Innovation Week kicked off in St. John’s yesterday with a blue chip panel dispensing advice and five young companies presenting their products at DemoCamp.

As is usually the case with startup events in St. John’s, Innovation Week is supported by a groundswell of support from the grassroots. StartupNL, which began in 2012, now has almost 250 members and many of them packed the Common Grounds co-working space for the first two events.

The first Innovation Week in St. John’s is featuring a series of events, including some aligned with established institutions like the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Technical Industries, or NATI, and the Genesis Centre of Memorial University. The goal is to heighten the awareness and the $1.6 billion-a-year tech industry in the province.

“We talk about doubling the size of the tech sector in Newfoundland by2015, and to do that we only have to create about 400 jobs a year,” said Ron Taylor, CEO of NATI. “Innovation Week is the type of event that is going to drive that growth.”

The event began with a fireside chat from  four veterans of the startup world: Patrick Keefe, Partner at Build Ventures; Dan Martell, Founder of Clarity; Mark Kennedy, Founder of Celtx; and Gordon Freedman, Founder of Freedman and Associates.

Freedman and Associates is an Ottawa-based patent and trade-mark agency, and has an office in St. John’s staffed by Carol Ann Thomas. Freedman himself has been involved in several startups in Canada and the U.S. He offered great insights. For instance, one audience member said he was reluctant to discuss his ideas with potential funders because they might be stolen, and Freedman responded: “Ideas are actually useless. Execution is what actually makes money and you need to partner with people who can help you execute.”

In the evening, there were demonstrations by five young startups, three of which have been featured on Entrevestor before. The five entrepreneurs were:

-   Scott Stevenson of Arc Instruments. Arc has prototyped a new musical instrument that allows electronic musicians to hold something the audience can actually see, thereby enhancing the performance. (Electronic musicians now play a platform that sits flat on a table.) Stevenson said the company is working on a more “manufacturable” product, after which it plans to launch it on Kickstarter.

-  Joseph Teo of StudentFresh. The finalist in Canada’s Business Model Contest helps students find contract work within their main area of interest with local businesses. It is now launching its private beta test.

-  Keith Makse of Red Meat Games. The game maker, who previously launched Steam and Steel, is launching Cute Samarai, a free-to-play mobile game. He is launching the endless-runner-formatted game in Canada before taking it to the global market.

-  Chesley Brown of RentChek. RentCeck is low-cost property management tool for landlords, which helps perform such tasks as issuing receipts to tenants. Brown said it has several features and he is considering such functions as keeping tracks of expenses and allowing tenants to report things that need to be repaired. Brown plans to compete with other similar apps on price, charging owners of four or more units a dollar a month per unit.

-  Matthew Stenback and Adam Puddicombe of Brownie Points. The company has a customer loyalty tool for small retailers, and has developed a data analytics tool for merchants. It even has tools that allow the merchants to contact customers who haven’t visited the establishment lately and tell them what they can buy with the points they’ve amassed. The company now has 17 clients in St. John’s, 16 in Halifax and one in Ontario.