Ottawa business journal20161121

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The Trump effect While some suggest the Republican’s win could be a boon for local seekers of tech talent, others aren’t so sure > PAGES 10-11

November 21, 2016 Vol. 20, NO. 3

THE TENANT’S ADVANTAGE

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Dollars and sense Entrepreneur aims to help users with cognitive disabilities manage their money with new fintech app. > PAGES 4-5

Lessons in training The ability to quickly adapt to changing skill requirements might be the most vital skill of all in today’s world, Jeffrey Dale writes. > PAGES 8-9

PageCloud founder and CEO Craig Fitzpatrick says his company is on a mission to “fix the Internet” from its expanding downtown office. PHOTO BY MARK HOLLERON

Sunny days ahead for PageCloud Web design startup set to take on burgeoning DIY market thanks to new funding ByWard Market firm says Series-A round worth $5.4 million Cdn will boost company’s bid to challenge industry leaders > PAGES 7, 11

ADVERTISING FEATURE

More than houses: Habitat for Humanity volunteer eQ Homes builds communities

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Tobin Kardish first visited a residential construction site around the age of five.

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Building homes runs in the Kardish family.

His father, David, is vice-president of land development at the Regional Group and would take his son out to see some of the company’s projects on weekends.

As he became older, Kardish worked on construction sites as a labourer, witnessing homes come to fruition from the initial excavation through to hanging the final sheet of drywall.

Despite his years of experience, Kardish – who is currently the marketing and brand manager of eQ Homes – recently faced a first on a home building site.

Alongside 14 coworkers, Kardish spent a day as a volunteer homebuilder on Habitat for Humanity Greater Ottawa’s construction site. The non-profit, which is currently building a single-family home in Carleton Place, aims to give hardworking, low-income families access to affordable home ownership with the help of volunteers such as eQ Homes.

“Everybody should have a roof over their head,” Kardish says. “This is a great charity that aligns with eQ Homes. We build houses. Why not help out and build homes for the less fortunate?”

Since 1993, Habitat for Humanity has built 53 affordable and safe homes for low-income families, who contribute 500

“This is a great charity that aligns with eQ Homes.

We build houses.

Why not help out and build homes for the less fortunate?” hours of volunteer time and then buy the home through a no-interest mortgage.

A recent study by the Boston Consulting Group found that every $1 spent on a Habitat for Humanity project results

in $4 in benefits to society as the new homeowners experience a higher-level of well-being, become more engaged in the community and raise children that achieve higher education levels.

There are also benefits for volunteers such as eQ Homes. Kardish says it’s partially a team-building exercise that draws employees away from their desks and gives them a new perspective on the homebuilding industry.

But more importantly, it advances eQ Homes’ goal of constructing more than just houses.

“We’re very big into building not just homes, but communities,” Kardish says.

“We’re excited to be a part of it.”

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

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LAUNCH PAD Fintech startup sees value in money-management app

BY ADAM FEIBEL adam@obj.ca

P

aul Safi knows what it’s like to want more independence.

The third-year Carleton University student, who is legally blind, moved away from his family home when he was 17 to make his own way in life. Less than three years later, he co-founded a startup with the goal of helping people with other types of disabilities do the same.

Mr. Safi is the North American chief operating officer of ReAble, a financial technology firm that’s developing an application that will help people with autism, Down syndrome and other cognitive disabilities conduct transactions and manage their finances.

It aims to simplify and visualize the

H O B I N

complex concepts of banking and finance and guide users step-by-step through processes in a way that’s tailored to their specific needs and challenges.

“We want to build tools that will help them gain independence in their lives, and we found this problem to be particularly important,” says Mr. Safi.

“There’s very limited capacity for these individuals to figure out the value of money and associate a number with how it may impact them.”

It’s estimated that between one and three per cent of people have an intellectual disability, amounting to as many as 200 million people worldwide.

Mr. Safi says that’s a lot of people who aren’t being adequately served by the world’s financial services industry.

“Without our application, banking would be almost impossible for them,”

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016 OBJ.CA

Paul Safi of ReAble. PHOTO BY MARK HOLLERON

A R C H I T E C T U R E

C O N G R AT U L AT I N G O U R N E W PA R T N E R D O U G L A S B R O O K S , & A S S O C I AT E R E I N H A R D V O G E L DOUG BROOKS

REINHARD VOGEL

A graduate of Fanshawe College, Doug made the move to Ottawa in 1983 and began a career with some of the most influential architectural practices in Ottawa before joining the firm in 2001.

Doug’s notable projects include the City of Ottawa’s James Bartleman Centre, Petawawa K-12 School, The Merit condominium, Centrepointe Studio Theatre and Minto’s Vibe and Rideau buildings at Lansdowne Park.

Doug has joined Barry J. Hobin, Gordon Lorimer, Sandy Davis and Wendy Brawley as a Partner in the firm, contributing to the leadership and innovative direction for the firm’s present and future.

A graduate of Algonquin College, Reinhard has been responsible for the preparation of contract administration for many institutional and commercial projects with the firm since joining the team in 1997. He is adept with both AutoCAD and Revit software and has a thorough knowledge of the Ontario Building Code, local by-laws, and construction detailing. Reinhard brings extensive site coordination experience with projects of varying scale. Some of Reinhard’s notable projects include Oakwood Head Office, Madawaska Valley H. S. redevelopment, W. O. Stinson & Son corporate headquarters, Mutchmor Public School renovation & addition, and the Ottawa Humane Society.

Hobin Architecture is an award-winning architecture firm offering a comprehensive range of services within the institutional, recreational, commercial and residential sectors.

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he says. “That’s a huge market that’s not being capitalized on by the banks … The idea of this is very valuable.”

The firm surveyed more than 100 families and therapists of individuals with intellectual disabilities while conducting its research and found that financial literacy was the secondmost prominent challenge among respondents, behind communication.

“We asked them, ‘Based on the features that we’ve described, would you switch to a bank that offers this app?’

Ninety-five per cent of them said yes,” says Mr. Safi.

ReAble is planning to white-label its technology to banks, which would then offer the technology to its customers with bank accounts. In South Africa alone, Mr. Safi estimates the market value to be about US$20 million in monthly bank fees.

Insightful.

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He is looking forward to reconnecting with clients and community organizations in the Ottawa area.

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ARCHITECTURE

“That’s a huge market that’s not being capitalized on by the banks …

The idea of this is very valuable.”

OTTAWA’S ECONOMIC

– PAUL SAFI OF REABLE, WHICH IS DEVELOPING AN APP TO HELP PEOPLE WITH COGNITIVE DISABILITIES MANAGE THEIR FINANCES

The firm has been establishing a proof of concept with financial backing from Barclays subsidiary Absa Bank, and it’s preparing to enter a four-month pilot stage.

Because intellectual disabilities are more common in low-income countries, ReAble is focusing on first establishing a presence in the developing world, which Mr. Safi estimates contains about 70 per cent of the company’s total potential market.

ReAble was one of 10 companies selected from a pool of 400 applicants to participate in a Cape Town-based accelerator program backed by Barclays Africa and U.S.-based Techstars. Mr. Safi says the networks the company accessed through the program have been critical

CHANGE LOG ALL EYES ON GLASSES FIRM YOU SEE CLEAR The social startup founded by Carleton University students Babur Jahid and Rory Jipp and featured in the June edition of Launch Pad celebrates its official launch this month. You See Clear looks to remedy one of Afghanistan’s foremost public-health problems by providing affordable eye exams and eyeglasses to the country’s visually impaired. Recently, Mr. Jahid has won awards from the British Council’s Students for Social Impact program and the Resolution Project’s Social Venture Challenge at the One Young World summit in Ottawa.

OUTLOO

in beginning to form relationships with banks around the world.

Mr. Safi expects the company’s initial launch to happen next summer, while a wide-scale release would follow in about a year from now.

It’ll take roughly $300,000 in startup costs to get to that point, he says. On the other hand, he estimates that a single contract to have a bank adopt the firm’s technology would result in at least $5 million in revenue.

