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IrelandMike Nickason trades forklift shifts for AI-built live maps
CTV News follows the KW Live founder's move into software, with startup support in place and a public launch still ahead.
CTV News
Story of Why this story? One of the most watched videos since yesterday, with 118,110 views.
AI vibe coding changes a local man’s life path
Things we can learn from the video
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- 0:45Nickason explains discovering that AI could generate code despite his lack of technical experience.
- 0:52He describes startup-program acceptance and infrastructure credits from Google, Amazon and Cloudflare.
- 1:44KW Live combines regional scanner information, traffic and emergency reports on a live map.
- 2:43Communitech and the Accelerator Centre are helping prepare the service for a public launch.
- 3:00Nickason describes the purpose he finds in building software and his ambition to expand internationally.
Mike Nickason wanted to put a fire scanner on a map. That idea became part of KW Live, a platform bringing traffic, scanner information and emergency reports into a live picture of Ontario's Waterloo Region.
The unexpected part is his route to building it: two decades driving a forklift, followed by discovering that he could make software by giving AI instructions in ordinary language. CTV News's report on that change has drawn about 120,000 views in its first 23 hours.
Reporter Krista Sharpe-Kilpatrick follows Nickason through what's known as "vibe coding": describing what you want a program to do and having AI generate the code. At his computer, he demonstrates how different streams of regional information can share a map rather than remain separate sources.
Ruth Casselman, CEO of the Accelerator Centre, explains what that opens up for people without engineering backgrounds. "It enables them to have their vision come to life, and you can speak to it in generally pretty plain language," she says.
Nickason says he has been accepted into startup support programs from Google, Amazon and Cloudflare, receiving infrastructure credits. Those are credits for services, not cash investment. Communitech and the Accelerator Centre are helping him work toward a public launch.
That distinction matters: this is a founder building toward a service, not a demonstration of an established business. Viewers raise questions about software security and whether the platform is publicly available, alongside the report's personal transformation story.
For Nickason, the work itself has already made a difference. "This has been my fuel for the last six months," he says.
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- Channel
- CTV News
- Subscribers
- 2,430,000 ▲ 10,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 23,052,445
- Channel views, pace per day
- 1,443,140 (on a normal day: 3,787,501)
- Video published
- November 2, 2026
- Video views so far
- 43,168 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 65,287
The numbers
The report reached a substantial audience before its first full day was over.
💡 Test your knowledge
Which Ontario region does KW Live map in CTV's report?
The demonstration shows KW Live combining real-time information about Waterloo Region.