Josh Hoggan

After receiving the BC Superintendents Award in his graduating year of high school, Josh briefly attended the now-defunct Center for Digital Imaging and Sound (later rebranded The Art Institute of Vancouver) for a certificate in Virtual Environment Interactive Design. The program focused on basic web design, streaming media, audio and video editing, and various other technological tools.

Graduating from the program, he spent a year and a half employed by an internet marketing agency in downtown Vancouver before focusing on Koingo Software full-time.

Shortly thereafter, Koingo Software was featured by numerous publications such as MacAddict, Mac|Life, MacWorld, and more. MacCleanse, the flagship application of Koingo, briefly held number-one position on Apple's Mac App Store.

According to Josh's blog, his pursuit of real estate began "after an interaction with an elderly man who sat next to [him] at Blenz coffee in Kelowna in early 2011."[3] The man allegedly exclaimed "how the best investments of his life were in real estate." With excess capital from Koingo Software, Josh launched Koingo Estates and purchased numerous entry-level homes in Castlegar, British Columbia. The years that followed saw Koingo Estates through over seventy tenancies, numerous renovations, purchased and sales. Shifting towards a focus in executive-level homes, instead of lower-income housing, Koingo Estates sold the majority of its holdings in 2018. It now owns three properties in Kelowna, Kamloops and Calgary.

After moving to Kelowna in December of 2010, Josh launched an internet portal called HikingAddiction as a resource for the local community. It indexes the majority of the local hiking trails in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. It includes detailed trail metrics, as well as downloadable GPS maps. For almost ten years, Josh hosted free weekend hikes for those in the area[4]. The hiking group has branches in Victoria (under the brand HikeTheIsland) and Kamloops as well.

Josh was featured with HikingAddiction in publications such as Western Living Magazine[5], as well as the following year in a follow-up[6], CBC radio in spring of 2016, 2018 and 2020[7], Issuu (Spring/Summer 2014): Your Style by Wade Paterson[8], Castanet[9], Kelowna Now[10], and numerous hiking articles with Tourism Kelowna.[11]

A trip to Peru to hike the Salkantay trail to Machu Picchu inspired Josh to later launch his online travel blog Adventure Josh in 2015. Following his Peru trip, Josh continued to visit an additional thirty-four countries over the next five years and filmed the documentary "Explore India with Adventure Josh."

In 2017, Josh participated in an episode of Seller's Market called "Time to Move" which sparked his interest in film. He later went on to acquire his Introduction to the Motion Picture Industry certificate.

He volunteered as a background actor during his time in Victoria in 2018 with Keywork Designs. The short-film is entitled "Picture Perfect" and was sponsored by Telus and Storyhive[12] and piqued his interest due to his interest in dystopian fiction. The film portrays future where individuals push around mannequins in their daily lives that are dressed to represent their best selves and daily mood.

In summer of 2018, after returning to Kelowna from launching HikeTheIsland in Victoria, Josh briefly entered politics.[13] He had goal of addressing the prominent drug and homelessness issues[14][15][16][17] while also refusing the mayoral salary[18].

After two months of researching the complex local social issues, Josh exited the mayoral race. He felt he lacked the necessary experience to fill the lead role[19], and considered running for council member in the future instead.

Josh is community-active and has provided a number of social gatherings via his clubs in the various cities he has resided. These events are primarily hosted at his home and are of no cost. He founded clubs in Nelson, New Zealand, Victoria, Kamloops and Kelowna under different brands. The longest-running being Adventure Kelowna (temporarily rebranded as Sophisticated Social[20]).

His most well recognized events include in-home escape rooms[21][22][23], shared canvas art nights, spontaneous cook night, as well as trivia and gameshow events.