“It’s not going to be just a simple app that helps a few people. It’s going to be a banking standard,” says Mr. Safi. “There’s lots of legislation out there (regarding) access for people with disabilities. So our app could really be the one piece of technology that every bank should have.”

TECH STARTUP FUSES VIRTUAL REALITY AND REAL ART 3Dshowing.com showed off its technology to the community this month by creating a walkthrough of the Ottawa Art Gallery using virtual reality. Founded in 2015, the firm specializes in virtual-reality real estate listings, but the company’s management is looking into other uses for the technology.

That also includes applications for another pre-development startup, VReadily, which is exploring the areas of education, health care and phobia-aversion.

FORMER ECELERY CEO LAUNCHES NEW VENTURE Cyril Moukarzel, whose food delivery startup eCelery went under last year due to cash flow problems, has undertaken a new venture with another young former CEO. He and Ned Nadima, formerly of Croomer, launched Namobrain, a natural brain supplement company, this month. The product is intended to boost long-term memory and improve mood, motivation and focus.

This annual event will examine trends and opportunities in the city’s business sector and provide an insightful forecast about Ottawa’s economic future.

This event will include: •

•

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A Keynote address by Geoff Smith, President and CEO, EllisDon Presentation by Douglas Porter, CFA, Chief Economist & Managing Director, BMO Financial Group An important update from The Mayor of Ottawa

Tuesday, November 29, 2016 Shaw Centre – Trillium Ballroom 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Register now at OttawaChamber.ca

CALENDAR Startup Open House Ottawa Tuesday, Nov. 29 at 2:30 p.m.

Offices throughout Ottawa More information at startupopenhouse.com SaaS North Tuesday, Nov. 29 to Thursday, Dec. 1 Shaw Centre, 55 Colonel By Dr. More information at saasnorth.com

INDIVIDUAL TICKETS

Ottawa Chamber Members: $60 Non-Members: $75

Building a Culture of Innovation Friday, Dec. 2 at 9 a.m.

TheCodeFactory, 100 Gloucester St. More information at eventbrite.ca

CORPORATE TABLE OF 10 Ottawa Chamber Members: $540 Non-Members: $675

Capital Angel Network Winter Mashup and Social Wednesday, Dec. 7 at 5:30 p.m.

Wabano Centre, 299 Montreal Rd. More information at capitalangels.ca POWERED BY: OTTAWA BUSINESS EVENTS

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Perspectives About Women’s Enterprise Thursday, Dec. 8 at 5:30 p.m.

Startup Canada, 56 Sparks St. More information at eventbrite.ca

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

TON of DEMOs Thursday, Nov. 24 at 6 p.m.

Clocktower Brew Pub, 575 Bank St. More information at eventbrite.ca

Starting a Business Wednesday, Nov. 30 at 6 p.m.

Elmvale Acres, 1920 St. Laurent Blvd.

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Eat Drink and be Merry

TECH Medical software firm gets healthy funding injection

BY DAVID SALI david@obj.ca

W

Celebrate the holiday season with cocktails and canapes!

Thursday, December 1, 2016 5 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Métropolitain Brasserie & Restaurant 700 Sussex Drive Single Tickets Ottawa Chamber Members $ 00

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Register online at

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Event Sponsors:

E-mail info@ottawabusinessevents.ca to receive weekly updates on all our events.

ith health-care spending eating up nearly half of the provincial government’s annual budget, an Ottawa company says its software can help stop the bleeding when it comes to soaring medical costs.

Cliniconex, a Kanata-based startup launched in 2011, makes software that sends patients detailed reminders of upcoming appointments. It’s a seemingly simple step the company says reduces the number of no-shows dramatically and makes doctor visits more efficient by ensuring patients are better prepared for procedures – for example, by reminding them to bring running shoes to a cardiac stress test.

CEO Anthony Mar says most advances in medical technology up to now have focused on improving treatments, such as better drugs, therapies and medical devices.

“That has helped save a lot of people’s lives, but it hasn’t made health care cheaper,” he says. “It’s at the point now where (the health-care) industry has to start getting more productive. Innovation needs to happen, and people are recognizing that.”

The company’s subscription-based software searches the electronic medical records systems of health-care providers to find patients with upcoming appointments. It then sends reminders to patients via phone, e-mail or text message, and updates the status of the appointment in the clinic’s system without any human involvement, freeing up staff for other tasks.

After appointments, it sends out personalized surveys to patients in the days following their visit, and it continues to monitor them, asking questions about their health to keep tabs on who is in most urgent need of followup care. It also offers health and wellness information that doctors often don’t have time to provide, such as locations of smoking cessation programs.

Now an eight-person operation, Cliniconex graduated from Kanata’s L-Spark accelerator in July. The firm has landed partnerships with two of the country’s largest vendors of electronic medical records, QHR Technologies and Telus Health, who resell the company’s

Cliniconex CEO Anthony Mar. FILE PHOTO

software to clinics. About 1,600 doctors across Canada use Cliniconex software to make more than 200,000 connections with patients every month.

Now, two of the city’s leading seed investors and one of its biggest players in the health-care field have joined the list of believers.

Capital Angel Network and Wesley Clover International led a seed round in October that provided about $500,000 in funding. The cash infusion will allow Cliniconex to ramp up its engineering, product testing and sales staff.

“First of all, it gives us the go-getit attitude,” says Mr. Mar. “Secondly, because of the investment, it gives us the resources to actually go after it.”

In addition, Ottawa-based Calian Group, which operates 180 medical clinics in Loblaw supermarkets across Canada under the Primacy banner, announced late last month it has purchased a small equity stake in the company worth about $100,000.

Calian vice-president of health services Scott Murray says the deal will help Cliniconex expand its customer base while giving Calian clinics a competitive edge in the marketplace.

“In our opinion, the future of health is very much digital. Ultimately, we think there’s going to be a digital component to health (care). It’s going to come at you fast, so we’re trying to be prepared.”

The company’s revenues are now growing at the brisk rate of 35 per cent every quarter. Mr. Mar says Cliniconex, which is just starting to dip its toes into the lucrative U.S. market, is on target to hit $1 million in annual revenues by next year.

“Each time we pass through a gate, I think to myself, ‘Holy crap, it’s possible.’ I’m still just as excited as when we started.”

– CRAIG FITZPATRICK, CEO OF PAGECLOUD

Web design firm draws $11.5M from investors PageCloud targets do-it-yourself users in next stage of growth

BY DAVID SALI david@obj.ca

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PageCloud’s Craig Fitzpatrick. MARK HOLLERON

hen Craig Fitzpatrick set out on his mission to “fix the Internet” with revolutionary web design software a couple of years ago, he assumed he had a pretty good handle on who his target market would be.

“Conventional wisdom says you should always pick a niche, own it and then expand from a position of strength,” says the founder and CEO of PageCloud, whose drag-and-drop web design and editing product has attracted more than 15,000 customers in 130 countries.

“So we did that. We thought, ‘OK, professional designers are going to love this.’”

But it didn’t take Mr. Fitzpatrick and

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A fourth-generation Ottawa family business, located in our dynamic Westboro Village.

Series-A round worth more than $5.4 million in Canadian funds, bringing its total funding haul since the firm was established in the fall of 2014 to about $11.5 million. Key investors in the latest round include early stage U.S. firms Accomplice and Singularity Invest, along with the Economic Development Bank of Canada and the Toronto-based MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund.

Mr. Fitzpatrick says the latest cash infusion will help the 22-person startup build a “big customer acquisition machine” aimed at clients frustrated with more traditional platforms such as WordPress and Squarespace as well as the huge untapped market of people who might have thought about designing their own websites but were wary of taking the plunge.

Continued on page 11

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his team long to realize their potential client base was actually much, much bigger than that.

“It turns out, way faster than we could have expected, the do-it-yourselfer crowd came along,” he says from PageCloud’s Rideau Street headquarters, which is in midst of an expansion that will allow it to accommodate about 65 employees down the road.

“These are basically every SMB. They want to do (web designing) for themselves. They don’t want to rely on this whole services industry that charges them 100 bucks an hour just to make a simple change.”

