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| INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY | |
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| Company: | Pronexus |
| Product: | VBVoice™ |
| Location: | Ottawa, Ontario |
“Speech will become a ubiquitous technology,” says Gary Hannah, President and CEO of software developer Pronexus, which specializes in the field of Computer Telephony Integration (CTI).
Hannah is counting on being right—and so is computer giant Microsoft, which recently recruited Hannah’s Ottawa-based company to help it accelerate the wide scale adoption of speech automation.
Why Pronexus? Because with nearly a decade of experience—and more than 3,500 top-tier clients in over 110 countries around the world—the company is an established leader in CTI and speech for wired and wireless environments.
“Microsoft recently introduced new speech technologies and realized that it takes a host of technologies and skills to deploy successful speech-enabled applications,” commented Gary Hannah. “Our proven developer expertise in telephony and speech will help build speech-enabled business solutions that deliver significant value to enterprise customers.”
Pronexus’ flagship product is its award-winning VBVoice™, a rapid application development tool for building business critical CTI solutions such as automatic speech recognition and text-to-speech. The company also introduced VBSALT, a new program-ming tool that accelerates speech application development on the recently announced Microsoft Speech platform. VBSALT makes it easier for a broad audience of IT managers, programmers and call center developers to create sophisticated speech-enabled applications. Pronexus also provides VeoSuite, a range of turnkey speech applications and a complement of professional services that voice-enable a variety of industries and applications.
Pronexus, which is privately held and majority owned by its employees, has seen six quarters of profits—this at a time IT spending is slow and many companies are struggling.
“Our success is due, in large part, to our focus on real customer problems,” says Hannah. “We pay attention to our customers’ needs and respond with proven products and services that are easy to put into effect and which saves them money.”
Being located in Ottawa also helps, says Hannah, who points to the city’s well-earned reputation as a telecom and software powerhouse.
“Ottawa gives us access to a pool of highly educated, talented IT workers who like the quality of life here and don’t want to leave," he says. "The city also offers a positive business environment for high-tech companies and low business costs.”
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| LIFE SCIENCES/LABOR | |
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| Company: | Protana Inc. |
| Product: | Applications for drug discovery and development |
| Location: | Toronto, Ontario |
When you’re a world leader in your field, you can attract the best and the brightest, and that’s just what Protana Inc. is doing.
Toronto, Ontario-based Protana is an acknowledged leader in proteomics, the study of proteins and how they communicate. The goal of proteomics is to develop more and better drugs for diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s.
“Canadian scientists lead the world in proteomics,” says Protana’s Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, Anil Amlani, who notes that Protana was recently acknowledged by the World Economic Forum as a “Technology Pioneer”.
Many of the top researchers in the field agree with Amlani’s assessment—which explains why Protana has been able to recruit a number of them. In the last few months alone, the company has hired half a dozen American and European scientists.
Among them is Dr. Rob Ewing, the company’s new Senior Bioinformatics Scientist. With a PhD in Biology from Oxford University, he had completed a post-doctoral fellowship at California’s Stanford University and worked in Silicon Valley before Protana came knocking at his door.
Ewing leapt at the chance to go to Toronto. “It was an opportunity to work in a stimulating environment with some of the best people in the field, using the most sophisticated equipment available,” he explains. “That’s what scientists dream of.”
It’s not just scientists Protana is attracting. High-tech companies like New Jersey-based IBM and California-based Agilent Technologies have formed strategic partnerships with Protana. So have pharmaceutical companies like California-based Abgenix, a biopharmaceutical firm, and Pennsylvania-based Cephalon, a neuroscience firm. And the company has done pilot projects for Eli Lilly and four other major pharmaceutical firms.
Like Ewing, they have confidence in the company’s success. “Protana is science driven, but with clear commercial goals, which makes it an exciting place to work,” says Ewing.
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| AUTO | |
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| Company: | Stuart Energy Systems |
| Product: | Hydrogen Infrastructure |
| Location: | Princeton, New Jersey |
Worldwide the pressure is on to convert to non-polluting vehicles and Stuart Energy Systems Corporation couldn’t be happier about it.
That’s because the Toronto, Ontario-based company, a pioneer in hydrogen technology research, development and product engineer-ing, is on its way to revolutionizing the way energy and fuel is both created and used with its Stuart Energy Station (SES).
The SES uses only water and electricity to produce clean, pure, hydrogen, which can be stored, then subsequently deployed, on demand. This allows delivery of emission-free fuel for vehicles, among other applications. What’s more, it’s as easy as filling up with gasoline.
Aimed at the corporate market, Stuart Energy’s SES is already being used by California Fuel Cell Partnership, Ford Motor Company, SunLine Transit California and Toyota Motor Sales USA, among others. The SES is also in operation in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Porto and Stockholm as part of the Clean Urban Transportation Europe (CUTE) program, which aims to demonstrate the real-world performance and economics of clean hydrogen-powered public transportation.
At the same time, the company has developed a prototype of a HomeFueler® for the consumer market in partnership with U.K.-based Shell Hydrogen, a global business of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies. Using the same proprietary technology as the SES, the HomeFueler®, which, when commercially available will be about the size of a large residential air conditioner, is capable of fueling hydrogen-powered cars and providing back-up or primary electricity to the home.
“Our roots are in Ontario and we’ve always found it an excellent place to conduct business,” says Stuart Energy President and CEO Jon Slangerup. “Because Ontario universities produce a steady supply of highly trained professionals, we’re able to employ some of the best and brightest and they’re the foundation of our company.
