Weekend Edition features Colin Rees and Daniel Rizzi, co-founders of We-Watch

We used to have a sign in our window. I remember it from when I was a teenager. As I was writing this, I was trying to bring the image to mind and a lot of memories ran through my mind.

Originally, I grew up in some pretty tough neighbourhoods. In one, a train track ran through right in front of our yard. It was only used a couple of times a day and it was slow moving. I used to put a penny on the track and watch it get flattened. I didn’t realize that we lived, literally, on the “wrong side of the tracks.”

It was a tough place to grow up. Lot of fights. Lot of crime. I don’t think we had a lot of robberies. We didn’t have much to steal. But my mom worried about it. We always had locks on the door.

I was a bright kid in a tough neighbourhood. Not a great thing to be.  I was sought out for beatings. It wasn’t just name calling. I ran and hid and later, got tougher and sometimes fought to just ensure that the bullies would leave me alone. I hated it.

But then something happened in my life.  Long story, but I ended up moving to a new neighbourhood in a new city.  I remember looking at the houses – most relatively new.  The yards were clean and well kept. It was a real community.

I’m sure we did lock our doors, but it wasn’t a big deal. After all, the neighbours kept an eye out on the house (as I found out after I had a party when my parents went away for the weekend. Ooops! The neighbours did keep an eye on the house.

Looking back, I should have known better. It wasn’t just the neighbours, it was the whole neighbourhood. They even had signs saying “neighbourhood watch.”

How many of you grew up in a neighbourhood like that?  With the neighbours watching out for each other, saying hi and waving, keeping and eye on each others’ houses? Maybe you even had a neighbourhood watch?

What happened to that group, I wondered? Is it a relic of the past?  Can it survive in the digital age?  For many people, our relationships with friends is now not with neighbours, it’s with people we meet and socialize with online. So what happens to the idea of neighbourhood?  Is it still viable?

My guests today might say that it is possible. In fact, they’ve made it their entrepreneurial mission. Colin Rees and Daniel Rizzi are the founders of We-Watch, a new technology enabled neighbourhood watch.