Specializing in advanced deposition technology, Iridian’s focus on R&D and product diversification in the photonics industry has kept them at the forefront of optical filter design and manufacture

 Why Ottawa

Located in the high tech campus of the National Research Council (NRC), Iridian takes advantage of the great tradition of research and innovation in the Ottawa Region. The company also benefits from the world class talent available at the NRC and in Ottawa’s wider high tech community.

For example, Iridian’s past President and CEO, Peter Dawson, was the founding director of the NRC’s Institute for Microstructural Science, responsible for 125 employees and the institute’s strategic planning and operations. He now serves as Iridian’s Chairman. Brian Sullivan, Vice President and CTO, developed Iridian’s initial technology at the NRC. The leadership team also takes advantage of NRC’s talent pool, as several other NRC researchers have also migrated to Iridian.

Ottawa’s rich Information Technology Communications (ICT) sector provides additional intellectual capital to the company. This includes Iridian’s President, George Laframboise, who was Director of Operations and Manager of Manufacturing for the Bank of Canada’s Security Device project for protecting Canadian currency.

Business advantage

Iridian builds optical film, which is constructed of microstructures that use the properties of the materials they consist of to manipulate light. This light is then harnessed for use by Iridian customers in the various sectors which require photonics, such as large telecommunications vendors, laser manufacturers, and Raman spectroscopy and biophotonics equipment vendors.

Iridian specializes in advanced deposition technology, which gives it a unique edge in optical filter design and manufacture. The company’s PrecisionSpectrum@IST, is an advanced software system to control the design, deposition and process of producing the optical filters and coating services.

Another Iridian system, PrecisionScan@IST, is an optical characterization and filter processing technology that ensures the highest quality output.

These two specialized systems gives Iridian increased design flexibility and improved production speed. The result is the production of dense, robust optical films that are very durable. So durable, in fact, that they can be used in the rigors of space exploration.

In October 2007, the company officially opened a new production facility that is housing its Lens Division. This facility offers increased automation and high volume, to ensure low cost to customers, allowing Iridian to branch out into:

• filter lenses for the 3D glasses used in movie theaters
• beam splitters
• high volume anti-reflection coatings for optical components
• other custom applications

In January, 2009, Iridian announced large-form factor optical filters that can be used on Night Vision display systems. Called NVIS filters, these complement the already vast array of optical filters that customers can come to expect from Iridian.

Taking pride in superior service and support, Iridian works closely with customers to determine the most effective and cost-efficient solutions. With a commitment to quality, service, technology, and partnership, Iridian offers standards and quality that has earned the company an enduring global leadership position in the photonics industry.

Future Growth Plans

Iridian continues to diversify available products and services. New offerings include the company’s NIVIS filtersand filter lenses for 3D glasses. Iridian is also working to present a more integrated service to customers. With its new facility, the company can offer completely assembled glasses and goggles containing optical filters. Iridian maintains a strong focus on research and development, to progress the technologies the company uses to produce optical filters and coatings. 

Contact information

Iridian Spectral Technologies
+1-613-741-4513 ex. 266
www.iridian.ca

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An example of U.S. President Barack Obama’s vision for urban America already exists less than 100 km from the U.S. border – in Ottawa, Canada. It’s the same city, and the only Canadian city, that McKinsey & Co., partnered with the World Economic Forum, has dubbed an “Innovation Hot Spring”. Innovation Hot Springs are fast-growing hubs on track to becoming world players.

Source: Juan Alcacer, Harvard Business School and New York University; McKinsey analysis

Like all major Canadian cities, Ottawa is densely populated, safe, has a strong middle class, and good public schools. Canada offers universal healthcare, an open immigration policy, and a strong social safety net – programs Americans justifiably aspire to, but do not yet enjoy. Ottawa also boasts more than 1,800 technology companies and a recession-buffering government sector due to its national capital designation.

Prof. Richard Florida, who moved from Washington D.C. to become director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto to continue his pioneering work on the role of the creative class, has confirmed Ottawa’s desirability. The award-winning author of Who’s Your City, Canadian Edition, rates Ottawa “Best Overall” for families, mid-career professionals and retirees, with close seconds for singles (behind Calgary) and empty nesters (behind Toronto). As well, at 43%, Ottawa has a higher proportion of creative class workers than any city in Canada and also beats out New York, San Francisco and London, England.

