Gingle’s GPS-based social video media concept in running for lucrative investment

by Kris McDavid – Times & Transcript | link to original story

Erik Gingles has already established a reputation in Metro Moncton as an innovator, a master multi-tasker, and somebody with a keen business and technical sense of what’s current, relevant, and how to stay well ahead of the rapidly evolving technological curve.The founder and president of Moncton-based icommunications has been at the helm of the company, which specializes in multi-media marketing and advertising, since its inception over seven years ago.

Witnessing steady growth out of its Botsford Street offices, icommunications has been behind some familiar and well-received multi-platform advertising spots for a number of well-known clients, including the Department of Transportation’s “Think Moose” highway safety campaign and a series of spots for the New Brunswick Population Growth Secretariat.

Along the way Gingles and company have also launched, and produce the content for, an internet-based broadcast television website, NBTVToday.com, which churns out loads of multi-faceted content including spoofs of mainstream television shows, comedic skits and original web-based television shows broadcasted locally and abroad.

And in a business environment where success hinges on innovation and staying one-step ahead, Gingles is looking to build momentum behind his latest idea, one he believes could be a potential game-changer.

The idea, Gingles said, popped into his head as he was watching the IAAF World Junior Hockey Championships – like millions of other Canadians – over the holidays, and it has blossomed from there.

Gingles has to be vague about the specifics of the application, as it’s still in development.

“Some would call it brilliant,” Gingles says of the prototype, half jokingly.

“We want to be able to do live streaming from smart phones so that anybody in the world can see it, and not just person-to-person.

“When I was watching the World Juniors, it kind of struck me; what if you could see this from a bunch of different vantage points? What if you could go and see who is streaming down by the ice or by the penalty box – what if you could see all of this through live streaming?” Gingles adds.

And when the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation’s 2011 Breakthru Business Plan Competition takes place in Fredericton in two-weeks time, his newest venture, known simply as Gingle, has a chance to net some huge rewards for the company.

The Breakthru competition, the largest of its kind in Canada, is a bi-annual event essentially designed to give entrepreneurs the resources they need to start new businesses.

Thirty companies entered the contest, and only six lasted through a one-day business boot camp hosted by the NBIF late last month.

Gingles is among those six finalists vying for more than $285,000 worth of cash investments and professional services, which companies can qualify for if they are voted into the top three by a panel of experienced investors and entrepreneurs in Fredericton on March 16.

“The more that I thought about this idea, and about the way it could work, the more I thought that this could be a game-changer,” Gingles said.

“Smart phones are just getting smarter, I mean the one I have now has a one-gigahertz processor … this is in a phone, the technology is changing so fast, and the new phones that they’re coming out with are basically laptops, it’s just insane.”

Gingle, which would be incorporated as a separate entity from icommunications, is described by Breakthru as “GPS-based social video media.”

Of the six finalists, five of them are technology-based platforms, however one of them is an environmentally-friendly agricultural application being developed in Sackville.

SustainaChem Solutions, headed up by Kaila Thomasson, aims to provide a greener alternative to farmers over conventional, environmentally damaging pesticides.

The SustainaChem product would result in a new pesticide derived from Boron; a non-toxic, naturally occurring earth element that is safe for both human consumption and the environment at large.

The 2011 Breakthru Business Plan Competition wraps up at the Fredericton Convention Centre the evening of March 16, with hundreds of New Brunswick business people expected to attend.

For more information on the event visit www.nbif.ca.