Akoha was recently selected as one of Canada’s 20 Hottest Innovative Companies and invited to present at the Canadian Innovation Exchange which just wrapped up in Toronto.

The Canadian Innovation Exchange is a two-day event that included a series of discussions about the Canadian Venture community, advice for entrepreneurs and investors and wrapped up with 8 minute presentations by the 20 selected companies.

The list of companies chosen among the top 20 includes many great companies from across Canada.  Akoha is proud to be among the selected companies.  We had the opportunity to present to an audience that included other startup founders, venture capitalists and investors from across North America and members of the Canadian media.

Congratulations to all the presenting companies.  If we are to be judged by the company we keep, then being onstage with these great Canadian startups was indeed an honour.

Accipiter Radar Technologies Inc. (http://www.sicomsystems.com/home.html), Fonthill, ON
Acquisio (http://www.acquisio.com/), Saint Lambert, PQ
Bitcasters (http://www.bitcasters.com), Toronto, ON
Blueprint Software Systems (http://www.blueprintsys.com/), Toronto, ON
Brainpark, Inc (http://brainpark.com/), Toronto, ON
CellWand Communications (http://www.cellwand.com/), Toronto, ON
Coveo (http://www.coveo.com), Quebec City, PQ
Digital Payment Technologies Corp. (http://www.digitalpaytech.com/), Burnaby, BC
dthree Inc. (http://www.dthree.com/), Mississauga, ON
HomeZilla (http://homezilla.ca/blog/), Toronto, ON
Kaben Wireless Silicon Inc. (http://www.kabenwireless.com/), Ottawa, ON
Mobidia, Inc. (http://www.mobidia.com/), Vancouver, BC
Octopz (http://www.octopz.com/), Toronto, ON
Planeteye Inc. (http://www.planeteye.com), Toronto, ON
Redwood Technologies (http://www.redwoodtechnologies.com/), Calgary, AB
Spatial View Inc. (http://www.spatialview.com/), Toronto, ON
Standout Jobs, Inc. (http://standoutjobs.com/), Montreal, PQ
Streametrics Corporation Inc.(http://www.streametrics.tv/en/), Montreal, PQ
TimePlay Entertainment. (http://timeplay.com/), Toronto, ON

When our friend Tara was in town recently she did a video interview with me about Gift Economies and Akoha.

She recently posted the video on the SpreadLoveProject website.

The reference made part way through the interview when talking about the role of generosity in evolution is the great book The Generous Man - How Helping Others is the Sexiest Thing You Can Do by Tor Norretranders.

In the book he introduces the novel concept that generosity, creativity and cooperativeness serve a singular evolutionary purpose of making us sexier.

If you’d like to hear an excerpt of Tor Norretranders speaking about game theory, altruism and economics here is a short audio clip from his EuroOSCON keynote.

Last year I had the pleasure to give be part of a panel on Social Change and the Web at the MESH conference, one of Canada’s premier events for the Web community.

Our friends at MESH put up the video of the panel which included our friend Tom Williams speaking about his project at GiveMeaning.

For those of you who weren’t able to attend, we wanted to share this with you.