McKinsey’s analysis of the world’s most successful innovation clusters shows that they have first established themselves as world-class players in an emerging specialty before expanding. This focus allows them to concentrate limited resources, such as labour and capital, on developing competence and credibility. When successful, the result of these first two steps is the emergence of an “Innovation Hot Spring”. This is a small and fast-growing hub that relies on a small number of companies to establish itself as a relevant world player in a narrow sector, such as Ottawa did with its Information Communications Technology (ICT) sector in the 90s.

McKinsey & Co. data now suggests that Ottawa is on its way to becoming a “Dynamic Ocean” on the world innovation map. While focus is critical for emerging innovation hubs, as they mature, they broaden their portfolios of businesses and sectors. This diversification is vital to the long-term survival of an innovation centre, allowing it to overcome unavoidable downturns that affect specific sectors and providing the impetus for continuous reinvention. New investors typically emerge in adjacent industries, or as hubs attract non-local players that want to capitalize on local infrastructure and available talent.

For Ottawa, adjacent industries to the city’s traditional ICT core include cleantech, defence and security, digital media and gaming, health and drug discovery, photonics, and wireless. Meanwhile, following the McKinsey model, non-local players including RIM, IBM, Adobe and Alcatel have taken advantage of Ottawa’s abundant population of creative class workers to staff significant R&D campuses across the city. These global companies are attracted to Ottawa’s deep talent pool where Florida’s data indicates that 25% of the population aged 25 and up have at least a four-year degree, and Statistics Canada indicates one in nine employees is a scientist or engineer.

A city that Mercer Human Resource Consulting ranks among the least expensive in Canada for cost of living, Ottawa also offers rich culture and recreation options. With over 50 festivals throughout the year and a vibrant nightlife, Canada’s Capital is home to a variety of National institutions including the Museum of Civilization, the Museum of Nature, the Museum of Science and Technology, the National Art Gallery and the National Arts Centre. For outdoor enthusiasts, Ottawa is in the midst of a giant outdoor playground featuring mountains, beaches, camping, skiing, golfing and hundreds of freshwater lakes, over 850 parks, 300 kms of biking trails and over 200 kms of cross country ski trails to enjoy.

Jump into Ottawa’s dynamic ocean of innovation, build your company with the city’s well educated creative class, and prosper while you enjoy abundant cultural and recreational opportunities. It’s all here, come join us!

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MapleWorks Technology Inc., a leader in software development outsourcing solutions and services for the developers and providers of voice, data and video convergence products and services (network communications industries), has established itself as a top-tier firm for on-shore software development. MapleWorks differentiates itself through well established Mission, Vision and Value statements. The company’s underlying Vision is viewed as the “Gold” standard in performance, as measured by innovation, quality and reliability within the Telecom/Datacom industry. At MapleWorks, corporate Values (People, Customers, Communication, Ethics and Passion) are showcased on a daily basis, and as part of the Company’s Mission, MapleWorks focusses on providing superior software development outsourcing services to developers of voice, data and video convergence products.

With close to eighty employees, MapleWorks offers a dynamic opportunity to work with leading-edge telecom and networking software technologies in a fast-paced, project-oriented environment. Privately owned, profitable and currently experiencing 50 percent plus growth, MapleWorks is mentored by an industry-savvy Board of Directors and Board of Advisors.

Why Ottawa

MapleWorks is situated in the ideal location, the Ottawa Capital Region (Silicon Valley North), to deliver quality, effective onshore outsourcing needs. In a recent study, Gartner analysts ranked seven countries in the “Americas” (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico and Uruguay) on ten criteria in order to determine their value in offering outsourcing services. The criteria for a viable outsourcing country included: language skills, government support, labor pool, infrastructure, educational system, cost, political/economic environment, cultural compatibility, global/legal maturity, and data/IP security and privacy. Canada placed first in the rankings, showing “excellent” or “very good” results in all ten categories, proving that the country is ideal for onshore outsourcing opportunities. In fact, Canada ranked among the top two in the world.

MapleWorks purposely established itself in Canada’s Silicon Valley, and the company has made significant strides in bringing onshore outsourcing solutions to the North American market. With the company’s Canadian location, onshore outsourcing will typically cost a company 35% less than it would to hire developers in-house, and with MapleWorks there is no language barrier and there is guaranteed IP protection.

