Thank you The Hub

January 30, 2014

News recently broke that the Hub – co-working office space in downtown Halifax – is closing (mostly). But, it will live in a new iteration with some core members sharing a space down the street.

First off I owe a huge thanks to the Hub and Tracy and Joanne.

The Hub has been a pillar of the community in Halifax. Over the past few years it’s brought together a ton of talented people or business or events – tech, environment, politics, social enterprise.

My first Hub experience was at the very beginning of the hi there days. Nick and I went to a mini Startup Weekend kind of thing organized by Patrick Hankinson. I was young and didn’t know what I was doing, which in retrospect should have made things easier, since now I’m older and don’t know what I’m doing. I think it was probably our first foray into the local tech community, probably a lot of people’s first times meeting each other. I think I met Patrick before that at some event type thing. Anyway…the location downtown, atmosphere, and hosts of the Hub made it work.

We worked on an event mapping-type app thing we called Waldii. It didn’t pan out, but I got some valuable experience and met some great people that’d go on to become friends.

Lots of stories indeed. It was the first place I tried tapenade (if you like olives I recommend this). In the hi there days we rented out meeting rooms, but probably spent more time there hanging out for other things.

A lot of successful businesses got their start or spent their days at The Hub. My friend Gavin was saying at Podcamp that the number of people from Hub (and the Roy Building next door, which is also going away) that “made their own paycheque” was pretty significant. It just feels like a place that should exist. So even at this crossroads, I think The Hub was a pretty big success.