… acerca de la fuerte relación entre las compañías de tecnología y la región.
Encontrado en el The Record de hoy:
Local firms prevail at tech awards
Three of five innovation prizes come to region
MICHAEL HAMMOND
WATERLOO REGION (Apr 26, 2007)
A technology heavyweight and a technology veteran helped Waterloo Region take home three of five provincial “innovation catalyst awards” handed out by Premier Dalton McGuinty.
Local technology executives say the awards illustrate how the region is coming of age as a high-tech centre.
At the first ever Premier’s Innovation Awards ceremony in Toronto Tuesday night, Dalsa Corp.’s founder and chief executive officer Savvas Chamberlain was given an award for lifetime achievement in innovation.
Research In Motion received the company innovation award for its BlackBerry line of products, while En-Lui Yang, co-founder of RIM subsidiary SlipStream Data, was lauded as the innovator of the year.
Chamberlain founded Dalsa in 1980 and has built the company into a market leader in digital imaging products.
Over the firm’s lifetime, Chamberlain has seen many changes in the region’s technology scene, the biggest being a change in attitude.
“What’s happening here is not an accident,” he said yesterday. “This didn’t happen overnight. The biggest change I saw was that in the 1970s and 1980s, we didn’t believe we could compete globally. But we can compete on innovation and technology.”
Chamberlain received a call from the premier’s office Mar. 21 telling him he had won the award. “I was completely surprised,” he said. “I knew I was nominated but I didn’t really expect to get anything out of it.”
Chamberlain said he was given permission to attend the Toronto banquet in a dark suit because he didn’t want to wear a tuxedo. “I’m a little bit allergic to tuxedos,” he quipped.
A native of Cyprus, Chamberlain was a longtime University of Waterloo professor and remains a professor emeritus. He came to Waterloo in 1969 after earning a master’s degree in science and a PhD from Southampton University in England.
Chamberlain became a fellow in the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers in 1990 for his work with image sensing technology. He has led Dalsa throughout its history and guided the company through its initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 1996.
Research In Motion was selected as the company with the best overall innovation for developing the popular BlackBerry wireless e-mail device.
“We are honoured to have been recognized with the premier’s catalyst award, and we share this award with more than 5,000 talented RIM employees,” said Mike Lazaridis, the company’s co-chief executive officer.
SlipStream co-founder En-Hui Yang was recognized for his work developing technology that compresses data travelling over wireless networks such as the BlackBerry network. The company was acquired by RIM last fall.
“This award is a validation of this team’s achievements so far and the opportunities ahead for SlipStream and RIM,” said Yang.
At a Communitech meeting in Kitchener yesterday, the organization’s president Iain Klugman said he was thrilled the region turned heads at the awards ceremony.
“Many people were surprised that a smaller technology centre could be so successful,” he said. “That didn’t surprise me, of course.”
Klugman said that in the past the region’s tech sector may have been “misunderstood. But the rest of Canada is starting to take notice now.
“It’s really neat when the outside world recognizes the exceptional talent coming out of this community.”
Klugman attributes the industry’s surging fortunes to individuals like Chamberlain who show other entrepreneurs how to take an idea and make it into a profitable business.
The innovation awards recognize companies or individuals who create and successfully sell breakthrough technology products. The winners are chosen by the premier based on advice from an advisory panel of technology entrepreneurs and the Ontario Research Fund Advisory Board.
The University of Waterloo will reap the benefits of Chamberlain’s win. Chamberlain said he intends to donate his $200,000 prize to research and development efforts at the university.
RIM and Yang said they will use their winnings to support university scholarships and fellowships, and youth education programs.
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