With more than 1,800 technology companies in the area, the Ottawa Tech Region’s opportunities for technological innovation are ever-increasing. Ottawa is an established global technology center, with a strong mix of multinational organizations and small to medium-sized businesses. Ottawa contains the second highest concentration of science and engineering employment in North America and is one of the world’s top sites for R&D. Ranked as Canada’s most sustainable city, Ottawa is Canada’s least expensive city for cost of living, and is in the Top 20 in the world for quality of life.

Business advantage

MapleWorks provides outsourcing services from Canada that typically cost a company 35% less than it would to hire developers in-house. There is no language barrier (as can be the case with other countries where work is outsourced) and there is guaranteed IP protection. In addition, geopolitical stability in Canada ensures there is no risk to a client’s project.

MapleWorks differentiates itself from its competitors through its unique design methodology. Comprised of five stages, MapleWorks OnTrack™ is a well-established software development outsourcing (SDO) methodology that combines a traditional waterfall software development model with the current Agile model. The five stages of the OnTrack Design Methodology include: Stage 1 – Assess Requirements, Stage 2 – Architect and Design, Stage 3 – Implement Software, Stage 4 – Quality Assurance Testing, and Stage 5 – Acceptance and IP Transfer.

To ensure that its customers’ end solutions are on the mark, MapleWorks’ project managers act as the liaison between the customer and MapleWorks itself. MapleWorks’ project manager’s regular communications with the customer throughout the five stages of the OnTrack Design Methodology give customers confidence that MapleWorks will deliver a high quality solution that works, is on schedule, and is cost-effective.

MapleWorks’ employees have an average of fifteen-plus years in the network communications industry, and continually track new and emerging technologies. MapleWorks has a long-standing reputation for delivering projects on-time and on-budget, and the Company’s management philosophy is customer-focused, operates in a fluid environment and adapts to each client’s development processes.

Future growth plans

In the short-term, MapleWorks continues to scale the company, and over the next 12 to 18 months, MapleWorks intends to grow revenues in excess of $10 million. In the long-term, the company’s plan is to develop and monetize its assets so that MapleWorks is positioned for an IPO or acquisition.

Contact information

MapleWorks Technology Inc.
+1-819-776-6066
www.mapleworks.com

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Entrust Limited, the Ottawa-based Canadian headquarters of Entrust, Inc. (NASDAQ ENTU), secures digital identities and information for consumers, enterprises and government agencies in more than 2,000 organizations spanning 60 countries.

Early in its history, Entrust built and sold the first commercially available public key infrastructure (PKI), which makes managing and enabling encryption and digital signatures possible. Today, Entrust technology enhances online trust by enabling the world’s elite organizations with solutions that help authenticate users, identify and stop fraud, secure communication, encrypt data and more.

Currently, enterprise and governments require the ability to efficiently secure users and citizens’ digital identities and information — information that is increasingly targeted by individuals or criminal organizations that profit by leveraging data breaches, identity thefts and fraud attacks.

Entrust’s layered security approach — a strategy that includes Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), authentication, fraud detection, secure shared data, e-mail security and management of digital certificates — increases user acceptance and limits help-desk calls. Entrust helps its customers increase the productivity of their overall technology investments and secures information for organizations needing to protect end-users’ privacy.

Why Ottawa

Entrust was conceived as a business unit within Northern Telecom (Nortel), Ottawa’s first telecom giant. In December of 1996, Entrust was incorporated as an entrepreneurial spin-off of Nortel. Now with 15 offices worldwide, Entrust’s Canadian headquarters remain in the Kanata, Ottawa’s tech community.

In 2004, Entrust expanded its secure messaging and data solutions with the acquisition of AmikaNow! Corporation’s compliance technology business unit.

Veteran Affairs Canada uses Entrust solutions to develop its increasing Internet presence as part of its strategy to migrate to online service delivery. As a result, Canada’s disability pension program is securely administered and delivered online to those recipients formerly serving in the Canadian military or Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

In June 2008, Hydro Ottawa conducted an energy audit and recognized Entrust with a “Companies for Conservation” award. The energy audit revealed that Entrust cut power use by more than 40 percent, from more than 5 million kilowatt hours per year to less than 3 million. The 2 million kilowatt hours now being conserved annually by Entrust is enough energy to power roughly 222 homes for an entire year.