To reach that vast market, PageCloud is beefing up its marketing and development crews with the help of millions of dollars in new funding.

The company recently closed a

COMMENTARY

tal nt Ottawa’s got talent – but it needs the right skills The escalating pace of innovation means local companies, post-secondary institutions and governments must work together to ensure our economy’s most precious resource – its people – is being used to its full potential, Jeffrey Dale says

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

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alent is the raw material for the new industrial age. It is also global and very mobile.

Neither Ottawa nor Canada has a monopoly on talent, and talent is very easy to move around. Successful economies in today’s world need to have access to the right talent at the right time.

Remember back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when companies such as JDS and Nortel were hiring by the hundreds? Those employers needed an abundance of workers who were knowledgeable about hardware.

Our schools moved to graduate new students with this talent, but by the time they graduated the need for hardware specialists had declined.

Suddenly, we had more people than jobs, and employees needed to figure out what new skills were in demand and, hopefully, retrain themselves in time.

Today, we are seeing another cycle of high demand for talent. Companies such as Shopify and others are worried about

a shortage of skilled workers to support their growth and are expanding into new cities in search of that talent. At the same time, global companies such as Amazon and Apple have set up operations in Ottawa, further heightening competition for workers.

This cycle of talent needs and talent supply is never going to be in balance.

The pace of innovation constantly changes the skill sets demanded by businesses. The education system cannot react fast enough to these changes, and government policy is even slower to shift gears than our postsecondary institutions.

To have a successful talent-based economy, we need to focus on three priorities: • Educational institutions must provide both technical and business skills in all programs; • Businesses need to constantly invest in training and upgrading workers’ skills; • Governments must invest in

education and make Canada the easiest place in the world for foreign talent to work.

First, our educational institutions need to adjust faster to changing talent requirements. Business and entrepreneurial skills need to receive the same priority as the STEM skills of science, technology, engineering and math. All degree and diploma programs should require at least one mandatory business or entrepreneurship course and offer at least one term of paid work placement.

Second, Canadian businesses must invest more in training their employees.

The technology industry in particular has a reputation for providing little or no training to its workers. If a new skill is needed, many companies would rather hire new workers with the requisite skills than invest in retraining their current workforce, leading to layoffs when existing workers no longer had the right skill sets.

Many of our promising startups thrive

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Real Estate Today

Ottawa has a highly skilled, diverse workforce. But in order for our economy to continue to prosper, our businesses, their employees and our governments must do better at adjusting to ever-changing skill requirements. The ability to adjust to these changes is a skill in its own right They are using the system without investing in it. The Ottawa business community and educational institutions need to make Ottawa the leading city in Canada for co-op programs.

Finally, government can help address the skills gap in several ways.

First, as the largest employer in Ottawa, it can be the model for student work placements.

Second, it needs to be more flexible to the occasional need for companies to hire foreign workers.

Despite their best intentions to hire Canadian workers, sometimes businesses must look outside our borders for the right talent to help them grow.

Yet they are hamstrung by a complicated process that makes it frustrating and time-consuming for foreigners to obtain work visas.

Recently, the minister of finance announced the federal government will begin to fast-track work visas for technology talent. This is a move in the right direction, but I don’t know why it is aimed only at the tech sector.

Right now, the United States has a better reputation than Canada for being friendly to highly sought-after foreign talent. This might change under the new U.S. administration, and it could be a golden opportunity for this country to once again become a welcome destination for the world’s best and brightest workers in all fields.

Ottawa does have talent. We have a highly skilled, diverse workforce. Our city’s economy and population have grown through education, reskilling and immigration.

But in order for our economy to continue to prosper, our businesses, their employees and our governments must do better at adjusting to ever-changing skill requirements.

The ability to adjust to these changes is a skill in its own right – one that might turn out to be the most valuable of all for our businesses and employees in the future.

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Jeffrey Dale is the president of Snowy Cloud and the former president of the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation.

F

rom personal observation, today’s homebuyer may be better informed than at any other time in history. Between easy-to-access information on the internet, help provided by mortgage brokers, lending institutions and real estate teams; most homebuyers are entering the market with fairly realistic expectations.

I’ve found, however, that one consideration often put on the backburner is the monthly costs associated with owning a home.

A wide variety of mortgage calculators can be accessed online; I encourage you to choose one that takes monthly expenses into account.

These typically include the following: Property Taxes. This is one expense that can really take first-time homebuyers by surprise. The cost can vary an incredible amount depending on your municipality, so background research is definitely helpful.

Utilities. While just about everyone expects to pay for heating and electricity, it’s wise to consider the size and age of a home and its method of heating.

Condo Fees (if applicable).

These depend greatly on a building’s amenities and on a suite’s square footage; they may include utilities. Be sure to ask how long the current fees will apply, as they may be raised each year.

Some additional expenses generally not included by mortgage calculators include the following: Home Insurance. This item isn’t optional – to carry a mortgage in Ontario, your home must be insured.

Decorating. It’s a good idea to budget for paint, wallpaper, window treatments and furniture that suits your new home. Happily, this is the

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

when they first launch, but fail when they try and scale up their businesses.

These failures are often the result of management teams not possessing the skills to scale from a small company to one with more complex requirements for success.

The Lazaridis School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo has launched a new program focused on providing executives with the skills to scale a company from a startup to a globally competitive enterprise, and Ottawa’s Better Software Company was one of 10 startups from across Canada selected for the inaugural cohort.

The program was developed under the leadership of Micheál Kelly, the dean at Lazaridis and a former dean of the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management. It has great potential to help Canada’s growing companies meet the challenge of growing their management skill sets at the same trajectory as their revenues.

My company recently conducted a national research study for Industry, Science and Economic Development Canada on the challenges of recruiting, retraining and retaining senior talent in the tech sector. One of its key findings was that the skills in shortest supply are sales and marketing, an area Canadian firms desperately need to improve upon in order to build scalable enterprises.

Helping our management teams beef up these skills is a key step toward helping Canadian companies scale to become globally competitive. So is adding more placements for students to help them be job-ready when they enter the workforce.

Our post-secondary institutions should offer all students the opportunity to do at least one co-op placement.

But this is only viable if more local businesses commit to hiring students for such placements.

Co-op graduates find jobs in their field faster than non-co-op students; I have met many employers who prefer to hire co-op graduates because they have that initial workplace experience and can be productive from the get-go.

However, many employers who hire co-op grads don’t hire co-op students.

Keeping it Real: The Monthly Costs of Home Ownership

POLITICS

“I think cooler heads have to prevail. We need to step back and take a breath.”

– BLAIR PATACAIRK, DIRECTOR OF INVESTMENT AND TRADE AT INVEST OTTAWA

Business as usual for Ottawa after Trump win, officials say New administration could mean new opportunities, more talent for local firms: Tech execs

BY DAVID SALI david@obj.ca

D

onald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election generated plenty of shockwaves in Canada, but a senior Invest Ottawa executive says economic development agencies in this country “can’t take their foot off the gas pedal” in their effort to build business relationships south of the border.

“We’re going to have to keep doing what we do,” said Blair Patacairk, the agency’s director of investment and trade, adding Canadian business development officials need to give the new administration time to get settled in before passing judgments on Mr. Trump’s policies.

“I think cooler heads have to prevail.

We need to step back and take a breath.”

The president-elect made headlines for his vow to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement if he can’t get a better deal for the United States, a pledge that left many business leaders on both sides of the border feeling uneasy.

Days after the Nov. 8 vote, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he told Mr. Trump he would be “more than happy” to talk about revisiting NAFTA. That doesn’t worry Mr. Patacairk, who said the flow of goods and services across the Canada-U.S. border, currently valued at more than a billion dollars each day, will continue “with or without NAFTA.” In fact, he said, taking a fresh look at the deal could benefit Canada in the long run.

FarmLead’s Andrea Wood. PHOTO PROVIDED

“Perhaps there’s a way to tweak (NAFTA) in a positive way,” he said. “We need to be solution-providers right now.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s election also fuelled suggestions it could be a win for the Canadian tech sector if programmers

and other highly sought-after workers decide to leave the United States and pursue opportunities north of the border.

