Ever tried to find the specific bylaws for a backyard fence or the rules for keeping chickens on a city website? If you’ve felt the frustration of digging through endless PDFs and broken search bars, you aren’t alone. Even the experts find it daunting.

In this episode of Tech About Town, hosts Alex Kinsella and Matthew Klassen sit down with Kristy Guthrie (Co-Founder & CEO) and Kerry Fraser (Co-Founder) of municiPal AI. They discuss the origin story of their startup—born from a realization that traditional municipal websites often act as barriers rather than bridges between residents and their local government.

What we cover in this episode:

• The "A-Ha" Moment: How building a shed in Kitchener led to a breakthrough in digital service delivery.

• Problem-Led AI: Why Large Language Models (LLMs) are the perfect tool for turning a "filing cabinet" website into a meaningful conversation.

• The Multi-User Impact: How municiPal AI empowers not just residents, but frontline customer service staff and elected officials.

• Safe & Secure Tech: Navigating PII (Personal Identifying Information) and the unique requirements of municipal IT.

• Selling to Government: Advice for tech founders on procurement, building trust, and showing up with empathy for the public sector.

Whether you are a municipal leader looking to innovate or a resident who just wants to know where to skate for free, this episode explores how smart technology is rebuilding community trust, one search at a time.

About the Show: Tech About Town is brought to you by Communitech, the hub for Waterloo Region’s tech ecosystem. Whether you’re a startup founder or a tech enthusiast, we connect you with the people and ideas shaping the future. Visit us at communitech.ca.

The physical keyboard is back, and it is arguably cooler than ever. In this episode of Tech About Town, hosts Alex Kinsella and Alison Piel are joined by the minds behind the breakout hits of CES 2026: the Clicks Communicator and the new Power Keyboard.

Jeff Gadway (CMO at Clicks) and Joseph Hofer (Founder of Hofer Studio and former lead industrial designer at BlackBerry) discuss how they are channeling the engineering DNA that put Waterloo on the global map to launch a tactile revolution. They reveal the "anti-CES" strategy that earned them massive media coverage without a show floor booth, and dive deep into their vision of "complementary computing"—positioning new devices not just as phones, but as purpose-built tools for focus in a noisy, AI-filled world.

In this episode, we cover:

• The "Anti-CES" Playbook: How Clicks used a hotel suite and a creator-first environment to generate outsized buzz and secure spots on the Today Show without a traditional booth.

• Complementary Computing: Why the Communicator is designed as a "second phone" to separate signal from noise, rather than replacing your main flagship device.

• Design DNA: Joseph Hofer on reimagining the iconic BlackBerry silhouette for 2026 without relying on nostalgia or making a carbon copy.

• Hardware Meets Software: How the Niagara Launcher and the device’s unique features create a distraction-free user experience.

• Startup Strategy: Lessons on purposeful product design, partnerships, and punching above your weight class as a hardware startup.

Guest Links:

• Clicks: https://clicks.tech/ca

• Hofer Studio: https://hoferstudio.com/

Tech About Town is brought to you by Communitech, the hub for Waterloo Region’s tech ecosystem. Whether you’re a startup founder or a tech enthusiast, we connect you with the people and ideas shaping the future. Visit us at communitech.ca.

Kick off 2026 by turning the "saddest day of the year" into the loudest! In this episode, host Alex Kinsella sits down with Ruth Casselman (CEO of the Accelerator Center) and Rick Andrade (Senior Communications Manager at Magnet Forensics) to discuss the second annual Battle of the Bands: Tech Edition.

Discover how the Waterloo tech community is coming together on Monday, January 19, 2026, at Maxwell’s Concert Works to raise money for the Canadian Mental Health Association.

We talk about the surprising link between engineering and musical creativity, the reality of founder mental health, and why you might see a "tech giant" or two shredding on guitar.

Plus, Ruth shares details on the upcoming cohort for AC:RevLab, a program helping founders master the art of the sale.

In this episode, we cover:

• The origins of Battle of the Bands and its $8,000 impact in Year 1.

• The 2026 lineup

• Why 72% of tech founders report mental health challenges and how community support helps.

• The creative overlap between coding, designing, and harmonizing.

• Details on how to get tickets (and be home by 10:00 PM!).

