Ian Gerald King

Bitmaker Labs

Shad Valley, Université Laval

Humber College

McGill University

Turner Fenton Secondary School

Engineering Technologist  -  Industrial Automation Student  -  Venture Growth Specialist

Greater Toronto Area, Canada

Department: Operations
Role Focus: Continuous Improvement

Refresco

Engineering Technologist

V2 (Apr2017-Present)
-  Relaunched ThoughtKite as a nonprofit.
-  Developed the [<a href="http://LaunchClearly.com">http://LaunchClearly.com</a>] methodology and taught it at both Sheridan College (Brampton Campus) and Toronto Employment and Social Services (Queensway Office).
-  Designed, developed, and launched new the website.
-  Most recently presented another session at the Queensway Office on March 12th 2018 for an add-on methodology to LaunchClearly, centred around market research. Still in development.

Hiatus (Jan2016-Apr2017)

V1 (Dec2014-Jan2016)
-  The first version of ThoughtKite was as a code school that taught iOS development in Objective-C, with supplementary courses in Design Thinking and Growth Marketing. I sourced the instructors, developed the venue partnerships, launched the website, locked-in most of the student sales, managed the accounts, hired the first non-instructor employees, and sourced press coverage at Betakit, Techvibes, and Yonge Street Media.
-  We ran 2 cohorts in total, the first out of 100 Front Street East and the second out of 211 Yonge Street.
-  Terminated the venture when Apple transitioned from Objective-C to Swift.
            

    
    

    
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ThoughtKite

Founder & CEO

We create collaborative spaces where politics, tech and entrepreneurship converge to empower citizens with the tools for social change.

- The organization was set up to launch our multi-event conference on May 23rd, 2015. The conference was a convergence of themes around politics, tech, and entrepreneurship. Some notable speakers included Chrystia Freeland, before she became Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Michael Chong (MP)
-  I handled the incorporation, developed the various websites, locked in several venues, sourced several speakers, and provided the venue for various group meetings at my old ThoughtKite office.
-  The organization is currently used to host occasional panels – our last one was in March 2016. This will be a continuing passion project for my co-founder and I.
            

    
    

    
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inForum initiative

Co-Founder & Operations Director

HireUp

Head of Growth

Toronto Municipal Election Candidate

Campaign Co-Chair, Campaign Manager

Hire #1  -  Growth: Content, Community, Marketing, Business Development.

CoinSmart

Director of Growth

- To be updated] Took a year off to read various books on business, technology, economics, and sociology, interspersed with science fiction. Begun the sabbatical with creating the [<a href="http://LookClearly.com">LookClearly.com</a>] methodology, which I presented at Sheridan and Toronto Employment and Social Services. Ended off the  year with a complementary methodology that I'm still working on - a preliminary version was presented at Toronto Employment and Social Services in March 2018 but it still needs some work. [When updated a full reading list will be mentioned]
            

    
    

    
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Sabbatical

Launched the first cohort of Level Education into Toronto.

Level Education

Level Toronto Operations and Marketing Coordinator

MoveSnap

Growth Lead

Optimity  -  Employee-first Workplace Wellness

Business Development

COO: Director of Process & Platform. I guided a group of University of Toronto students in setting up this nonprofit, building off of traction they had established with their UofT Registered Student Group, The Foreign Observer (TFO) - an online magazine for foreign affairs. What TFO had achieved in its respective domain, we hoped to achieve by replicating the model for various functional topics like Finance, Health and Technology. We were unsuccessful at launching the other publications, largely due to the generally poor market for media in early 2016. Highlights of my contributions include:
-  Facilitated the brainstorming sessions that would lead to the founding of Enodo and the plans for its various publications
-  Provided the social infrastructure to get Enodo organized by using the ThoughtKite office as a common gathering point for all of our meetings and brainstorming sessions
-  Sourced a speaker and got the banner made for our October 14th 2015 panel on Health Innovation at UofT's Hart House
-  Managed the entirety of the website launch for <a href="http://enodonetwork.com">enodonetwork.com</a>
-  Redesigned and relaunched <a href="http://theforeignobserver.com">theforeignobserver.com</a>
-  Composed the Operations Document which defined the groundwork for all key positions to be held at Enodo and how those positions would interact
            

    
    

    
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Enodo Network.