Several Ottawa immigration lawyers said they began getting calls the morning after the election from U.S. citizens interested in moving to Canada’s capital.

Many local tech firms are complaining of a shortage of skilled programmers and engineers, and a “reverse brain drain” could ease their pain.

However, Mr. Patacairk said he’s not expecting a flood of American tech gurus to suddenly pull up stakes and resettle in Ottawa.

“Let’s be realistic about it,” he said, noting it’s one thing to talk about applying to immigrate to Canada and another thing to actually go through the

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process, which can take years. “When the dust settles, you’ll see who wants to move or doesn’t want to move.”

Bruce Linton, CEO of Kanata firm Martello Technologies, said red tape isn’t the only deterrent to potential borderhoppers. Salaries for engineers and developers are often significantly lower in Canada than in U.S. tech hubs such as Silicon Valley, a contrast that’s even more stark after exchange rates on a sub-75cent loonie are factored in.

“When you convert a Canadian salary back to American dollars, for many people that causes a certain pause,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, crap. That’s not much money.’ I think it is potentially going to have a few folks come across, but it’s a pretty hard move to make.”

Andrea Wood, vice-president of marketing at Ottawa-based startup FarmLead, agreed it’s a “complicated” process for Americans to emigrate. But she said the National Capital Region is an attractive destination for many potential recruits despite the currency issue because of its natural beauty, mix of urban and rural landscapes and high quality of life.

FarmLead, an online grain marketplace, has a number of employees who studied and worked in the United States but chose to come to Ottawa because they like the city and believe in the company’s mission, she said.

“If someone is looking to move to Canada – or back to Canada – it’s a holistic approach, rather than about, ‘OK, I’m going to make more money there,’” said Ms. Wood, who has lived in Silicon Valley and New York City. “It’s much more

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Blair Patacairk of Invest Ottawa says business must keep pushing forward. PHOTO PROVIDED

about, what will my entire life look like.”

She said the 13-person firm is looking to hire more developers and marketing experts and is turning its attention to the south.

“We want people to have an understanding of all markets rather than just the Canadian market. Having access to a talent pool that’s greater than what we have right now would be incredible.”

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11 OBJ.CA

wants to start with a blank page. Live and learn.”

PageCloud’s 2016 revenues are projected to hit about $2 million, Mr. Fitzpatrick says. He calls the next 12 months a “scale-up year” in which the firm will likely boost its headcount by about another 20 employees in preparation for a steeper growth trajectory in 2018.

Finding those additional workers is his most daunting challenge right now, he concedes.

“We’ve got some big companies here that are hiring a lot,” he says with a sigh.

“I mean, Shopify’s been doing that for years, Amazon just moved to town, Apple moved to town, so that’s a bit tough.”

Still, he knows there are worse problems to have. With the one-year anniversary of the official product launch quickly approaching, the PageCloud team is hosting a celebration on Nov. 24 at the Zibi presentation centre in Gatineau – a well-deserved chance to pause and reflect on the journey so far, Mr. Fitzpatrick says.

“Each time we pass through a gate, I think to myself, ‘Holy crap, it’s possible.’

I’m still just as excited as when we started.”

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Continued from page 7 “We’re actually starting to unlock this growing segment of the market that’s never tried (designing a website) before because they were so horribly intimidated by all the technology,” he explains. “There’s a huge, growing segment who want to do it themselves but never thought they could.”

Targeting that newbie market has also required a few modifications to the software itself, Mr. Fitzpatrick adds.

Originally a “blank page” tool designed to build websites from scratch, PageCloud has tweaked its user interface and is adding features such as prebuilt templates with embedded fonts and other graphic elements that can be dragged on to a page to give users a starting point.

Thirty per cent of PageCloud’s customers have never built a website before, Mr. Fitzpatrick notes, and the firm quickly realized those users needed a helping hand in the design process.

The original concept “demoed really well,” he says. “The TechCrunch video was seen by 200 million people worldwide. It was awesome. But when we went to market, we realized nobody

Celebrate with the Sens

BEST OTTAWA BUSINESS 2016 RECIPIENTS

Taking on the world from Ottawa City’s CEO of the Year challenges local firms to be more than ‘R&D outposts’

BY PETER KOVESSY pkovessy@obj.ca

A

mid the celebrations on Nov. 10 at the Westin Hotel, where more than two dozen local residents and companies were feted at the Best Ottawa Business Awards, David Ross – the 2016 CEO of the Year – shared a concern: How rare his company, Ross Video, is in Canada.

At some 650 employees, the live video production equipment firm is considered “a huge Canadian-owned tech company” but is also the size of a Silicon Valley startup, Mr. Ross said in his acceptance speech.

He went on to question why Canadian firms are so eager to raise money by selling equity stakes. This, he argued, frequently leads to companies being sold to larger U.S. businesses and cities such as Ottawa becoming “R&D outposts.”

But far from casting a pall over the evening, Mr. Ross delivered an inspirational challenge to the more than 600 attendees in a speech that kicked off an upbeat gala in which pride in being an Ottawa-based business was on full display.

“We need to scale up more of our tech companies and keep them in Canada,” Mr. Ross said. “We want foreign companies begging to be bought by our companies, instead of Canadian

2016 BOBs recipients: CEO of the Year: David Ross, Ross Video Best New Business: Bellefleur Physiotherapy; HostedBizz; Keynote Group; and Pure Kitchen #NextBigThingOTT: FarmLead; FileFacets; and Spivo

Deals of the Year: RendezVous LeBreton (real estate); Assent Compliance (finance), Simons (retail); TechInsights and Chipworks (technology); and Ottawa 2017 and CIBC (tourism) Best Performance: Giatec (exporting); Rebel. com (human resources); Welch LLP (marketing); Nokia (co-op); KRP (sustainability); Canada Wheels (sales); and Equator Coffee Rosters (philanthropy)

companies wanting to be bought by foreign companies.”

In addition to the CEO of the Year award, the BOBs honours the top performing companies in several categories, including exporter of the year, best businesses and deals of the year.

Several of the recipients built on Mr. Ross’s theme of celebrating businesses that are finding success internationally from headquarters in the nation’s capital.

#SeriousTechLivesHere: March Networks (company of the year); and You.i TV (team of the year) Best Business: Calian Group; OakWood Renovation Experts; ProntoForms; and RBR Global Newsmaker of the Year: RendezVous LeBreton Lifetime Achievement Award: Michael Potter

“We create products here in Ottawa and sell them all over the world,” said Spivo co-founders Andre Bellerive and Marc Bjerring.

Their firm, which was one of the #NextBigThingOTT recipients, sells a rotating camera mount that enables users to capture multiple perspectives.

In a special surprise appearance, retired astronaut Chris Hadfield – who became the first Canadian to command

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Saluting Best Ottawa Business Award Finalists Collins Barrow Ottawa LLP 613.820.8010

OBJ.CA

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7184_CBO_SponsorshipAd_9.833x6.2.indd 2

2016-11-01 4:22 PM

BEST OTTAWA BUSINESS 2016 RECIPIENTS

“We need to scale up more of our tech companies and keep them in Canada.”

– ROSS VIDEO CHIEF EXECUTIVE DAVID ROSS, OTTAWA’S 2016 CEO OF THE YEAR

the International Space Station – paid tribute to this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, former Cognos CEO Michael Potter.

Mr. Hadfield and Mr. Potter share a passion for aviation and have both volunteered with the Gatineau-based Vintage Wings of Canada, a non-profit founded by Mr. Potter with the aim of preserving and celebrating historically significant aircraft.

Mr. Hadfield praised Mr. Potter’s creativity, perseverance and leadership.

“He (used) his own ideas and his own ability to imagine something that didn’t exist, and then (applied) a tremendous amount of ability to organize and relentlessly work and inspire other people to build something here in the city that has tremendous value,” Mr. Hadfield said.

For his part, Mr. Potter said that he didn’t want to use his acceptance speech to offer business advice to the gala’s

attendees, despite his previous role in leading one of the most successful software firms in Ottawa’s history.

