13th annual OCRI Awards

OCRI, Ottawa's economic development agency honoured Ottawa's best and brightest companies, executives and students for their innovative work and contributions to the city's knowledge-based sector at the 13th annual OCRI Awards gala and dinner. The awards celebrate excellence in the areas of research, technology, entrepreneurship, leadership, partnership development and student accomplishments. Nominations for the nine categories were solicited from Ottawa's business and education community last December. These companies are the future ... you should keep an eye on them. Congrats to the winners!!!

The following awards were presented:

Technology Company of the Year:
Awarded to Bridgewater Systems in recognition of the company's ongoing commitment to be the top provider of subscriber-centric service control solutions to a growing number of partners world-wide as well as their successful initial public offering and Toronto Stock Exchange listing which contributed to their status as an industry leader.

Next Generation Executive of the Year:
Awarded to John Roese, Chief Technology Officer, Nortel Networks, for the role he has played in the major transformation of the company's global R&D engine that ensures the company is well positioned to take advantage of opportunities in the rapidly changing (and converging) worlds of telecom and IT.

Most Promising Start-Up of the Year:
Awarded to Menova Energy Inc. for the work they have done to change the economics of solar energy with their entirely scalable, flexible deployment of a unique solar concentrating system.

Financial Deal of the Year:
Awarded to Mitel in recognition of their successful bid and acquisition of U.S. based Inter-Tel. The $729 million acquisition represents one of Ottawa's biggest financing deals in over 10 years and has created a company well on its way to achieving an international market leadership position.

Technology Partnership Commercialization:
Awarded to Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC) in recognition of their significant contribution to Canada's communications sector and their ongoing commitment to innovation and research over the past 50 years which includes spinning out more than 50 Ottawa based start-ups.

Service of the Year:
Awarded to bitHeads Inc. in acknowledgment of the considerable success achieved by the HeadGames division and the company's innovative service offering that helps clients get award-winning software and games to market faster.

Product of the Year:
Awarded to Ross Video Limited for their state-of-the-art, continually evolving product line which is used in broadcast, live event and production applications in over 100 countries, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Student Researcher of the Year:
Two awards were presented in this category. The first award was presented to Atif Shamim and Muhammad Arsalan of Carleton University for their research work in the field of wireless

The second award recipient is David Nadeau from the University of Ottawa for inspired research resulting in a more intelligent on-line search engine and his commercialization efforts which launched yooname.com last November and immediately led to a contract with a Montreal start-up.

High School Technology Innovator of the Year:
Awarded to Daniel André Vienneau from École secondaire catholique Garneau, Conseil des écoles catholiques de langue française du Centre-Est for his creation of 'Fotek' a very successful, non-profit, computer repair enterprise. Fotek's services are available to Garneau teaching staff, students and their families as well as residents of the Orléans area. Students who work for Fotek earn valuable community service hours which are applicable toward their high school diploma.