We recently attended the Trend Hunter Future Festival World Summit at The Westin Harbour Castle in downtown Toronto where we got to check out some awesome startups in tech, fashion and entertainment.
Trend Hunter is a trends, innovation and trend spotting community that offers annual trend reports on style, gadgets, tech, pop culture, art, design and fashion.
The event ran for 3 days at the beginning of October and brought 700 innovators from leading brands around the world such as Netflix, Adidas, Google and more to experience future-forward trends and innovation. The information these companies gathered will help them prototype the future, using the same award-winning innovation workshops that Trend Hunter CEO, Jeremy Gutsche used to help NASA prototype the journey to Mars.
On top of finding out about cool new trends, the Future Festival World Summit featured engaging keynotes, trend safaris, fully immersive tech, VR and AR immersions.
Here are some of the cool companies we discovered.
KoyGear – A local company that call themselves “the makers of invisible technical menswear”. They make underwear, socks and t-shirts currently. They began with a Kickstarter to make ‘The World’s Most Breathable and Odourless Underwear’. They aimed to have high-quality clothing, with good design and a more competitive price.
The Good Tee – “have fun with fashion” with an environmentally friendly lens. All of their products are sustainably sourced and keep the planet in mind at every step of their creation. Designers keep up with current trends while keeping a minimal and playful look.
T-shirts are made with 100% organic cotton and their sweaters combine organic cotton with 15% recycled polyester. Garments are sourced from Stanley/Stella which are Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certified and they are also members of the Fair Wear Foundation, an independent multistakeholder organization that works with garment brands, garment workers and industry influencers to improve labour conditions in garment factories. The inks The Good Tee uses for printing are all eco-friendly and vegan.
North Eyewear – This smart eyewear brand was founded in 2012 by three graduates of the University of Waterloo – Stephen Lake, Matthew Bailey and Aaron Grant. The company has grown to include a team of engineers, researchers, designers and creators that aim to create tech eyewear for the future.
Sprout Collection – Keep your clothing style fresh with this company that lets you rent clothes on a monthly plan or as a one off. Plans start at $119/month.
Envision TO – EnvisionTO is a portal for experiencing and re-imagining Toronto’s historical topography. Using Toronto’s diverse catalogue, city archive documents, and Ontario Heritage Trust models, our city will be re-created from pre-confederate Toronto to the present – in 3D.
Trees for the Future – Trees for the Future is dedicated to improving impoverished areas in environmental distress. Over 113 million trees have been planted with tens of thousands of farmers in over two dozen countries since 1989.
Wish Play – Wishplay uses virtual reality so patients of all ages can experience the world beyond their illness or circumstance.
We provide an escape beyond the four walls of their room, reduce their pain, and in many cases we grant last wishes so loved ones can experience something truly special.
ARnocular – provides a platform to revolutionize how the user interacts with the surrounding world. By utilizing Augmented Reality Technology, we re-imagine digestion of information in the contexts of tourism and local use cases.
ARnocular is instantly enabled to integrate visual layers of information into the viewfinder of the device’s smart camera. Just install an application from the ARnocular platform and you’re ready to go.
Just Vertical – FURNITURE THAT FEEDS YOU – The smell of fresh herbs, the crunch of fresh greens, the taste of a fresh strawberry. Modern gardening for classic living.
Occupied Virtual Reality – OCCUPIED is a full-service VR/AR/XR production house located in Toronto, Canada. Fixed on pushing the limits of immersive technology, Occupied has proven itself as one of the most innovative XR production houses in the world. Over the past 5 years Occupied has developed their own custom pipelines that combine the disciplines of Photogrammetry, Videogrammetry, Game Design, App Development, and Cinematic 360˚ Filmmaking.