However, he encouraged attendees to ensure they listen to everyone within their organization and take a holistic view on what it means to be a leader.

“The best creative and innovative ideas bubble up from low levels in the organization. They don’t come from the executive suite or the boardroom,” he said.

“You might be the creative force behind a great new product that’s taking the market by storm. You might be the inventor of that product, you might be the creator of it, you might be the spokesperson or the face of your company. But none of those roles are as important as bringing a team together to motivate them, reward them appropriately, support them and stay out of their way. And that’s when great things happen.”

Many of Ottawa’s most prominent business executives turned out for the BOBs on Nov. 10 — not to mention a few high-profile guests. Clockwise from top left, Doug McLarty (left), a partner at MNP’s Ottawa office, chats with Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Michael Potter; CEO of the Year honouree David Ross makes a point during a rousing accceptance speech in which he challenged local tech entrepreneurs to build great companies; and retired astronaut Chris Hadfield (right) snaps a selfie with hosts Lianne Laing and Ian Mendes. PHOTOS BY MARK HOLLERON

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

13 OBJ.CA

THE LIST 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 9 11 12 13 13 15

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

16

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16 18 19 20

Company/Address Phone/Fax/Web Gowling WLG (Canada) LLP 2600-160 Elgin St. Ottawa, ON K1P 1C3 613-233-1781 / 613-563-9869 gowlingwlg.com Borden Ladner Gervais LLP 1300-100 Queen St. Ottawa, ON K1P 1J9 613-237-5160 / 613-787-3558 blg.com Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall LLP/s.r.l.

1400-340 Albert St. Ottawa, ON K1R 0A5 613-238-2022 / 613-238-8775 perlaw.ca Nelligan O’Brien Payne LLP 1500-50 O’Connor St. Ottawa, ON K1P 6L2 613-238-8080 / 613-238-2098 nelligan.ca Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP* 1500-45 O’Connor St. Ottawa, ON K1P 1A4 613-780-8661 / 613-230-5459 nortonrosefulbright.com Kelly Santini LLP 2401-160 Elgin St. Ottawa, ON K2P 2P7 613-238-6321 / 613-233-4553 kellysantini.com Emond Harnden LLP 707 Bank St. Ottawa, ON K1S 3V1 613-563-7660 / 613-563-8001 ehlaw.ca Soloway Wright LLP 700-427 Laurier Ave. W. Ottawa, ON K1R 7Y2 613-236-0111 / 613-238-8507 solowaywright.com Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP 1300-55 Metcalfe St. Ottawa, ON K1P 6L5 613-236-3882 / 613-230-6423 fasken.com Low Murchison Radnoff LLP 400-1565 Carling Ave. Ottawa, ON K1Z 8R1 613-236-9442 / 613-236-7942 lmrlawyers.com Dentons Canada LLP 1420-99 Bank St. Ottawa, ON K1P 1H4 613-783-9600 / 613-783-9690 dentons.com Sicotte Guilbault LLP 208-4275 Innes Rd. Orleans, ON K1C 1T1 613-837-7408 / 613-837-8015 sicotte.ca Mann Lawyers LLP 710-1600 Scott St. Ottawa, ON K1Y 4N7 613-722-1500 / 613-722-7677 mannlawyers.com Tierney Stauffer LLP 510-1600 Carling Ave. Ottawa, ON K1Z 0A1 613-728-8057 / 613-728-9866 tslawyers.ca Smart & Biggar 900-55 Metcalfe St., P.O. Box 2999, Station D Ottawa, ON K1P 5Y6 613-232-2486 / 613-232-8440 smart-biggar.ca LaBarge Weinstein LLP 800-515 Legget Dr. Ottawa, ON K2K 3G4 613-599-9600 / 613-599-0018 lwlaw.com Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP 1900-340 Albert St. Ottawa, ON K1R 7Y6 613-235-7234 / 613-235-2867 osler.com BrazeauSeller.LLP 750-55 Metcalfe St. Ottawa, ON K1P 6L5 613-237-4000 / 613-237-4001 brazeauseller.com McMillan LLP* 300-50 O’Connor St. Ottawa, ON K1P 6L2 613-232-7171 /613-231-3191 mcmillan.ca Macera & Jarzyna LLP 1200-427 Laurier Ave. W. Ottawa, ON K1R 7Y2 613-238-8173 / 613-235-2508 macerajarzyna.com

No. of local lawyers

LARGEST LAW FIRMS (RANKED BY NUMBER OF OTTAWA LAWYERS)

No. of local No. of national lawyers/ support staff/ No. of national support No. of local staff/ Managing partner(s)/ offices No. of national offices Year established in Ottawa

Services offered

164

257 1

655 1,065 7

Wayne Warren WND

Legal solutions in business law; advocacy and intellectual property

79

142 1

710 1,139 5

Katherine Cooligan 1952

National, full-service law firm focusing on commercial litigation and arbitration, business law and intellectual property solutions. Also assists clients with financing as well as trademark and patent registration.

58

60 1

0 0 1

Anthony P. McGlynn R. Aaron Rubinoff co-chairs 1971

Full-service law firm specializing in: business law; commercial disputes; labour and employment law; commercial real estate development; intellectual property; immigration; tax; personal legal needs; police law; international arbitration

54

78 2

0 0 0

Christopher Rootham 1963

Multi-service, including: business law; intellectual property; entertainment law; commercial litigation; real estate and development; condo law; employment law; personal injury; estate planning; family law; indigenous law; labour law; mediation services

40

WND 1

604 WND 5

Pierre-Paul Henrie 1984

Business law; M&A; real estate; employment/labour; Canadian/global regulatory; international trade; technology/innovation; business ethics/anti-corruption; dispute resolution/litigation; construction; food, agribusiness; health; patents/trademarks

35

53 2

0 0 0

Kelly Sample 1986

Insurance law; business law; employment law; civil litigation and dispute resolution; family law; medical malpractice; personal injury; real estate; estate/trust planning; sports and entertainment law; tax law; disability and compensation claims; bankruptcy

34

WND 1

0 WND 1

Jacques Emond, Vicky Satta, J.D. Sharp executive committee members 1987

Management-side employment and labour law; wrongful dismissal claims; human rights and harassment complaints; human resources training; employment contracts; workplace policies and sick leave management; WSIB; OHS; pension and benefits

32

46 1

35 WND 2

Tara Sweeney Bernie Roach Daniel Coderre 1946

Labour and employment law; estate planning and administration; business; debt/equity financing; insolvency/receiverships; leasing; franchising; corporate and contract law; commercial and residential real estate; municipal/expropriation; litigation

28

17 1

613 893 6

Stephen P. Whitehead 1980

Communications; business; litigation; labour, employment and human rights; international trade; anti-bribery and corruption; intellectual property; competition; public law; government relations and ethics; privacy; constitutional and administrative

28

WND 1

0 WND 0

Gary G. Boyd 1938

Business/corporate/commercial; financing; real estate; education; civil/commercial litigation; licensing; construction; franchising; employment/labour; personal injury/disability; family; wills/trusts/estate planning; procurement; IP; trademarks

26

47 1

511 1,300 6

David P. Little 1985

Regulatory matters; public policy; venture tech; litigation and dispute resolution; real estate; banking; lending; intellectual property; employment law; securities; telecommunications; privacy; marketing; labelling

25

36 2

0 WND 1

Michel Sicotte 1993

Full service including: business law; family law; real estate law; litigation and dispute resolution; intellectual property; wills and estates; employment law; mediation

24

WND 1

0 0 0

Edward K. Mann 2003

Commercial and business law; commercial and residential real estate; commercial leasing; employment and labour law; bankruptcy and insolvency; civil litigation; trusts, wills and estates; family law; personal injury; motor vehicle accidents

24

WND 3

0 0 0

Stephen Tierney 1982

Corporate and commercial law; commercial litigation; employment law; construction law; tax law; wills and estates; personal injury, residential real estate

23

WND 1

86 60 4

Steven Garland 1906

Patents; trademarks; copyright and media; industrial designs; litigation; licensing and IP transactions; life sciences (regulatory and compliance); IP management and strategic counselling; marketing and advertising; domain names and Internet law

20

14 1

24 15 1

Shane McLean 1997

Corporate; commercial; securities; taxation; tax planning; tax litigation; mergers and acquisitions; commercial real estate; secured lending transactions; intellectual property; licensing

20

47 1

391 WND 5

Donna White 1946

National law firm including IP; pharmaceutical litigation; technology; corporate finance and securities; mergers and acquisitions; taxation; regulatory law and privacy law delivering national and cross-border services.

