A monthly speaker series for Ottawa’s operators, founders, and the curious.
Once a month, we get a small group of people together in a cafe, hand the floor to someone who’s spent years thinking about something interesting, and let the conversation do what it does.
Ottawa has sharp people. Most of them never end up in the same room.
Conferences are too big. Networking events are too thin. And the cafes where most of us actually do our best thinking are usually full of strangers on laptops.
So we made a room. Once a month, one person stands up and talks for forty-five minutes about a topic they actually know well. Then we sit down and talk for another hour. About thirty-five of us. Same shape every time.
That’s the whole thing.
Here’s what to expect.
It’s a small format and we’ve worked to make it feel that way.
Doors
6:30 PM. You arrive, grab a drink, and find a name tag. We've thought about who you should meet.
Talk
7:00 PM. Forty-five minutes. One person on a topic they know deeply — long enough to get somewhere, short enough you're never bored.
Q&A
7:45 PM. Fifteen minutes of questions, mostly the genuine kind. The room asks; the speaker answers.
Conversations
8:00 PM. An hour of open conversation. You stay or leave depending on the night. Doors close around nine.
The intellectually curious.
If you’ve ever read something and thought “I wish I knew more people who’d want to talk about this,” it’s probably for you.
Founders building things in Ottawa — SaaS, services, agencies, indie projects
Students from Carleton and uOttawa who are paying attention to what's coming next
People who run businesses and care about doing them well
Researchers happy to translate their work into something the rest of us can hold
The intellectually curious — the kind of person who would just as happily come for a philosophy night as a startup night
We cap it at thirty-five so the room stays the right size. If you want to bring a friend, please do — they just have to RSVP themselves.
People who’ve spent serious time on something.
We pick speakers on three criteria: real expertise, ability to hold a room, and a topic that actually translates outside their field. Some are professors. Some are founders who’ve built things you’ve used. Some are researchers from places like the Ottawa Hospital or the National Research Council.
Carleton University: Sprott, Computer Science, TIM, Sociology, Philosophy
uOttawa: Telfer, Common Law, Brain & Mind Research Institute
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute · National Research Council
The Ottawa founder ecosystem: Shopify alumni, indie operators, agency leaders
The applied AI scene: researchers, builders, and the people calling the bluffs
If you know someone you think would be perfect, tell us about them. Including yourself.
Next session
The next TOCO Talks date, speaker, and venue will be announced on Luma. Thirty-five seats. One night a month.
Join the next room.
Follow the Luma page to get the next speaker drop, date, and venue as soon as they go live.
Before every talk.
Usually $5–15. Sometimes free if we're able to secure the venue. The reason we charge when we do isn't revenue — paid events just have meaningfully better attendance than free ones, and we want the room to be real.
For the early talks, yes. We're being thoughtful about who's in the room while we get the format right. It's not a tough application; we just want to know people are showing up for the right reasons. Once the series is established, we'll likely open it up to RSVP.
Please do. They just need to RSVP themselves so we can keep track of the count.
Usually, with the speaker's permission. If you can't make it in person, sign up for the email list and we'll send you the recording.
Why we built this.
I’m Mohamed, one of the co-founders of TOCO.
I started TOCO Talks because I kept noticing something. The best conversations I have — the ones I think about for weeks afterward — almost never happen at conferences or panels. They happen in small rooms, with a handful of thoughtful people, after one person has just said something that makes everyone lean forward.
I wanted more of those rooms in Ottawa. So we’re making them.
This isn’t really a TOCO product. We host it because we think it’s a good thing for the city, not because we expect it to turn into clients. If you ever decide you want to work with us on the marketing or AI side of TOCO, great. If not, also great. The room is the point.
I hope you can come.
— Mohamed
Co-Founder, TOCO