COO & Co-Founder

HIGHLINE is a VC-backed Accelerator Program that represents the merger of Toronto’s Extreme Startups and Vancouver’s GrowLab into a national endeavour with international scope. I am proud to say that I was present at the founding of this initiative; standing at the TSX on our opening day remains as one of my proudest professional achievements to date. As Community Growth Hacker, my role was a unique synthesis of event management, community outreach, community building, social media, and business development – often called “the social guy” of HIGHLINE. Highlights of my contributions include:
-  Sourced the speakers, hosted, and live-tweeted 21 #HIGHLINEtalks (Tues & Thurs, 1pm-2pm) Aug21-Nov25, 2014, featuring: (1) Daniel Patricio, (2) Jeff Tracey, (3) Alkarim Nasser, (4) Igor Bonifacic, (5) Alex Kolodkin, (6) Chris Eben, (7) Tehsin Bhayani, (8) Sohaib Zahid, (9) Manny Elawar, (10) Mike Murchison, (11) Eli Aleyner & Mani Fazeli, (12) Jim Scheinman, (13) Mark Evans, (14) Daniel Francavilla, (15) Alan Smith, (16) Jeremiah Gardner & Brant Cooper, (17) Vanessa Lee, (18) Nik Badminton, (19) Jerry Chang, (20) Kyle Hodgson, (21) Jessica Weisz
-  I oversaw the management and execution of several events and engagements for HIGHLINE, October 2014 to February 2015:
-  Oct: (1) Enactus, (2) SOHO SME, (3) Toronto Small Business Forum, (4) Startup Canada Finance Bootcamp, (5) AccelerateTO, (6) AndroidTO, (7) Startup Open House
-  Nov: (1) ProductHuntTO, (2) Lean Startup Machine Toronto, (3) Startup Socials, (4) Hootsuite’s #HootupTO
-  Dec: (1) GirlsRaisingTO, (2) FoodeeMingle
-  Jan: (1) TechInMotionTO, (2) ProductHuntTO
-  Feb: (1) Betakit @ HIGHLINE

I left HIGHLINE after January mainly because I had accomplished all of my objectives and there was no more of a need to growth hack the brand – my efforts were acknowledged as a universal success. It is for this reason that I was also open to pursuing ThoughtKite. HIGHLINE exists with Extreme Startups as a year-long role.

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HIGHLINEvc

Community Growth Hacker

I successfully executed 2 installations of Lean Startup Machine Toronto (LSMTO) in 2014. The first installation took place at Decentral July 4-6 and the second I brought over to HIGHLINE November 14-16. I want to emphasize that my role in both executions were operations-driven, were I managed the entire flow of the event on the days when they occurred. Although I participated in strategy meetings and all such general planning, other individuals took care of outreach, partnerships, and ticket sales. My duty was to make sure the product of the event experience flowed like clockwork. Joy Williams of LSM proper in NYC took care of most macro activities for the first LSMTO of 2014 and my colleague Robert Mackenzie of the Toronto startup scene took over that similar role for the second installation. It's easiest to think of my role with LSMTO as an Event Producer - I executed on the events to make them a reality. All the event costs (~$2000 CAD per installation) were on my credit cards until the central LSM of NYC would reimburse me about a week afterwards.
            