17

30 1

0 1 0

Donald Brazeau managing partner 1989

Corporate and commercial; employment and labour; family business; intellectual property; litigation; non-profit and charity law; real estate; tax and estate planning; and technology law.

Member of Meritas Law Firms Worldwide

15

21 1

258 463 5

Ron Petersen 1905

Full service plus Supreme Court advocacy; international trade; information technology; business law; civil litigation; estate planning and administration; competition and international trade

14

25 1

0 30 1

Joe Ulvr 1977

Intellectual property law firm: patents; trademarks; copyright; industrial design; intellectual property litigation; trade secrets

WND = Would not disclose. *Did not respond to 2016 survey – using data from previous years.

Should your company be on this list? If so, please send details to research@obj.ca This list is current as of August 11, 2016. © 2015 by Ottawa Business Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced by any method in whole or in part without written permission by Ottawa Business Journal.

While every attempt is made to ensure the thoroughness and accuracy of the list, omissions and errors sometimes occur. Please send any corrections or additions by e-mail to research@obj.ca. OBJ lists are primarily compiled using information provided voluntarily by the organizations named. Some firms that may qualify for the list are not included because the company either failed to respond to requests for information by press time, because the company declined to take part in the survey or because of space constraints. Categories are drawn up in attempt to gather information of relevance to the Ottawa market.

Research by Patti Moran. Please send questions and comments to research@obj.ca.

FOR THE RECORD People on the move

Seema Aurora, president and CEO at TAG HR, Aydin Mirzaee, co-founder of Fluidware, and Alvaro Pombo, founder and CEO of ProntoForms, were honoured at the event.

Joe Varner has been appointed as executive director of the Bells Corners BIA. Mr. Varner served as director of policy to both the minister of national defence and the minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, and recently spent about 15 months with the Sussex Strategy Group. He is also chair of the board of directors of the St. John Ambulance Federal District in Ottawa.

Six local companies were named among Canada’s Top 100 Employers for 2017: Business Development Bank of Canada, Ceridian, Export Development Canada, KPMG LLP, NAV Canada and Norton Rose Fulbright. The list recognizes Canadian employers that lead their industries in offering exceptional workplaces for their employees, assessing businesses for their physical environments, performance management and employee benefits.

Morrison Hershfield has appointed Paul Latreille as a senior fire protection systems specialist in Ottawa. Mr. Latreille has more than 29 years of experience in the industry.

Hats off Four local entrepreneurs have been recognized for their significant contributions to the Ottawa economy by Mayor Jim Watson, who presented them with Immigrant Entrepreneur Awards during The Indus Entrepreneurs 2016 Conference. Claudia Arizmendi, owner and operator of the Cupcake Lounge,

C-COM Satellite Systems has been named by the Canadian Innovation Exchange as one of the year’s 20 most innovative Canadian publicly listed technology companies. The top 20 businesses are chosen based on a number of key factors, including overall innovation, product/service offering, depth of management, market opportunity and business model.

Mayor Jim Watson announced the local residents who will be inducted into the Order of Ottawa this year.

Abraham Feinstein, Harley Finkelstein, Nishith Goel, George Hanna, Gibson Patterson and Mark Sutcliffe are among 15 of the 2016 inductees with extensive community involvement and backgrounds in government, non-profits and the private sector.

Prof. Bertrand Jodoin of the University of Ottawa has been recognized as an outstanding leader for his efforts to

Contracts The following contains information about recent contracts, standing offers and supply arrangements awarded to local firms.

Modis Canada Inc. 155 Queen St. Description: EC IT professional services Buyer: Office of the Chief Electoral Officer $6,704,005 IBM Canada Ltd. 3755 Riverside Dr. Description: EC IT professional services Buyer: Office of the Chief

mentor graduate students and bridge the gap between research and industry. A professor in the faculty of engineering’s mechanical engineering department, he was presented with the Mitacs Award for Exceptional Leadership – Professor.

Electoral Officer $6,354,897

services Buyer: PWGSC $3,842,961

IBISKA Telecom Inc. 130 Albert St. Description: IT professional services Buyer: PWGSC $5,764,441 EllisDon Corp.

2680 Queensview Dr. Description: Canada Four Corners full envelope rehabilitation Buyer: PWGSC $5,620,180 ADGA Group Consultants Inc. 110 Argyle Ave. Description: IT professional

IBM Canada Ltd. 3755 Riverside Dr. Description: EC IT professional services Buyer: Office of the Chief Electoral Officer $3,616,232

LEGAL WORRIES

and present:

Of the respondents who said they were kept up at night by a legal issue, the issue that concerned them the most was (respondents could choose more than one):

26.7%

LITIGATION

TELLING THE STORY OF CANADA'S CAPITAL IN A WAY THAT PEOPLE WILL TALK ABOUT

Michael Crockatt

DO NOT HAVE THE PROPER EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENTS IN PLACE

UNPROTECTED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Thursday, December 15, 2016

LACK OF A PROPER AGREEMENT BETWEEN SHAREHOLDERS/PARTNERS

7:00 am - 9:00 am

Sheraton Ottawa Hotel - 150 Albert St., 2nd floor - Rideau Room

Register online at www.ottawachamber.ca

OTHER

22% 13.8% 13.1% 33.8%

“The world presents new opportunities every day and with that comes risk. Addressing those risks requires constant assessment, evaluation and planning. Whether it be privacy, cybersecurity, reputation or fraud, a good risk management strategy is critical to the preservation of business integrity and the advancement of your business objectives.”

— TODD BURKE, PARTNER, GOWLING WLG

Audio-Visual Rentals Locations audio-visuels

POWERED BY: OTTAWA BUSINESS EVENTS

15 OBJ.CA

E-mail info@ottawabusinessevents.ca to receive weekly updates on all our events.

This data is part of the Ottawa Business Growth Survey. Conducted by Abacus Data and made possible by Welch LLP, the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce and the Ottawa Business Journal, the survey gathered input from hundreds of local businesses. A free 36-page report can be downloaded at www.ottawabusinessgrowthreport.ca.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Corporate Tables of 8 with Signage $210 + HST (Members) $315 + HST (Non-Members)

19%

POOR OR INEFFICIENT BUSINESS STRUCTURE

President & CEO, Ottawa Tourism

Individual Tickets: $30.00 + HST (Members) $45.00 + HST (Non-Members)

CIMA Canada Inc. 240 Catherine St. Description: Six Mile Lake region, ON – rehabilitation of northern area dams Buyer: PWGSC $3,765,938

BRAZEAU SELLER LAW

BRZ-7442-BSL-OBJ-Ad-FNL.pdf

1

2016-11-10

2:44 PM

WE’RE GETTING OUR MOVE ON. NEW LOCATION. NEW NAME. WELCOME TO THE NEW BRAZEAU SELLER LLP.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

700-100 QUEEN ST. OTTAWA, ON INFO@BRAZEAUSELLER.COM BRAZEAUSELLER.COM 613-237-4000

OBJ.CA

16

BRAZEAU SELLER

TAGE T SHOR should TALEN how worried TECHOttawa missing, and

SHORTAGE TECHOTTATAWALEMISSNT ING,

What’s you be?

VOL. 1, ISSUE

G TECH IN

7

MONDAY, NOVEMBER

21, 2016

OTTAWA

CONNECTIN

WHAT’S LD YOU BE? AND HOW WORRIED SHOU

ON THE JOB n LEARNING the Shopify-Carleto Inside

partnership Page

BULB BUSINESS the light Shining 7 on Rimikon Page

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BY ANpitching TOUCHED and don’ts of Dos

investors Page 9

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CONNECTING TECH

IN OTTAWA

VOL. 1, ISSUE 7

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

TECH TALENT SHORTAGE WHAT’S OTTAWA MISSING, AND HOW WORRIED SHOULD YOU BE?