Business advantage

Among Entrust partners and customers are multinational corporations and forward-thinking government offices. In 2008, Entrust announced that the Slovenian and Taiwanese governments selected Entrust PKI technology to help authenticate biometric information stored on machine-readable travel documents (MRTDs) — better known as ePassports.

Entrust contributed PKI technology to the global open-source community through partners, Sun Microsystems Inc. and the Mozilla Foundation in July 2007. Entrust supplied a royalty-free license to Sun and Entrust PKI technology is now used by the Mozilla open-source platform. Entrust recorded an increase in total revenues of 16 percent year-over-year, with an increase of 138 percent year-over-year, specifically in revenues from emerging growth products in 2007. Bill Conner, Entrust President and CEO reported that, in its most recent full year of business, Entrust achieved record product transactions.

Entrust solutions have received numerous awards for superior quality and performance. Entrust also garners accolades from respected third parties. As an example, SC Magazine, a respected IT technology publication, named Entrust as a finalist for the Reader’s Trust Award in the ‘Best Multi- and Second-factor Solution’ category in 2009. Entrust IdentityGuard was selected from more than 600 entries submitted in more than 30 technology categories.

In 2008, SC Magazine selected Entrust as a finalist in their “Best Data Security” award category for 2008. SC Magazine also named Entrust and the Entrust IdentityGuard versatile authentication platform as an “Industry Innovator” in 2007.

In their June 2008 issue, SC Magazine bestowed glowing accolades for Entrust Entelligence Messaging Server. The review not only rated the appliance-based e-mail encryption solution as a five-star product, the platform was given the “SC Recommended” approval — the top honor for a security product.

CODiE named Entrust IdentityGuard as the “Best Security Solution 2006” — a category that features more than 500 of the world’s top security experts. Entrust IdentityGuard and Entrust Entelligence Messaging Server were also named a “2007 Finalist” for the CODiE awards.

Entrust customers include: Expedia, Citibank, SWIFT, Lloyds, Bank of New Zealand, Banco Santander, Kotak Securities, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Treasury, NASA, U.K. Ministry of Defence, Land Registry, Government of Slovenia, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Slovenia and many, many more.

Future growth plans

By leveraging capabilities, Entrust continues to adapt and innovate to meet the current and future needs of today’s security-conscious organizations. Each day, Entrust pushes technology to enhance security offerings that provide multifactor authentication, fraud detection, SSL digital certificates, public key infrastructure, secure e-mail and more.

Contact information

Entrust, Inc.
+1-888-690-2424
www.entrust.com

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Manufacturing and designing computer plug-in media-processing hardware and software, more commonly known as voice cards, Ottawa-based PIKA Technologies Inc. has been helping developers build advanced voice and fax applications for over 20 years. Developers using PIKA’s technology can connect to analog, digital, VoIP (voice over IP) and VoIM (voice over IM) networks using either Linux or Windows operating systems.

Founded in 1987, PIKA has seen the technology landscape change dramatically. However it has always been able to adapt its technology to current trends, including moving from fax to voice technologies, and, most recently, putting a greater emphasize on Internet messaging technologies. Whether building applications using board-based media processing or using host-based solutions, application developers of all kinds can count on PIKA to continuously advance product lines. In addition to PIKA’s traditional line of hardware and software solutions, PIKA also offers a variety of gateways and appliances that provide top-quality performance right out of the box.

Why Ottawa

Ottawa’s technology community is 1,800 strong with the majority of companies concentrated in the city’s Kanata west end. Often called Silicon Valley North, Kanata is home to some of the largest technology companies, including Alcatel-Lucent Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc.

PIKA’s Kanata location offers employees many benefits including excellent public transportation, connecting Kanata to Ottawa’s downtown core and east end. PIKA is also surrounded by many housing development areas, including Beaverbrook and Morgan’s Grant, offering employees small community living without sacrificing the advantages of city living.

PIKA is located on Legget Drive and it is on this exact stretch of road that PIKA co-founders, Jim Pinard and Peter Karneef, began their careers. Pinard, after receiving his Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Ottawa, began his career atCorp. in the early 1980s. Meanwhile, on the other end of Legget, Karneef, a pioneer in the computer telephony industry, was at Kanatek Technologies, a company he founded in 1982.

