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Island programmer helping neighbours buy transit tickets, take out their garbage

Oak Bay programmer hones his skills solving real-world problems, with a boost from Google
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Oak Bay programmer Tyler Weeres spends downtime crafting new programs to help make his life easier. Work such as a regional transit map of where to buy a bus ticket and emailed garbage pickup reminders are catching some attention in the community. (Christine van Reeuwyk/News Staff)

Oak Bay residents are more on the ball than ever with trash day since a neighbour developed a program to prompt email reminders.

A self-professed side project addict, Tyler Weeres created a program that emails a user (with an Oak Bay residence) a notification the day before their garbage pickup.

He’s worked as a programmer since 2009 after graduating from the University of Victoria. Currently working for a small company called DataDocks, where he’s all about product and data development, Weeres enjoys side hustles started early in his career. Aside from fun, they’re tools for learning new technology and honing his craft.

“One day I hope to start my own software company and the more of these things I build the better I get at it.”

An early project was a scoreboard to track competition with his brothers in ongoing video game and sports battles.

“I built anything that solved my own problems,” he said.

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Similarly, in a digital version of throwing hockey sticks in a pile ahead of scrimmage, he created Teamify which divvies up a list of participants into random teams. As a side bonus, it randomly generates humorous team names.

He slowly layers on the skill sets. It’s one thing to realize “this works on my phone,” it’s another to share it with the world, he noted.

Lately, he’s worked on how to share the product so others can benefit. Built and now ready to share, Weeres recently alerted neighbours on social media to the Oak Bay garbage notification program. He was surprised at the uptake – about 130 people have signed up.

Another program is seeing a more global uptick. Trying to fiddle about with the website listing where to buy transit tickets in Greater Victoria led to a 2019 problem-solving program – a map plotting them from Sooke to Sidney and everywhere in between.

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He finished in February that year, with family and friends using it. Putting his recently learned copywriting and marketing skills to use, Weeres built a website opening the map to the public in November 2021.

“That one was cool because I put it on the internet and months later I got an email from Google,” he said.

The January email said the worldwide search engine would be sending searchers his way.

Every month 250 to 300 folks looking to buy transit tickets visit his site.

Weeres plans to keep chipping away at the best of his many ideas (find some online at tweeres.ca/projects) while maintaining a digital list of potential programs, sourced from everyday life.

“That’s where most of these have come from,” he said. “I think about them when I’m out and about.”

christine.vanreeuwyk@blackpress.ca


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Christine van Reeuwyk

About the Author: Christine van Reeuwyk

I'm dedicated to serving the community of Oak Bay as a senior journalist with the Greater Victoria news team.
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