• I studied / lived there for a number of years
• the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is located there
• the large number of high-tech companies in the area

Although Ottawa tried to claim that it was “Silicon Valley North” in the late 90s & early 2000s, it always felt as though the really cool stuff was going on in KW. Looks as though that trend has continued – KW is home to one of Canada’s newest hacker spaces, the Kwartzlab (pronounced quartz-lab).

Back in the 90s I read about l0pht and used to think that KW was the perfect environment to set up something similar, given the large # of factory lofts available in the cities, and the technical prowess of a large percentage of the population. Looks like Kwartzlab has a nice setup too – nearly 1600 sq. ft of hacker space goodness. From the looks of their Youtube channel, there are some interesting projects underway.

Will definitely have to drop in the next time I visit KW.