Episode 29: ReCollect

Drew and James jump pretty quickly into meetups since there is so much to get to this week! They do talk a little about company culture for hiring and things like transparent salaries. The guest this week is Luke Closs from ReCollect.

In 2009, Luke Closs created VanTrash, one of the first civic open data apps in Canada. The project was open source and just a side project. Eventually, VanTrash became ReCollect, a business to help municipalities communicate with citizens about waste collection. They realized that their open source project could provide real value to cities and local governments. Now they have multiple products and support multiple cities.

Interview Links

• Lukes Website


• ReCollect

Monday 6th

• Git Help! & 0-Tech (Decentral, 436 West Pender) 4:00 to 6:00 PM


• Brainstation (BrainStation YVR 1110 Hamilton St, 4th Floor) 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM $15.00


• PyLadies (Needs a Location *Planning Hangout) 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM

Tuesday 7th

• Open Coffee (Nelson the Seagull 315 Carrall Street) 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM


• Brainstation Vancouver (BrainStation Vancouver 1110 Hamilton Street #410) 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM


• Vancouver Rust (VPL, 350 W Georgia) 5:30 to 7:30 PM


• Vancouver Clojure (CodeCore, 142 W Hastings) 6:00 PM


• VanTUG (BCTIA Innovation Hub, Great Northern Way) 6:00 PM


• Polyglot Vancouver (St Regis 608 Dunsmuir St) 6:00 PM


• Vancouver PHP (RED Academy 200 - 1490 West Broadway) 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM


• RED Academy (RED Academy 200 - 1490 West Broadway) 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM


• RED Academy (RED Academy 200 - 1490 West Broadway) 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM


• ReactJS (Mobify, 3rd Floor, 948 Homer) 6:30 PM *(waitlist)

Wednesday 8th

• Learn Data Science (SFU VentureLabs Harbour Centre 555 W Hastings St #1200) 6:00 PM

Thursday 9th

• DDD/CQRS/ES Practitioners (Decentral Vancouver 436 West Pender Street) 4:30 PM to 7:00 PM


• ODDBALL: Remote Vancouver (Needs a location) 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM


• IMPACT Career Fair (Science World at TELUS World of Science 1455 Quebec Street) 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM


• CodeCore Demo Day (CodeCore 142 W Hastings St.) 6:00 PM


• Mainland Advanced Research Society (St. Regis Bar & Grill 608 Dunsmuir Street) 6:00 PM


• Vancouver Javascript (SFU - Harbour Centre 515 W Hastings St) 7:00 PM to 8:45 PM

Friday 10th

• Spring U Demo Day (Unbounce Suite #400 - 401 W. Georgia St.) 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Saturday 11th

• Hack against Breast Cancer (Launch Academy 300-128 W. Hastings) 9:30 AM to 11:00 PM


• Open Source Circular Economy Hackathon (The HiVE 128 W Hastings St #210) 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Theme music by A Shell In The Pit from the game Parkitect