How can I describe you? First, you were good. There were learnings, revelations and surprises. And above all, a lot of fun. As we let ourselves be carried away by the magic of the holiday season, let’s highlight the highlights of the past year.
We often talk about corporate culture and many things have helped strengthen ours over the past 12 months:
Celebrating the arrival of 5 new babies (a Spektrum record!), including a first maternity leave! #SuperDads & #SuperMom
Continuing to embody a very strong sports culture. We also stood out at the Labrinski relay, Défi Entreprise and Défi Tour du Lac Beauport.
Announcing great news: the SPK Ecosystem is now a non-profit organization. Although externally, this will not change many things, more people internally will be able to dedicate themselves to its development and to making it shine more in the coming year and those to come. A little nod to our great CA, without whom this new chapter would not be possible.
Georges’ move and the opening of a Spektrum office in Switzerland
The arrival of two new girls within the team (this was part of our objectives in 2017): Frédérique and Élisabeth
The hiring of top recruits Frédérique, Sébastien, Nathan, Élisabeth, Marc-Antoine, Pierre-Luc, Samuel as well as Pépin, our summer intern. Not to mention the return of two of our employees after a short departure (#ComebackKids)
A very lively ecosystem
We had promised to be wiser about the number of events held in our offices and we can say that we succeeded. We still opened our doors 24 times for activities and presentations. In addition to being exciting, some of the topics discussed there, such as cannabis marketing, the social economy, mental health and meditation, took us completely off the web. These events led to new encounters and captivating discussions.
We made great discoveries and partnerships for events, such as the Maison de la Coopération, with which we plan to hold new events in the future. We can also count albania telephone number data on Entrepreneuriat Laval as our third official partner for the much-loved formula: 2 laits 1 sucre. On the blog, Georges’ posts continued to generate reactions while we were also able to count on new authors who were able to inspire us and teach us more, all with humour and humility. Thanks to Frédérique, Élisabeth, Francis, Gabriel, Olivier and all the others!
Here are the top 5 most read posts in 2024:
My 25 rules of happiness
Thinking about the 32-hour work week
Learning content marketing
Sports as a corporate culture
Email communication with your agency: 5 commandments
Apollo13
Let’s also mention a year of enriching meetings lets demystify open source thanks to Apollo13, our startup support program. Entrepreneurs are often told that actions, and especially, concrete results are worth much more than hypotheses and speeches. After more than a year of existence, our incubator already has a set of achievements to its credit that confirm its legitimacy:
Lexya, which has just launched its web platform, will have 55K users to come in its first cohort
Maitri, which has undergone a double acquisition and is now part of Canopy
GoSoumissions, which has just reached 7K renovation projects since its creation
Snipcart, which had another record year in 2018 by doubling its turnover. They now have 8 employees
Neoxis, which launched the Fédération des producteurs d’insectes comestibles du Québec
XpertSea, which raised 10M in funding
In addition to the incubated companies, we have supported more than 40 companies, 40 jobs have been created and we have received a record number of applications to be part of our program.
Academy
One of the missions of the SPK Ecosystem is to raise awareness among the next generation about responsible entrepreneurship, because we believe in their power to make a difference. Once again this year, we have not been idle with these valuable partnerships, including:
The many visits and presentations of our model to schools
More than 450 inspired students
The 3rd cohort of computer business to consumer reviews science students at Cégep Garneau. We are also fortunate to have Marc-Antoine, from one of these cohorts, now with us full-time as a back-end programmer
Our participation in many entrepreneurship competition panels for students
Spektrum
For Spektrum, 2018 was a year of affirmation. We hold a discourse of respect and humanity and we have always considered ourselves as outsiders and idealists. The year 2018 was a year of recognition and a tipping point that allowed us to affirm the viability and sustainability of our model and to realize that it is no longer a fluke o