A new group in Halifax is encouraging collaboration in IT, the arts and other disciplines, and is beginning to have an impact on the city’s startup community.

Collect is a loose organization that brings together creators – anyone with their own idea or an enthusiasm for other people’s ideas – for weekly sessions. They exchange ideas in such fields as art, design, music or software and work on promising concepts. It’s a bit hackathon, a bit kitchen party, a bit gab session.

“We see it as the very top of the funnel for the startup world where people just meet up, talk, discuss ideas,” Co-Founder Sam Silver told Entrevestor.

Added the other Co-Founder Noah Barrett: “People early in their careers or pursuits are able to be in the same room as experts, and work together informally. Knowledge transfer from folks well along on their career to early-stage folks happens frequently on our space, and appears to be equally rewarding on both sides.”

The pair started Collect in Barrett’s apartment building in October 2024, and there are now more than 370 people who subscribe to its calendar. The group hosts sessions each Thursday evening at Volta, and about 15 to 20 people attend each session. As well as Volta, the group teams up with Dalhousie’s Computer Science Faculty as well as ShiftKey Labs, the IT sandbox.

Last month, the group held a demo day, which featured 18 presentations and 150 registrants. “So far we've held over 50 events including two buildathons – our take on a hackathon,” said Barrett.

The participants include a lot of software developers but people from other disciplines show up as well. Silver said the goal is not to build tools powered by artificial intelligence, but AI is so prevalent in the IT world that some of the ideas involve AI.

Along the same lines, the goal is not to create startups, but some of the ideas have come close to being launched as companies, and Barrett and Silver helped to co-found a young company after hanging out at Collect.

The pair are co-founders of Thalios AI, a Halifax startup that has developed Thalios Edge, an adaptable, acoustic-based vessel detection solution for remote maritime settings. As well as detecting vessels, it can classify and track them.

The five-member team – all with computer science degrees – also includes Dr. Bruno Padovese, Jessica Doman, and Henry Wang.

Silver said the technology could be used by government bodies or conservationists and could have military applications. The company will likely announce some developments in the coming months, he said.

Said Silver: “When you surround yourself with great people, you yourself become elevated so we really found ourselves elevated within Collect.”