largest domestic carrier.

When you hear the pitch, it almost seems too easy; “Is no one doing that?” you think to yourself? Photo sharing for companies; Instagram for Business. It's founders hadn't even taken the training wheels off their app when FOKO landed one of North America's most successful grocery retailers, Whole Foods, as a client. Within 90 days, 1,000 employees in twelve regions were using it; today it`s three thousand and still growing.

The worldwide information security market is worth more than $71 Billion annually and growing. Experts now say cyber security is a constant risk to all businesses. The sentence “It is no longer an issue that concerns only information technology and security professionals; the impact has extended to the boardroom” stands out in this recent report. New stories about “data breaches” or “identity theft” keep mounting. Regardless of these warnings, the consensus is that business and people are still bad at protecting themselves.

It’s a time of rapid technological change. As a gamer, I am very excited to see the game industry move to Virtual Reality (VR) and its much more immersive gaming experience. While technology might be changing, copyright law is not. If your VR project involves creating a virtual environment “inspired by” a TV show, movie, book, or even another video game, your virtual work may expose you to real world copyright infringement, as a “derivative work” of the original.

Many of us have tried to make our own website - using pre-made templates, or web editors, or the visual designer on Adobe Dreamweaver. And many of those attempts have been like ordering x-ray specs from an ad in the back of a comic book: extremely disappointing, and never looking as good as the ad. So when I first heard about PageCloud, I was to say the least, skeptical. However, after seeing Craig Fitzpatrick, CEO and Founder of PageCloud, pitch at an event (and feeling everyone’s heads in the room collectively explode while he was demoing), I knew I had to sit down with him to talk PageCloud and web design.