ON THE JOB LEARNINGShopif y-Carleton Inside the partnership Page 5

NESS BULB BUSIlight Shining the on Rimikon Page 7

BY AN ANGgEL TOUCHEDdon’ts of pitchin Dos and investors Page 9

CONNECTING TECH IN OTTAWA

LEARNING ON THE JOB Inside the Shopify-Carleton partnership Page 5

BULB BUSINESS Shining the light on Rimikon Page 7

VOL. 1, ISSUE 7

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL Dos and don’ts of pitching investors Page 9

SYSTEM UPDATE

Subscribe to TECHOPIA’s weekly e-mail newsletter at techopia.ca

— SPONSORED CONTENT —

Kanata North rides a perfect storm of opportunity Thirst for talent speaks to area’s growth and prosperity

T

he depth and quality of Kanata North’s labour force cannot be denied and yet employers find themselves challenged to find the talent they need fast enough.

Can you say “boom?”

It’s just one more indicator of the resilience, strength and appeal of Kanata North as a great place in which to start and grow a world-class technology company.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP According to Jenna Sudds, Executive Director of the Kanata North Business Association, the area is on a growth tear thanks to the intersection of technology, talent and opportunity.

The greatest opportunity lies with 5G – the next-generation wireless communications. The 5G network is crucial to support the growth of smart cities, driverless cars and the Internet of Things.

“When we consider the number of companies taking part in the development of 5G, the multinationals that have chosen Kanata North as their R&D centres and the presence of the CENGN consortium, it really is indicative of the talent that is located here,” Sudds said. “I see endless opportunity.”

Complementing that traditional strength in telecommunications is the growth of other hot sectors like Software-as-a-Service. In fact, software is Kanata North’s fastest growing industry sector, anchored by the L-Spark incubator.

TECHOPIA.CA

02

THE WAR FOR TALENT Algonquin College plays a key role in the growth of Kanata North as a training ground for the talent that growing companies need. President Cheryl Jensen co-chairs a President’s Advisory Panel with Sir Terence Matthews to serve and anticipate local talent needs. Algonquin also recently announced a new $44.9 million Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Learning Centre and Institute for Indigenous Entrepreneurship. This facility is scheduled to open at the Ottawa campus in 2018.

“We are very fortunate to be a part

of a city that believes in this kind of growth,” Jensen said. “Thanks to key partnerships with and input from the Kanata North business community, we are building up our city and our workforce to be among the absolute best in the world.”

National employment agency Adecco Canada has long had a location on March Road in Kanata, to serve the needs of local tech companies. Branch Manager Lorraine Gignac works with Sudds and local HR professionals on the Business Association’s HR Leaders Council.

Such collaboration is crucial to address common challenges for employers to attract and retain the talent they need in a fiercely competitive market.

“It’s been a very positive experience helping new companies hire and watching them grow,” Gignac said. “So many cool technologies are coming to Kanata in addition to the ones we already have. People are attracted here, I think, because of the cost of living and the quality of life.”

LOCATION. LOCATION. LOCATION. Kevin Ford, CEO of Calian Group, is no stranger to the area’s appeal.

Calian is a 35-year-old home-grown success.

“It’s a great place to start and grow a technology and professional services company,” he said. “It’s a great place for talent, which I consider a key ingredient for any corporate growth strategy. When you have a mix of great tech companies clustered together it always creates a great dynamic, an energy, and that energy is back in Kanata North. You can see it with established companies and startups alike.”

For Ed Bryant, that dynamic includes the other critical growth ingredient – access to capital. The President and CEO of boutique investment bank Sampford Advisors is positive on the flow of capital into Kanata North.

“We are going to see another solid year that will meet or beat last year’s decade-long record,” he said. “Our weak dollar is attracting U.S. attention

Above: Jenna Sudds, Executive Director of Kanata North Business Association, presents the Kanata North #serioustechliveshere BOB Award for “Best Team of the Year” to You.i TV CEO Jason Flick.

Below: Jenna also presented the Kanata North #serioustechliveshere BOB Award for “Best Company of the Year” to Peter Strom, president & CEO at March Networks Inc. PHOTOS BY MARK HOLLERON

– American venture capitalists are waking up to the fact that their dollars can go further in Canada.”

But despite all the activity and growth, pockets of prime real estate remain for start-ups and multinationals alike. According to Peter Dooher, owner of commercial real estate firm Merkburn Holdings and past chair of the Business Association, options range from 1,000 square feet to 100,000. And it’s all younger inventory that’s top-notch, with high-speed fibre connectivity,

high-capacity power services and superior operational efficiency.

“I strongly believe in Kanata North,” he said. “It’s an awesome area. If people look at it objectively, this area is the finest tech cluster in Eastern Canada.”

FIND OUT WHAT MAKES KANATA NORTH SO COOL Learn more about why Kanata North is a great place to start and grow a technology company at www.serioustechliveshere.com

LOCAL FIRMS MAKE THE GRADE IN DELOITTE’S FAST 50 TECHOPIA.ca

OTTAWA’S TALENT SHORTAGE: MYTH, REALITY AND MISMATCH

BY CRAIG LORD

Last year, the Information and Communications Technology Council made big predictions about the demand for Canadian tech talent in coming years.

It forecasted the demand for 182,000 additional ICT jobs by 2019, 9,900 of which would need to be filled in Ottawa, and followed that up projecting that the level of homegrown talent would be insufficient to fill this demand.

Flash forward to this past spring, and Ottawa employers seemed to be in agreement. For the second year in a row, OBJ’s Business Growth Survey reported that attracting skilled talent is the No. 1 concern for local business leaders, with 47 per cent citing “skilled workforce” as a top concern.

Reading all of this, you might feel warranted to panic and declare a fullblown “talent shortage” in Ottawa tech.

As usual, the truth is more complicated than any sweeping declaration that our tech ecosystem is faltering. Ottawa’s tech

industry is in fact growing, quite rapidly, and many in the city are taking steps to try to ensure that the talent pool keeps pace.

HELP WANTED: There are opportunities in Ottawa’s tech market, but they come with their own challenges.

Klipfolio founder Allan Wille was sitting down to a dinner this past spring with a few local CEOs. During the dinner conversation, he heard that the same frustrations he saw at his own company were being felt throughout the city.

“Somebody asked the question, ‘Who’s hiring right now?’ And I think every single one of the CEOs put their hand up,” he says.

Today, Wille says he’s feeling the talent squeeze even more acutely. Whereas then he was only having trouble getting a hold of experienced talent in the city, he’s now also having difficulty getting recently graduated students from the pipeline.

Students who have been through university co-op programs are often the

FINDING EMPLOYEES WITH THE TECHNICAL SKILLS YOUR NEED FOR YOUR BUSINESS

44%

47%

FINDING EMPLOYEES WITH PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE IN YOUR SECTOR

34%

45%

focus of competition among employers, he says, while lower-tier talent sits on the sidelines.

“The cream of the crop is being hired aggressively. We’re not going to bring in people who aren’t a good fit, even in a difficult hiring market,” he says.

Troy English, chief technical officer at Ross Video, says that while he can usually find local talent to fill roles in the company, he thinks Ottawa employers poaching existing talent from one another is unproductive.

“The biggest issue in Ottawa is getting new people who are very strong,” English says.

Wille agrees: Ottawa needs external talent to thrive, and lobbying the government to implement a fast-track visa program has been a priority for his company.

Relocating a worker to Ottawa, a six- to nine-month process rife with uncertainty, is “an anxiety-induced system,” Wille says.

The company recently had an employee leave Klipfolio because of inefficiencies in

the current system.

The federal government appears to be listening. It announced it would be making changes to rules around skilled foreign workers coming to Canada. Specifically, the changes - which came into effect Nov. 19 - will make it easier for foreigners who studied in Canada, as well as those already here on temporary work permits and those individuals with offers of short-term contracts, to live and work in Canada.