Kanata is a great place to find engineering, technical support and operations talent. “Our employees are our greatest asset,” said Pinard. “It is because of our reliable and knowledgeable people that we are able to earn a reputation for delivering technical expertise when it is needed.”

Business advantage

PIKA’s voice card technology has also attracted the call centre industry, an industry which is predicted to reach revenues of US $204.9 million by 2011. PIKA’s voice cards are used to increase reliability of predictive dialers – computers that automatically dial batches of numbers. Using call-progress analysis, a function of PIKA’s technology, calls are quickly identified as being unanswered or answered. Call centres using PIKA’s predictive-dialer voice technology are assured excellent call-progress detection and call-analysis features, resulting in fewer disconnections and hang-ups.

PIKA voice cards are also customizable. Fitting the cards to the needs of the call centre, developers can modify certain parameters, such as the number of words in a greeting. “We have performed significant and extensive testing in-house and feel that the tools that we provide predictive dialing system developers are equal to or better than others on the market,” said PIKA Technologies field application engineer Cindy Xu.

By using PIKA’s WARP Appliance as a development platform, Unlimitel, a leading Ottawa-based telephone provider to Canada’s small and mid-size businesses, has extended its VoIP network across all major Canadian cities, making Unlimitel one of the largest providers of VoIP trunks to IP-PBX customers. The system made for Unlimitel is easy to configure and manage, making it easy for the company to train its resellers. Economical power consumption is also a strong selling point. The system has enough power to support up to75 VoIP end points (stations and trunks) and up to 8 additional analog ports for phones or trunks.

Future growth plans

With distributors and developers located in North America, Europe and India, PIKA is expanding its market presence to Latin America. Mobile communication in Latin America has grown by 10% since 2006 and is likely to continue growing at a steady rate. PIKA will be working with developers to provide Latin America mobile phone users with premium mobile content, driving PIKA’s revenue growth.

Contact information

PIKA Technologies Inc.
+1-613-591-1555
www.pikatechnologies.com

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As virtualization and cloud computing emerges, the need for the guarding of confidential and important information increases. Security technology sophistication has had to increase rapidly to stay ahead of system attacks by hackers and malicious software. Founded in 2004, Ottawa-based Third Brigade Inc. designs and manufactures advanced computer security systems that protect critical data and applications from attacks that bypass or penetrate network defences and target vulnerabilities in operating systems and web applications. Third Brigade detects and prevents known and unknown (zero-day) attacks, and provides an automatic and electronic fix for Microsoft, Windows, Solaris, Linux, and other Unix systems running on physical servers or virtual machines.

Third Brigade’s technology offers enterprise-class security solutions that are easy to manage and protect host computers from attacks. The software protects the different layers of operating systems and software within the server —giving information technology employees time to install more permanent security patches when hacker exploits become known.

Ten federal government departments, including The Department of National Defence, already use Third Brigade technology in Canada, as does the Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass., and other global medical institutions.

Since it was founded in 2004, Third Brigade has raised $25 million in venture capital. Investors include Celtic House Venture Partners Inc., BCE Capital Inc. and The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), a financial institution owned by the government of Canada.

Why Ottawa

Third Brigade was selected in 2007 to be the exclusive provider of risk research to Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), an Ottawa-based agency of the Canadian Department of National Defence that addresses the scientific and technological needs of the Canadian Forces. The research will identify risks and vulnerabilities from multiple sources, develop solutions based on risk and help set response policies to better secure Canada’s military.

Third Brigade has a strong Ottawa background, headed by executives and co-founders that formerly held senior roles at Entrust Technologies Inc., a $100 million-a-year security software company located in the National Capital Region.

Leading Third Brigade are ex-Entrust Vice Presidents, Wael Mohamed, current Third Brigade CEO and President, and Bill McGee, Third Brigade Vice President, Products. Brian O’Higgins, founder of Entrust and now Chief Technology Officer at Third Brigade, rounds out the talented team.