    
    

    
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Lean Startup Machine

Toronto Lead Organizer, Operations

Outside of the instructors and TAs, I was the first true hire that worked alongside the core group of founders in a business role - a non-founding member of the founding team, so to speak. I was the ambassador for BrainStation at the various tech & entrepreneurship socials in the Toronto ecosystem. Highlights of my contributions include:
-  Facilitated the 2014 partnership between BrainStation and Extreme Startups that is featured in Betakit. The core BrainStation team was given office space within the Extreme Startups accelerator and the opportunity to launch their iOS Swift course out of the main Extreme Startups event venue
-  Oversaw the execution of BrainStation's iOS Swift course out of the Extreme Startups office
-  My #ExtremeCoffee events, through Extreme Startups, brought significant attention to the BrainStation brand, as their desks were located next to the main event venue
-  Facilitated a joint event between BrainStation and LAB-B, a Brampton CoWorking group
-  Facilitated BrainStation's #HourOfCode event at Tuner Fenton Secondary School in Brampton
            

    
    

    
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BrainStation

Community Connector

In its operating era, Extreme Startups was the top startup accelerator in Canada for follow-on funding. As the Community Manager, my responsibilities were twofold: (1) event planning, and (2) community partnerships. In my capacity as an event coordinator, I helped to plan socials and speaker sessions - a curator of social experiences. In terms of community partnerships, I represented Extreme Startups at tech & entrepreneurship events in Toronto. Highlights of my contributions include:
-  Assisted in organizing the private “Cohort 4 Grad Showcase” on January 15th, 2014, alongside Evan and Lauren
-  Was key in bringing in core tech events like HackerNest, DevTO, and TechInMotion into the Extreme Startups office
-  Partnered Extreme Startups with BrainStation, which gave the ES Office monthly #HourOfCode events
-  Researched the startup event market in Toronto for ES and eventually arrived at a market gap: the lunch and post-lunch period for 1 hour socials: proposed #ExtremeCoffee as our solution
-  #ExtremeCoffee took place on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1pm to 2pm, featuring a functional talk and free coffee. This was targeted to early stage founders because if you were a corporate or a later-stage startup, attending a talk after 1pm was not always easy. I hosted 21 talks May13-Aug14, Featuring: (1) Jean-Luc David, (2) Pouyan Aminian, (3) Eli Aleyner, (4) Liam Oscar Thurston, (5) Nicolas Dinh, (6) Zeeshan Syed, (7) Manny Elawar x2, (8) Dr. Joshua Liu, (9) Brian Gilham, (10) Fah Ananta, (11) Tishan Mills, (12) Jason Cheong-Kee-You, (13) Tom Walsham, (14) Ken Seto, (15) Marcus Anderson, (16) Simon Woodside, (17) Jim Brown & Jeremy Murray x2, (18) Harry Mahler, (19) Ramli John
-  Between July and August, Marcus invited me to be a part of the skunkworks team to transition Extreme Startups into HIGHLINE through the merger with Vancouver’s GrowLab. I then transitioned from ES’s Community Manager to HIGHLINE’s Community Growth Hacker, with #ExtremeCoffee becoming #HIGHLINEtalks
            

    
    

    
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Extreme Startups

Community Manager

I was the project manager for a team of developers. We were working on several experimental projects to expand Nspire's organizational reach - achieved V1 of the offering before leaving.

Nspire Innovation Network

Nteract Program Manager

A company that I founded in my final year of McGill with the intention of contributing to the EdTech space – the core product was a RoR platform, KuriousKind, for self-learners to capture and display their learning experiences while taking online courses and MOOCs. I halted intensive product development when I realized that market development mattered more and so I decided to build my personal brand in the Canadian startup scene. InteKreation then became the legal entity through which I did community growth for clients like Extreme Startup, HIGHLINE, and BrainStation. Closed up shop in 2015 to take another shot at education through ThoughtKite.

- Nov2013-Jan2015)
-  I put all product development on hold and seized the opportunity to work with both Extreme Startups (and eventually HIGHLINE) and BrainStation in a community capacity

- June2013-Nov2013)
-  <a href="http://kodekonviction.com">kodekonviction.com</a> documents my process of learning web development
-  I worked on building KuriousKind (built in RoR), my platform for self-learners up until November
-  I attended numerous hackathons in the Fall of 2013, and won a few them worth mentioning: (1) 3rd Place, Team Jamjars, Next36 Wearable Computing Hackathon at Google Toronto, (2) BeWorks Prize, Team Blu+, Hacking Health Toronto at MaRS. I was also with a team entering the MasterCard N>XT Mobile Hackathon and we were invited to MasterCard Toronto for a follow-up on the concept
-  I co-hosted a hackathon with Renjie Butalid for NextDayBetter at Project:RHINO, which caught the attention of Extreme Startups and led to my gig there

