The founder of Mesh. Left to right: Mike McDerment, Rob Hyndman, Stuart MacDonald, Mark Evans, Mathew Ingram

In 2006, Mark Evans, Rob Hyndman, Stuart McDonald, Matthew Ingram and Mike McDerment got together for conversation and drinks. Partway through their get together, the group started to lament the lack of notable of tech conferences in Toronto. In their estimation, the city deserved a tech conference amongst the likes of ones in Paris, New York, and San Francisco. And while none of them had any experience in planning or running a conference, they decided that they were going to be ones to build the conference Toronto was sorely missing. Six weeks later, 300 people showed up to the first ever Mesh conference. Now seven years later, and with almost 700 people expected to attend this week’s two day event, Mesh is one of Canada’s leading technology conventions. 

In anticipation of this week’s conference, I spoke to Evans, one of its co-founders, about what attendees can expect from the upcoming conference. According to Evans, not only is this year’s Mesh even bigger and better, it also brings with it several notable additions. 

Among those additions, one of the most notable ones is also one that Mesh veterans will likely appreciate the most. In contrast to past years, the event’s organizers have decided to offer one-day tickets for the first time. Evans says that he and the rest of the Mesh team have heard the feedback, and are excited to offer everyone interested in the conference a chance to check it out. And with a compelling schedule of presentations on both days, those who elect to attend only one day still get a chance to catch the best the conference has to offer. Both two day and single day tickets are still available and can be purchased here.   

This year’s Mesh also brings with it an even greater focus on startups, as one of the new features of the 2013 iteration is the so-called startup alley. As the name suggests, a hallway of the Allstream Centre will be devoted to showcasing multiple startups and their upcoming products. For the 25 startups that the organizers have chosen to highlight, this week is a chance to show off their innovative products to investors, journalists, and marketers; on the other hand, attendees get a chance to check out cool new products they might not have seen before. 

Moreover, several of this year’s most promising presentations will focus on some of North America’s leading startups and their founders. One of the presentations that Evans suggests everyone check out is a talk curated by Amanda Richardson of Prezi. Richardson, a Stanford graduate, is the Head of Product at Prezi, and will use part of her presentation as opportunity to discuss how her company was able to grow its user base from 10 million to 23 million in less than a year. 

The startup-focused presentations don’t stop at Richardson, however, as there are several more compelling talks on the subject. The one I’m personally excited for is a conversation titled “Tales from Inside the Inside Y Combinator Incubator.” The round table discussion will feature four Canadian entrepreneurs, including Michael McCauley from BufferBox, which was recently acquired by Google, share their experiences of going through the Silicon Valley-based accelerator. 

Of course, not all the presentations are focused on startup culture. “Tapping into the Potential of 3D Printing,” will, as the name suggests, look into the exciting new world of 3D printing, and offer an insight into what this revolutionary manufacturing technology might mean for the world. 

For his part, Evans suggests that attendees check out the conference’s opening keynote presentation, which will be hosted by Ryan Carson of Treehouse, and touch upon the evolution of education and what it means for the world. 

In short, however, there’s something here for everyone. As always, attendees should plan according to personal taste. A complete schedule of events can be found here.

Look for more of Toronto Standard’s Mesh 2013 coverage later this week. 

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Igor Bonifacic is a writer working for the Toronto Standard. You can follow him on twitter @igorbonifacic. 

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