Business advantage

Hoping to expand its reach globally, Third Brigade has established distribution partnerships with California-based NetIQ, Computerlinks of Germany and Trend Micro of Japan. Trend Micro, one of the world’s largest antivirus companies, uses Third Brigade’s advanced firewall and deep packet inspection in its corporate security solutions. The system protects businesses from hackers while users are on and off corporate networks and accessing web-based applications.

Including a vulnerability response team in Bangalore, India, Third Brigade security experts are on site 24 hours a day, seven days a week monitoring global security sources to research new system vulnerabilities.

When threats are found, the staff develops filters, usually within hours of the alert, that protect against these vulnerabilities. These filters are automatically, and electronically delivered to customers, and can be applied to thousands of hosts in minutes.

Future growth plans

Third Brigade is unique in its ability to enable security for organizations wishing to use cloud computing for IT resources, and plans to focus product and marketing efforts in this area. The company will also continue to expand its market presence to the retail industry to help retailers and enterprises prevent credit card fraud and enable PCI DSS compliance.

Contact information

Third Brigade Inc.
+1-613-599-4505
www.thirdbrigade.com

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A pioneer of critical email-to-SMS alerting on mobile phones, Ottawa-based Amika Mobile Corp. is the first company to introduce emergency broadcasts over WiFi and SMS. When an emergency strikes, whether it is a campus shooting, an Amber Alert, an approaching hurricane, toxic chemical spill or a massive power blackout, it is essential that the danger be validated and affected parties alerted as quickly as possible.

Amika Mobile’s emergency broadcasting provides the efficient delivery of messages incorporating both text and images to a large number of recipients on laptops, SMS/MMS-capable mobile devices, and email mailboxes.

Amika Mobile's new Emergency Alerting Server uses Meru Networks' single-channel wireless LAN solution as a platform for sending reliable emergency messages over WiFi links across campuses, cities, or geographically distributed areas. As the first system able to use either text messaging (SMS) or WiFi to send such alerts, the server can reach greater numbers of people more reliably in less time than SMS-only systems. The key benefit to sending emergency alerts over WiFi access points is that databases of mobile phone numbers are not needed, alerts may be sent geographically to given areas, with pictures or maps/blueprints of buildings attached.

The email-to-SMS alerts are independent of device, carrier, or email systems. Key content is automatically analyzed and reduced to a summary with messages filtered according to user preferences. Summaries fit optimally in 1 or 2 SMS packets on any mobile phone. Amika Mobile’s email-SMS is 2-way and allows users to reply over SMS on the mobile phone.

The benefits of Amika Mobile’s email-to-SMS services include:

• Low cost per user
• Email-to-SMS easy to set up
• Email “Push” to any mobile phone
• Seamless enterprise integration
• Content optimized for mobile screen
• Linux Software Server runs on any hardware

Amika Mobile sells its products through distributors, system integrators, service provider partners and platform vendors initially focusing on North America, India, Europe and Australia with future plans for expansion into Asia.

Why Ottawa

Sue Abu-Hakima, President & CEO of Amika has been a prominent Ottawa scientist and entrepreneur since she obtained her PhD from Carleton University — where she specialized in artificial intelligence. After starting her career at Ottawa’s Nortel Networks in 1982, Abu-Hakima launched her first start-up, AmikaNow! in 1998.

AmikaNow! was a spin-off from the National Research Council, Canada’s premier science research and technology research organization, AmikaNow! was sold in 2004 to Entrust, an Ottawa company that develops digital security solutions.

Abu-Hakima has helped create over 130 high tech jobs in Ottawa that, according to the Ottawa Centre of Research and Innovation, have created an additional 390 jobs in the region. In addition, she is a mentor to countless Ottawa high school, university and graduate students. In 2008 she was a finalist for the prestigious Business Woman of the Year award, an honour given out each year since 1983 by the Ottawa Business Journal.

Prior to starting Amika Mobile in 2007, Abu-Hakima reached into Ottawa’s deep pool of top-notch executive IT talent to form Amika Mobile’s Board of Directors. Abu-Hakima recruited two of Ottawa’s best: Louis Payant, founder of Ottawa companies Vienna Systems Corp. and Norlite Technology Inc., and Debbie Weinstein, a founding partner at LaBarge Weinstein, a business law firm in Ottawa.