- Aug2012-June2013)
I networked heavily in Montreal and Toronto:
-  2013: Mesh Conference, CUTC Infect, National Business and Technology Conference, International Open Data Day Montreal, GROWtalks Montreal, Startup Weekend Montreal, Canadian Undergraduate Software Engineering Conference
-  2012: SociaLIGHT Conference, Ryerson University Information Technology Conference, Montreal Summit on Innovation: Innovative Districts
            

    
    

    
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InteKreation Platform Development Group Inc.

CEO, Founder

Electrical Technician, Interface Design, Vision Systems

Electrical Technician (first third of my co-op)
-  I was essentially an apprentice in the shop, helping out my supervisor, Ricardo, wherever I could.
-  During an extremely busy month where we had eight custom orders, I helped Ricardo assemble the control panels that we were building for clients like Molson. I also helped the Vision team occasionally when they were assembling a custom project for Castrol.
-  As the unofficial apprentice, I took care of all the small tasks like shipping & receiving and keeping the shop in working order (e.g. sweeping and vacuuming).

Interface Design (second third of my co-op)
-  I got a taste of the office and was put under the wing of Jeff. At this point I was being taught more than I could tangibly contribute to the team.
-  Jeff essentially gave me the 101 of programming and got me started on excel macros. Introduced me to some of the extremely nuanced data extraction that he does and we realized that it wasn't my specialty.
-  With the background in design that I had, Jeff put me to work on a custom colour selection tool to use when designing interfaces for HMI units. The project was built using VB.

Vision Systems (last third of my co-op)
-  The Vision team needed some help with their Castrol project and I was brought in, on-site, to help with the implementation.
-  The bottle-rejection system was experiencing some difficulties, so the engineers needed me to maintain the system while they worked on reprogramming it.
-  In the process of doing so I was able to interact with the operators on the production floor and see how the factory operates.
            

    
    

    
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McRae Integration Ltd.

Co-op Student

- Was brought in late in the game to help out with Marketing but was eventually made a Co-Lead.
-  The experience was an instructive one as the event ended up getting canceled due to a lack of ticket sales, which I willingly accepted as my fault.
-  Many excuses could be made but one lasting observation that I have come to acknowledge was the difficulty of presenting an English entrepreneurship/tech conference to a bilingual student market that has a largely "artsy" cultural orientation. We failed to adjust our message and offerings to the audience - a mistake I refuse to repeat.
            

    
    

    
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Canadian Undergraduate Technology Conference

Montreal Tour Co-Lead

- Managed the largest marketing team in Impact's organizational history, with a virtual team consisting of members from Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal.
-  Composed a 6000-word marketing plan.
-  My team was able to pull in 396 registrations for the competition - a figure that I am extremely proud of.
-  As my team consisted mostly of high school seniors, I was actively helping them with their university and scholarship applications by writing letters of recommendation. Every one of them received a custom letter tailored to their unique strengths - I refused to give a one-size-fits-all recommendation. My team members have moved on to Canada's elite institutions: McGill University, University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, Queen's University, and University of Western Ontario.
-  Difficulties arose when we shifted gears from Marketing to Operations as I had expected that my role would have ended there. The Chair took a momentary leave and I assumed the role of Chair during the execution of the competition.
-  Essentially, the marketing team became the operations team and we ran the whole competition. We experienced many hurdles as we were pretty much on our own and improvised a lot of things. I invested a lot of my personal funds just to keep things running, like when I paid for the prizes of the photo contest.
-  I designed, printed, and signed all of the certificates of completion; I express mailed the certificates to all of the participants across Canada out of my own pocket.
-  Overall, the marketing and execution of the Microcredit Competition was a whole startup experience unto itself - wisdom through suffering, I suppose. There were points where I honestly questioned why I was still doing it but I stuck to it for my team - they were my family and there was no way I could let them down. Moreover, for the participants, this was perhaps one of their first introductions to the notion of entrepreneurship and the competition needed to be run.
            