How does a city of nearly 300,000 people stay ahead of the technological curve? In this episode of Tech About Town, we sit down with Nicole Amaral, Director of the Digital Kitchener Innovation Lab, to discuss the evolution of Kitchener's digital strategy.

Since its inception in 2017, the Digital Kitchener Innovation Lab has served as an experimental hub within the Communitech Hub, bridging the gap between municipal government and the local tech ecosystem. Nicole shares her journey from communications to IT and provides an inside look at the upcoming Digital Kitchener 2.0 Strategy, set to launch in April 2026.

Commuting by bike helps the environment and is great for your health, but getting from point A to point B isn’t always easy. That was part of the motivation for Mark Connolly and team behind Cycling Guide, a mobile app that shows cyclists the least stressful paths to get where they need to go.

Mark joins us on the podcast to talk about the inspiration behind the app, which uses community-maintained OpenStreetMap data to find low-stress, bike-friendly routes, including those secret neighborhood shortcuts and connecting paths that other apps miss.

Communitech’s Isibeal Ryan is in the cohost set to share her perspective on how Cycling Guide addresses the critical issue of confidence when navigating traffic, roundabouts, and disconnected infrastructure.

So, what do we talk about?

• The Non-Profit Model: Why Mark chose to make the foundation a charity to protect user privacy and avoid monetizing data.

• Community Data: How local enthusiasts keep the map up-to-date (sometimes faster than officials!).

• Accessible Cycling: Moving the conversation away from "sport" and toward everyday transportation, like grocery runs and commuting.

Learn how the app is expanding its reach across Canada and how you can support their mission to make cycling safe, fun, and accessible for everyone.

Links:

• Download Cycling Guide on iOS and Android

• Support the Foundation: cyclingguide.org

One of the things we talk about constantly on this show is that 'tech' isn't just about code or hardware—it's about the people who build it and the community that supports them. And if you’ve been part of the Waterloo Region ecosystem for any length of time, you know that building a truly inclusive community takes work, passion, and boots-on-the-ground leadership.

That is exactly why we're excited for this episode's guest.

Samantha Campbell is a software engineer, a long-time community builder, and the driving force behind Gender Equity Tech Waterloo.

We’re going to dig into her journey from organizing Girl Geek Dinners to launching Gender Equity Tech Waterloo, a new initiative creating vital spaces for women and gender-diverse people in our community, and—most importantly—how we can all move from just 'talking' about equity to actually making it happen.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Pivot: How the pandemic shifted community building from 60-person dinners to authentic, small-group connections.
• Authentic DEI: Why "clean washrooms" are the perfect analogy for inclusive policies that benefit everyone (not just the target demographic).
• Career Reinvention: Samantha’s journey from multiple startup exits to teaching at Conestoga College and founding her consultancy, Pixel Bridges.
• Navigating AI: Why we should stop grieving the old ways and start using AI to remove technical barriers.
• Running on Vibes: How finding "Happy Mother Hen" energy can recharge your career.
  

Ask Dinah Davis about the state of women in tech, and she’ll tell you we’re moving forward, but not nearly far enough. It’s a perspective shaped by her own path, from computer science student at the University of Lethbridge to founder of Code Like A Girl (Medium and Substack), a community built to elevate the stories of women and non-binary people in tech.

On this episode of Tech About Town, Dinah sits down with guest host Michelle Engelhardt from Communitech to talk about representation, allyship and why programs like Fierce Founders matter now more than ever.

• Gender Equity Tech Waterloo Region
• Accelerator Centre She Talks Tech
• Waterloo Chapter - Women in Communications and Technology
• Mastercard Emerging Leaders Cyber Initiative
• Women in Tech Meetup

You can learn a lot from your successes, but you can learn even more from your failures.

Mike Kirkup joins us for his record-breaking third appearance on the podcast to talk about lessons learned from his experience launching and folding his last startup, Arlo. Over the last few weeks, Mike has been sharing stories on LinkedIn, from why avoiding a Salesforce integration was the wrong decision to why he regrets not digging deeper into customer insights.

He’s putting those lessons into practice with his latest startup, Elderella, a platform to help caregivers feel less alone and unseen. (You can listen to our interview with Mike and Jacqui Murphy here.)

Open your textbooks, class is in session.