Business advantage

Wireless access to information is no longer an extravagance; it’s a necessity — especially in emergency situations. Amika Mobile’s Amika Mobility Server (AMS), provides a text message-based alert broadcasting system for all types of communities, including schools and cities. When emergency events occur (such as school closures and floods) constituents are alerted in real-time via SMS on any mobile phone. The AMS is a fully scalable server that can be customized to meet the needs of any size organization or enterprise.

Future growth plans

Worldwide sales of mobile phones will reach 1.28 billion units in 2008 — an 11% increase from last year according to Gartner Inc. (NYSE:IT), the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company.

Contact information

Amika Mobile Corp.
613-599-4445
www.amikamobile.com

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A commonly prescribed drug, isoproterenol – used by asthmatics and people with heart block, a disorder that slows heat beats – may stop millions of diabetics from losing their eyesight. Using the drug, Ottawa-based AgaPharm Corp., a privately held biotechnology company, is developing a breakthrough medical eye drop that will, with daily use, slow down or even prevent the onset of blindness caused by the formation of cataracts in diabetics.

People with diabetes are 60% more likely to develop cataracts, a clouding of the lens in the eye. The lens is mostly made of water and protein, and is the part of the eye responsible for focusing light and producing clear images. In diabetics, the protein in the lens can clump together, blurring vision and making it harder to see. Currently there is no prescription drug available to prevent or delay cataracts, and the only treatment is to surgically remove the lens and replace it with a clear implant. This type of surgery is the most common type of surgery in the United States.

There are currently 5.5 million people in the United States suffering from diabetic cataracts and an additional 8 million in Western Europe. Research has shown that delaying cataract formation by 10 years could reduce the prevalence of cataracts by 45%.

Working with the National Research Council (NRC) in Ottawa, AgaPharm has discovered that isoproterenol can inhibit glycation – reactions where sugars damage proteins, nucleic acids and lipids – one of the major causes of cataracts.

Created with an Act of Parliament, Telesat is now a corporation that owns and operates a global fleet of state-of-the-art satellites which provide reliable and secure communications solutions to broadcast, telecom, corporate and government customers.

The company is also a respected consultant and partner in satellite ventures around the world. Its consulting group provides expertise and support to satellite operators, insurers and other industry participants on a global basis, including procurement of satellites and launch services . Telesat is also a leader in the provision of tracking, telemetry and control (TT&C) services for 13 third-party satellites, in addition to its own fleet.

Telesat made history with its launch of Anik A1 in 1972 – the world’s first commercially operated domestic satellite in geostationary orbit. Today, Telesat’s fleet includes 13 satellites, three of which provide coverage of Latin America:

• Anik F1 – C-band and Ku-band capacity exclusively serving the communications needs of South America

• Telstar 14 (Estela do Sul) – Ku coverage of the Americas with a high-powered beam over Brazil

• Telstar 12 – Ku-band capacity connecting the Americas to Europe and the Middle East with extensive coverage of South America

Telesat is widely admired for its many industry firsts. For example, Telesat’s Anik F2 was the world’s first to successfully commercialize the Ka frequency band for two-way satellite high-speed broadband service throughout Canada and the United States.

Telesat is also a leader in its global consulting practice. Through the company’s extensive portfolio of satellite consulting services, Telesat has provided support to more than 90 satellite programs the world over.

Telesat’s expertise includes a comprehensive range of satellite consulting and services supporting satellite operations. At the heart of Telesat’s satellite control system is the company’s OnOrbit Flight Dynamics System (FDS™ ) software for mission and station-keeping operations.

BreconRidge Corporation, with corporate headquarters in Ottawa, Canada, and facilities in the U.S. and Asia, is a global provider of design engineering and manufacturing services for electronic products. BreconRidge collaborates with the world’s leading communications, industrial, medical and aerospace original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) supporting all aspects of the product life cycle, including: design, development, manufacturing, fulfillment, reverse logistics and repair.

Specializing in radio frequency (RF), microwave and optical technologies, BreconRidge’s range of services include microelectronic, multi chip module and mechanical design engineering, design for excellence (DFx), new product introduction, supply chain management, process and test engineering, manufacturing (including micro-electronic), fulfillment, reverse logistics and repair.

Through its established network of suppliers and manufacturing locations in North America and Asia, BreconRidge is able to leverage economies of scale in support of its customers through the development of comprehensive supply chain and global manufacturing solutions.