    
    

    
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Impact Entrepreneurship Group

Microcredit Marketing Director

- The idea for the conference was conceived by Alex Metz (former BASiC President) before he graduated. I gave the idea its initial form by branding it as NiRC and beginning the implementation process.
-  I wrote the original proposal and attracted a solid founding team of 10 members, including myself. The President of BASiC at the time, Hubie, acted in a capacity that I now recognize as a Board member - she helped to set up meetings with other councils and was an advisor throughout.
-  I ran all of the meetings, coming up with agendas beforehand and normally sending out the minutes.
-  In our early phases of ideation I helped to facilitate the brainstorming sessions. In short, I sent out numerous emails in the general coordination of NiRC's affairs.
-  As we approached the event I didn't have any particular role - I simply helped out in areas where I was needed most (e.g. marketing or grant proposals)
-  In terms of the actual execution on the day of the event, I let my team down completely. It took me a while to come to terms with it but I was most likely going through a breakdown. As my team was hurriedly taking care of everything, I was simply acting as a delegate and attending the talks.
-  My expectations for the event were so high that to see a meagre turnout of around 50 delegates was disappointing. Ironically, when I was talking to the delegates and the presenters, they were happy that it was an intimate experience where a lot of dialogue was generated around integrative research.
-  Overall, we had 15 presenters attend from UBC, McGill, and Concordia. Many of the undergraduates who applied to present at NiRC often recounted how their papers and projects were rejected from other conferences due to their interdisciplinary approach – we existed to tailor to the avant-garde and underrepresented, who were trailblazing in their respective fields.
-  Following the conference, there was a prolonged fall-out between the team and I. We are no longer friends.
            

    
    

    
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National Integrative Research Conference (NiRC)

Chair

Political Representation
The VP Academic is the most policy-oriented council position, where I was essentially the interface between the students in my programme and the administration. Consequently, I sat on numerous committees:
-  B.A. & Sc. Program Administration Committee (PAC)
-  Science Academic Committee (SAC)
-  SSMU McGill Academic Round Table (MART)

Proposals
Two major issues preceded my election, which I would bring to the forefront: (1) a dual degree proposal, and (2) BASC 201 and integrative courses.
-  The dual degree proposal was something that was initiated by Alex Metz who was a former BASiC President and VP Academic. The essential problem that we were facing as Arts & Science students was the fact that our degree was absolutely useless for Grad School admissions - we didn't have enough science credits to have a background in our field of choice. Thus, the dual degree program was conceived to enable academically strong Arts&Science students to pursue a BA and a BSc, thereby having many doors open following their graduation. Alex managed to push it past PAC and I inherited the proposal so that I could bring it through the Science Academic Committee (SAC) and the Arts Curriculum Committee (ACC). The President, Hubie, and I planned it out such that I managed to land a position on SAC and Hubie was on the ACC. Unfortunately, we received vehement opposition from all sides. The Profs ripped apart the proposal and even made snide remarks against our program - I was furious but had to hold my tongue. The underlying reason for the rejection was that it was a five year program and the administration would not support something that went against the Quebec government's support of a streamlined 4 year program. The failure of the dual degree program was part of a wider administrative process of budget cuts.
-  I was instrumental in getting BASC 201 removed as a mandatory course. Participated in initial discussions related to the future of integrative courses.
            

    
    

    
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Bachelor of Arts & Science Integrative Council (BASiC)

Vice President Academic

- I was part of a three-person team in charge of booking the venues for the conference.
-  Looking back, Ampersand was an instrumental experience that taught me the ins-and-outs of how to run a conference. Moreover, it acted as a direct inspiration for NiRC.
-  Our theme was "Creativity in the Digital Age"
-  Our keynote speakers included Christian Lander, creator of the blog Stuff White People Like, and Ben Huh, founder of the I Can Has Cheeseburger? Franchise.
-  Our workshops entailed: Digital Orchestra, Digital Marketing, Filmmaking and Stop Motion (with TVMcGill), and Science Communications and Graphic Design.
            

