This spring, three events in the Hacking Reality series at the Academy of the Impossible were dedicated to crowdfunding, in response to the growth in curiosity about these platforms. Creative entrepreneurship can only thrive with the increased digital opportunities for anyone with a few digital dollars to spend to play a role in product development.

Yet the fact that Kickstarter continues to be technically unavailable to Canadians has also added to a perception problem. Growing awareness that a campaign needs to have its funds funnelled through someone in the U.S. — in order to access an associated Amazon Payments account — has landed the platform in the category associated with satellite dishes or radar detectors.

When the Pebble watch recently scored more than $10 million in backing via Kickstarter it concurrently drew more attention to how the concept of a crowdfunded venture remains behind the curve in Canada. Eric Migicovsky, the Vancouver-born University of Waterloo graduate whose customizable wrist device has been capitalized with more than 100 times its original goal, may not have needed to reside in Palo Alto to imagine the Bluetooth gizmo — but successful startups are generally a product of the environment from which they originate.

With no indication of plans by Kickstarter to break beyond the Amazon payment system technically limited to U.S. residents, a platform called Ideavibes has announced its intentions to step up, with the hope that the Canadian government will follow the legitimization of crowdfunding. For now, the opportunity for an American donor to get equity in a program through the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act has no equivalent around here.

Kickstarter has gained considerable steam in 2012, as reflected in its 70 per cent annual growth in pledges in the first three months, a period in which videogame designer Tim Schafer took in a $3.3 million advance for his project Double Fine.

Not only it is now considered realistic for an idea to exceed $1 million in advance crowdfunding, but more physical spaces are certain to surface on the website, after a proposal to build LowLine, the first underground park in New York City, met with mass media enthusiasm.

The concept has been slower to catch on in Canada, though, partly because Kickstarter remains inaccessible to those who lack access to a U.S. bank account. But anyone imaginative enough to raise money for a project from scratch can figure out a workaround.

Live events were our primary form of interface in January and February as we established operations at the Academy of the Impossible at 231 Wallace Ave. in downtown Toronto, under the umbrella of Hacking Reality, which has covered a range of topics related to social media and tactical technology.

Campaign School has proven to be a draw on Sunday afternoons — with MPs Andrew Cash and Carolyn Bennett and city councillor Shelley Carroll joining new and returning students to discuss what was involved in their successful bids for public office. Bill Fox, who was at the forefront behind the scenes for Brian Mulroney throughout the 1980s, will drop by on March 11. Future sessions will alternate between special guests and participatory forums.

YouTube School is another Sunday afternoon fixture, in which we look into how the evolving online video platform serves both consumers and producers of media, through browsing on a screen rather than a retail store. The new channel-focused strategy, Super Bowl commercials and other forms of advertising, the evolution of viral videos and the role of music videos have been starting points for sessions, at which anyone can have a say in what is shown.