On December 14, Vigilant Futures hosted a press conference for FIRST Robotics Quebec and Youth Fusion where the dynamic teams announced Montreal is hosting its first-ever FIRST Robotics regional next March 15-17.
With approximately 150 guests present, including students who have competed in past FIRST Robotics competitions, Gabriel Bran Lopez, founder of Youth Fusion and co-founder of FIRST Quebec, announced the robotics festival, unveiled the location and the festival logo.
Vigilant Futures is co-sponsoring the event along with other well-known Montreal-based corporations, and sponsoring the robot-build of Lasalle Community Comprehensive High School (LCCHS).
Thus far, seven Vigilant Futures employees have volunteered to be mentors for the LCCHS students. Students receive their robot challenge and their initial robot-building kit on January 7, 2012.
For the second year in a row, Vigilant Futures employees participated in RBC’s relay race challenge benefiting Centraide. For the first time though, we won with the best time.
Vigilant Futures employees’ posted the best time out of 43 teams right from the start. We were second up the 41 flights of stairs to the top of Place Ville Marie following only the team of honour…current and former Canadian Olympians.
In total, RBC raised $106, 000 for Centraide’s 2011 holiday campaign and Vigilant Futures is proud to have helped in our small way. You can check out a clip from last’s race below and our photos from the day’s events on our Flickr page.
Yesterday, the founder of Youth Fusion – Gabriel Bran Lopez – joined Vigilant employees over lunch. He brought along a robot for a lunchtime demo to motivate Vigilant employees about the upcoming 2012 FIRST Robotics challenge and the regional in Montreal.
Students from a high school in the greater Montreal area built the robot with the guidance of a Youth Fusion mentor from ETS University in Montreal. The idea was to get employees excited about the event Vigilant Futures is sponsoring in a few ways; first as an event co-sponsor along with other Montreal-based companies, and second through sponsoring the robot-build at Lasalle Community Comprehensive High School.
Last Wednesday September 28th, Vigilantes donned bright orange t-shirts to solicit spare change from Montrealers for a good cause: National Raise-a-Reader day.
On the 10th anniversary of Raise-a-Reader, the organization raised upwards of $1.75 million for Canadian organizations devoted to providing family literacy programs. All the funds raised in the community stay in the community.
Well, the total is in and Vigilant Futures helped raise $23, 000 in Montreal alone.
Vigilant Futures employee in 2010 Raise-a-Reader day.
Employees of Vigilant Futures are giving up their lunch hour and then some today to help sell a special edition of The Montreal Gazette through the downtown streets of our fair city. Why? Today is Raise-a-Reader day in Canada.
Our employees raised just over $2700 in our annual auction held in August with all proceeds going to Raise-a-Reader and Vigilant Futures added another $2000 as a corporate sponsor. We’ll be collecting donations for a few hours in the busy downtown core of the city in exchange for a special edition of The Gazette.
Each year, Postmedia collects funds through corporate and individual donations it then redistributes among Canadian organizations that have family literacy programs. All the money collected stays in the community it was raised in.
To date, the initiative has generated $17 million since its national launch in 2002. Last year Vigilant Futures employees raised just over $4400 for the cause and the company donated $2000 as a local sponsor. Montrealers donated $46, 303 for literacy in 2010.
Vigilant Futures donate lunch hour to collect donations.
It was an exceptionally warm and humid early autumn day in Montreal yesterday, and it just happened to be the annual 42 KM Montreal Oasis marathon. As usual, parts of the city were closed to traffic to let the runners through. Four members of the Vigilant Run Club registered to run the half marathon and today a few of them are a little more sore than your typical Monday morning.
Our very own 5* Athlete – an occasional Vigilant blogger – finished with the best Vigilante time of 1h 45mins, but the others did really well too. They looked as good yesterday as they did last week running the marathon in their matching Vigilant jerseys.
Members of the Vigilant Futures run club at the Montreal marathon
So for the past few months – each Wednesday – about six to eight Vigilantes meet in the lobby after work and jog through the streets of Montreal. The purpose: train for the Montreal Oasis Marathon.
In the lead up to the big event (which happens to be this coming weekend), some members of the Run Club donned a new Vigilant team jersey and oh-so-lovely and stylish head lamps to run the Energizer Night Race on Parc Jean Drapeau. Some got to the park more prepared than others with healthy snacks and drinks.
If you want to see the Vigilantes in action and in the dark with their great Vigilant gear, check out the rest of the photos at Vigilant Futures Flickr photostream.
On October 6, 2011 at a banquet for the Quebec regionals, Ernst & Young Canada will award its Entrepreneurs of the Year Award. Gabriel Bran Lopez will receive a special citation as the Social Entrepreneur of the year.
This special citation is a unique category among the awards. It’s given in recognition of an entrepreneur whose achievements have driven large-scale social change and improved people’s lives or quality of life. We all know about Gabriel’s work and the success of Youth Fusion, so it came as no surprise to us at Vigilant Futures he would be recognized with such a prestigious award.
We are constantly in awe of him. We’re humbled by his modesty and proud to work so closely with him, Youth Fusion, and the students they help every day.
Youth Fusion announced today something everyone here at Vigilant has known about for a short while! One of our co-founders, Arvind Ramanathan, was appointed a board member on the Board of Directors for Youth Fusion. We’re all pretty excited, especially Arvind.
Every Vigilante works with Youth Fusion in one way or another, but no one tops Arvind. He’s fully committed to Youth Fusion and the Youth Fusion kids. He’s involved with Youth Fusion in so many ways we’re glad he got the recognition he deserved for his hard work!
Youth Fusion already boasts some pretty big board members but we’re sure Arvind’s astute business acumen combined with his passion and that of Gabriel Bran Lopez’ – founder of Youth Fusion — to motivate teens to stay in school will serve Youth Fusion well.
Vigilant Futures won a very prestigious award last night in Hollywood, California. The company was one of 100 privately-held technology firms that made it to Red Herring’s Top 100 list for 2011.
Applicants submit their candidacy and Red Herring’s editorial staff narrows the applicants down to 200. Following this, the top 200 are invited to present information on their company to another panel of judges who finally award 100 companies with the honour.