“As well, we’ve been able to develop an extensive qualified supplier base using local companies and geographically, Ontario offers us proximity and access to the United States which is key for us, as many of our customers are located south of the (U.S./Canada) border.”
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| SITE SELECTION | |
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| Company: | McCallum Sweeney Consulting |
| Product: | Site Selection for manufacturers |
| Location: | Greenville, South Carolina |
When Mark Sweeney, Senior Principal of McCallum Sweeney Consulting, was invited to attend a recent automotive Familiarization (FAM) Tour organized by the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, he decided to accept it.
“We do a lot of work in the automotive industry and felt it was important to be better informed about Ontario,” says Sweeney. “The FAM Tour was a good opportunity because there was a lot of substance to it.”
Sweeney’s Greenville, SC-based company, which provides site selection services for a blue-chip client list that includes Boeing, Michelin, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Tower Automotive, had never placed a company in Ontario because he and his clients believed, among other things, that just-in-time supply demands couldn’t be met. The tour changed his mind.
“It included visits to both the Toyota, Cambridge plant, which is the only facility outside Japan to manufacture the luxury Lexus RX 330, and the Honda, Alliston plant, as well as meetings with a number of parts makers,” says Sweeney.
“Not one assembler or parts manufacturer I spoke with has had a problem with just-in-time delivery,” he says, noting that he also learned a number of other important things about Ontario’s auto industry.
“Site selection in the manufacturing sector is driven by three key items,” says Sweeney. “Market access, labor issues and business costs.”
As a result of the FAM Tour, Sweeney is convinced that Ontario delivers all three.
Other surprises included how extensive Ontario’s industry is, how integrated it is with the U.S. industry and how experienced and skilled the workforce is.
“Seeing a Lexus roll off the assembly line sends a strong message about Ontario’s capabilities,” says Sweeney, who points out that he also hadn’t realized that a sizeable portion of Ontario’s autoworkers are not unionized.
“I’m eager for an opportunity to place a company in Ontario,” says Sweeney.
For more information about Ontario, visit www.2ontario.com or call 1 800 819-8701.
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The Canadian government is matching the Ontario government’s US$425 million Automotive Investment Strategy with US$425 million of its own from the new US$850 million Canadian Skills and Innovation Project.
This brings the total new investment in Canada’s auto industry to US$850 million and helps to ensure that companies like DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors and others see Canada as a place to invest and do business.
To be eligible, manufacturers must:
The announcement was welcomed by Canadian automakers, including General Motors of Canada.
“Canada will realize a huge return on investment with this program,” says David Paterson, General Motors of Canada’s Vice President of Corporate Affairs. “Together with the Ontario Automotive Investment Strategy program, it’s critical to enabling Ontario’s auto industry to compete globally for automotive investments. At the same time, it will increase Canadian based engineering, research and development activities related to this key industry.”
(Source: Government of Canada)
The government of Ontario is offering support to auto assemblers and parts suppliers that demonstrate a need for public investments. Over the next five years, the automotive investment strategy will support leading-edge auto manufac-turing projects that are worth more than US$255 million in investment or that create or retain more than 300 jobs.
The US$425 million Ontario Automotive Investment Strategy aims to boost private sector investment by supporting key project components:
Industry executives and investment analysts were quick to praise the announcement.
“This strategy responds with strong leadership to one of the top priorities studied and identified by the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council (CAPC),” said Michael Grimaldi, President of General Motors of Canada Ltd. and CAPC Co-chair.
“It gives Ontario an extra leg-up,” said Carlos Gomes, Senior Economist and Auto Industry Analyst with Scotiabank. “Ontario has an established auto sector that already offers lower costs and higher productivity than plants in the U.S. This gives the province an additional advantage.”
(Source: MEDT/Globe & Mail)
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Canadians rank third in the world when it comes to high-speed Internet access, according to a recent report by the International Telecommunications Union. Only South Korea and Hong Kong, ranked first and second respectively, have higher connectivity than Canada. The Geneva-based organization cites Canada’s telephone and cable deregulation—and subsequent competition—together with government encouragement for the high ranking. The ranking is important because high-speed connections are seen as key to future sales and profit growth.
(Source: International Telecommunications Union)
Canada ranks second (after California) out of the seven largest technology centers in North America according to the 2003 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 (the current issue), a ranking of the fastest growing technology companies in North America based on average percentage revenue growth over five years. This is the first time Canada has surpassed the New York Tri-State area of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut combined.
(Source: Deloitte)
Kingston, Ontario is on its way to becoming a leading center for fuel cell and alternative energy technology in Ontario and across North America, thanks, in large part, to the efforts of SWITCH. Brought together and supported by the Kingston Economic Development Corporation (KEDCO), SWITCH is a cluster of 25-plus environmentally-minded private and public sector institutions and companies all actively involved in research and development and commercialization of fuel cells and fuel cell components, solar energy products and wind turbine generators. “We have all the ingredients to grow and prosper in the alternative energy industry,” says Peter Tobias, SWITCH's President and Chair. “We have expertise in alternative energy research and education, product development and venture creation.” For more information: www.switchkingston.ca
(Source: SWITCH)
After scouting locations for five months, the Bank of Montreal has chosen Barrie as the site of its new state-of-the-art data processing center. Construction of the 200,000 square-foot facility is slated to begin in early 2005, with operations starting in mid 2006. The center will employ 250-300 initially. That number will rise to 600 when the center is fully operational in 2008. The facility will support banking operations worldwide.
(Source: Barrie Examiner)
For more information about Ontario, visit www.2ontario.com or call 1 800 819-8701.
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