    
    

    
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Ampersand: The Conference

Logistics Planning Committee Member

- Was selected as a member of the Editorial Board, which sifted through all of the submitted papers to choose only those that were most integrative in nature. Our efforts culminated in the third volume of the journal.
-  I edited "The Trees are Dancing" by Kyle Teixeira Martins. I worked with him in an iterative manner, meeting in person several times, until we arrived at a version of the paper that we were truly happy with.
-  My sonnet entitled "On the Necessity of Integration" is featured in one of the opening pages of the publication.

The Third Volume of Ampersand can be found here:
<a href="http://issuu.com/the_ampersand_journal_mcgill/docs/ampersand_iii/1">http://issuu.com/the_ampersand_journal_mcgill/docs/ampersand_iii/1</a>
            

    
    

    
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Ampersand: McGill Arts & Science Undergraduate Journal

Editor

President (April-August, 2012)
-  Resigned to pursue InteKreation.
-  Composed a 5000-word transition document for the executives.
-  Guided Yoojin in setting-up the foundations of a new volunteering programme.

Vice President Campaigns (2011-2012)
-  Launched three endeavours with individuals that I selected from PAC: Steve, Caitlin, Yoojin, and Neil.
-  Our McGill Anthem Contest was an attempt to follow the wave generated by Trip Yang's music video "McGill State of Mind." We cancelled the event - it was a failure for multiple reasons.
-  Our second edition of the Valentine's Open Mic was a moderate success.
-  Our Child Healthcare Careers Symposium (CHC Symposium) was also a moderate success. We brought in a doctor, a dentist, and a psychologist to speak to students about the day-to-day of their careers and how they got there. The value of the event was in the dialogue created.

Vice Chair of Presidential Affairs Committee (2011-2012)
-  Ran the PAC meetings when the President was not present.

Coordinator (2010-2011)
-  I led a group of Coords (Jen, Joanna, Stella), future Coords (Steve, Leah) and general members (Grace) in our planning and execution of MCHAM's first Valentine's Open Mic Night.
-  The event was extremely successful in terms of the quality of the performers and the turnout of the attendees. Monetarily, we broke even since entry to the event was donations-based.
-  I played an integral role in selecting the performers through our weekly auditions - I was present at every one.
-  The Open Mic Night was MCHAM's most successful event of the year.

Presidential Affairs Committee & Hospital Affairs Committee (2009-2010)
-  Worked with my team members (Joyce & Brian) to design a volunteering proposal for the Montreal Children's Hospital. We presented our proposal to the MCH's Parental Board and were, ultimately, unsuccessful.
-  I designed numerous pamphlets and posters for our events using Photoshop.
-  Helped out with various food sales to raise funds for our club.
            

    
    

    
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Montreal Children's Health Alliance at McGill (MCHAM)

President

- This was the culmination of numerous years of gaining certifications: Bronze Star, Bronze Medallion, Bronze Cross, NLS, in addition to RC and LSS teaching certifications.
-  Although I initially envisioned myself as a lifeguard, I found the most pleasure in teaching kids how to swim. There's moment when a kid takes his first stroke that just cannot be expressed in words.
-  After two years, I was well acquainted with teaching all the RC levels and even had the opportunity to teach an adult.
-  The hardest, and yet most rewarding, levels to teach were the preschool levels and levels 1-3. That's where the kids truly build their foundation so it's up to you to set them straight. Weaknesses in these initial levels would grow as they progressed through the higher levels and became harder to deconstruct.
-  With the higher levels (4-10) I was more of a coach. Although there were technical elements to pay attention to, teaching was more about imbuing them with confidence. I would put on my super-energetic mask and make it an awesome experience for them.
-  Because I have a background in diving, I could give them more tips when we got to the deep-end. For the kids who could grasp the techniques, I taught them pikes and the type of diving used in swim meets. I was famous for my canon balls, karate kick dive, and doing the btwist into the deep-end despite its illegality.
-  I always saw myself as an older brother to my students and treated them as such. It was a wonderful experience that I will never forget.
            

    
    

    
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