2013 Ingenious Awards Recognize Five Technology Innovators

TORONTO, Nov. 28, 2013 /CNW/ - What does it take to revolutionize the way Europe's largest underground gold mine operates, provide real-time analysis of the vital signs of premature infants, or streamline the way 540,000 Canadians receive their government pension cheques? The answer: a combination of class-leading information and communications (ICT) technology, and the vision to use the technology in innovative ways.

Five Canadian organizations have won the 2013 Ingenious Award for excellence and innovation in the use of ICT. The awards, which were announced November 27th at a gala in Toronto, recognize the use of ICT to achieve measureable improvements in productivity or service delivery in five categories: not-for-profit organizations, small/medium public and private organizations, and large organizations in the public and private sectors.

The winners:
Not-For-Profit: The University of Ontario Institute of Technology - Artemis project
Small/Medium Public: Municipal Property Assessment Corporation - Streamlined property assessment
Small/Medium Private: GrowSafe Systems - Data collection of individual cattle on farms
Large Public: Public Works and Government Services Canada - Pension administration transformation
Large Private: Dundee Precious Metals - Smart and connected gold mining

"The 64 entries the Ingenious judges reviewed included some exceptional examples of how excellence and innovation in ICT can make significant changes in the way people work, access services, and communicate," said ITAC President and CEO Karna Gupta. "The winners of the Ingenious Awards represent the best of what our sector is doing to improve business and life in Canada, and help build a leading digital economy."

Launched in 2011, the Ingenious Awards program invites nominations from across Canada's ICT industry, as well as from organizations in the five categories that have realized significant results through the innovative use of ICT. Organized by ITAC, the program is supported by a number of leading ICT suppliers, including: CGI, Cisco, Intel Canada, Dell Canada, Softchoice Corporation, Xerox Canada, Deloitte, HP, Oracle, EY Canada, Backbone magazine, and IT World Canada.

About ITAC:
The Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) is the voice of the Canadian information and communications technologies (ICT) industry. ITAC represents a diverse ICT community spanning telecommunications and internet services, ICT consulting services, hardware, microelectronics, software and electronic content. ITAC's community of companies accounts for more than 70 per cent of the 572,700 jobs, $155.3 billion in revenue, $6.2 billion in R&D investment, $30.4 billion in exports and $11billion in capital expenditures that the ICT industry contributes annually to the Canadian economy. The ICT sector currently represents 4.9 per cent of Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) and accounted for 9.4 per cent of all real GDP growth since 2002. ITAC is a prominent advocate for the expansion of Canada's innovative capacity and for stronger productivity across all sectors through the strategic use of technology.

SOURCE: Information Technology Association of Canada

Lynda Leonard 
Senior Vice President, ITAC
[phone]
[email protected]

James Hale
Communications Advisor, ITAC
[phone]
[email protected]