Invest Ottawa is gearing up to embark on an external marketing campaign in the new year to attract foreign talent to the city, recognizing the need to bolster the talent pool.

“There’s only so much you can do in Canada,” says Invest Ottawa’s Laina Pilon, noting that the need for tech talent expands beyond the city.

“We talk about the opportunities in the Ottawa ecosystem for tech talent to come and set up, and that’s not something we’ve usually done in the past. That’s kind of a new area for us,” she says.

The current hiring climate has also forced Klipfolio to adapt: Wille says that the company is putting money in its budget next year specifically for recruitment.

A TALENT ‘MISMATCH’: Not everyone is on board with the idea of a talent deficit, though.

“I’ve been hearing this story of talent shortage in Ottawa for the better part of 20 years,” says Luc Lalande, executive director of the Entrepreneurship Hub at the University of Ottawa. “I really have a hard time getting my head around that.”

Lalande sees a steady stream of grads in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics leaving the university only to come up empty-handed in the job market or find work in another field.

Continues on page 4

HIRING INTENTIONS: IN THE NEXT SIX MONTHS, DO YOU PLAN TO...

REDUCE EMPLOYEE NUMBERS 4%

DON'T KNOW / NO COMMENT 11% RECRUIT NEW EMPLOYEES 39%

FINDING EMPLOYEES WITH THE SOFT SKILS NEEDED FOR YOUR BUSINESS

23%

44%

FINDING EMPLOYEES WILLING TO RELOCATE TO OTTAWA

34%

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

19%

KEEP EMPLOYEE LEVELS ABOUT THE SAME 46%

FINDING EMPLOYEES WHO STAY WITH YOUR BUSINESS FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME

11% 34% SOURCE: WELCH LLP / OTTAWA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OTTAWA BUSINESS GROWTH SURVEY OF MORE THAN 650 LOCAL BUSINESS LEADERS IN MAY 2016

TECHOPIA.CA

n A SERIOUS PROBLEM n A MODERATE PROBLEM

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“I think as a company, if you can get those two things right — having a clear direction on what you are trying to do and bringing in great people who can execute on Follow TECHOPIA on Twitter @techopiaOTT or like us at Facebook.com/techopiaOTT the stuff — then you can do pretty well.” – MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO OF FACEBOOK

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Continued from page 3 Commercial real estate firm CBRE released a report this month taking a look at the top tech cities in the country and noticed similar phenomena. While Ottawa has the most educated workforce in the country, with 43.4 per cent of workers holding bachelor’s degrees or higher, Ottawa also led the way in so-called “brain drain.”

Comparing figures of who graduated with a degree in the city from 2010-2014 with the number of jobs added in the city from 2011-2015, CBRE found a drain of 37,458 people. (Figures don’t refer solely to STEM-based degrees, but those degrees are included.)

Lalande has a few explanations for why Ottawa breeds such an educated workforce but fails to convert talent into jobs.

“STEM degrees don’t necessarily translate into STEM skills,” he says.

He says that post-secondary institutions need to consider whether the educations they offer are aligned with the needs of employers. Borrowing a line from blogger Irving Wladawsky-Berger, he sees Ottawa’s problem more as a talent “mismatch” than a shortage. Our homegrown talent is perhaps more in need of work-aligned training than traditional curricula offer.

“I think we have to look under the hood of these degrees,” says Lalande.

On the other hand, the CBRE report had a number of positive things to say about Ottawa’s tech market. It said the rate of growth in Ottawa’s millennial population is second in the country, real estate costs are relatively affordable and the city boasts more than 10 per cent of the total number of tech jobs in the country.

“We’re not competing on the scale of Toronto and Vancouver, just because of

LUC LALANDE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA’S ENTREPRENEURSHIP HUB. FILE PHOTO.

STEM degrees don’t necessarily translate into STEM skills. I think we have to look under the hood of these degrees.

— LUC LALANDE

their size, but on a per capita basis, we’re punching above our weight,” says Shawn Hamilton, managing director of CBRE Ottawa.

Hamilton adds that the continued presence of companies such as Ericsson and Ciena – which, after buying up divisions of Nortel, could have relocated years ago for cheaper real estate – is a reflection of the value of Ottawa’s talent pool.

TEAM EFFORT: Employers, students, universities, local organizations: There are things each party can do to improve the tech talent field for themselves.

Students will need to incorporate skills-based learning into their education, whether it’s through their degree, a co-op program, extra-curricular activities or supplementary classes. If students can

get into a company to do real-world work, English says that’s an immediate boost to a resume.

“We use the co-op program in large part to really interview prospective candidates.

I think the co-op program is probably the No. 1 thing you can do,” he says.

Carleton University recently announced a work-integrated learning partnership with Shopify to “take co-op to the next level,” a program you can read about indepth on the following page.

Lalande adds that rapid skills obsolescence is a rising threat to all members of the workforce: Odds are, given the rate of technological development, the skills you graduate with today aren’t the ones you’ll need five years from now.

Constant learning, then, is the key to remaining employable.

Companies can also take initiative to find and attract top students to their teams, getting them in their pipeline of candidates sooner.

“What all employers need to do is really focus on their employer brand,” says Wille.

Invest Ottawa and Shopify are sponsoring the Startup Open House later this month in an attempt to introduce students to prospective companies such as Klipfolio, Martello Technologies, The Better Software Company and You.i TV. “Most of the companies that are opening their doors are hiring and they’re trying to get their brand out there,” says Pilon.

The problem of the talent shortage isn’t imagined, but neither is it a nuanced understanding of the situation the city faces. Ottawa has talent, but it needs more, and it needs to better prepare that talent for the current demands of the labour market.

POST-SECONDARY ENROLMENT NUMBER OF STUDENTS

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA 42,027

CARLETON UNIVERSITY 27,241

ALGONQUIN 17,173

2012-13 TOTAL 86,441

UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA 42,587

CARLETON UNIVERSITY 28,048

ALGONQUIN 17,170

2013-14 TOTAL 87,805

UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA 42,672

CARLETON UNIVERSITY 28,523

ALGONQUIN 17,426

2014-15 TOTAL 88,621

UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA 41,754

CARLETON UNIVERSITY 29,127

ALGONQUIN 17,881

2015-16 TOTAL 88,762 100,000

60,000

0

20,000

TECHOPIA.CA

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HOW WOULD YOU RATE POST-SECONDARY INSTITUTIONS IN CANADA IN PREPARING THEIR STUDENTS FOR YOUR COMPANY?

4% 47% 27% EXCELLENT JOB

GOOD JOB

POOR JOB

7%

14%

VERY POOR JOB

UNSURE

SOURCE: WELCH LLP / OTTAWA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OTTAWA BUSINESS GROWTH SURVEY OF MORE THAN 650 LOCAL BUSINESS LEADERS IN MAY 2016

EARNINGS SEASON IN OTTAWA: WHO’S UP AND WHO’S DOWN TECHOPIA.ca

SHOPIFY, CARLETON PARTNERSHIP HOPES TO CREATE ‘EXCEPTIONALLY CAREER-READY’ STUDENTS In September, Shopify announced a partnership with Carleton University to put their students to work. For the past three months, 11 students enrolled in Carleton’s Bachelor of Computer Science (BCS) program have been splitting their time between the campus and Shopify’s offices for a hands-on education at the e-commerce firm.

BY CRAIG LORD

ADRIANNA CHANG AND HER CLASSMATES HAVE MADE SHOPIFY THEIR CLASSROOM. PHOTO BY MARK HOLLERON

to see if we can use a lot of what we know about learning and pedagogy and apply it to situations like this where you don’t necessarily have the restraints of 200-300 people classes. So that really excited me,” she says.

Shopify benefits in two ways from running the program, Carmichael says.

Primarily, it gets students into Shopify’s pipeline earlier, and grooms them for roles in the company as soon as they graduate with their BCS. At the same time, Shopify sees it as a responsibility to do its part to ensure Canada has the tech talent required to fill emerging roles. Whereas that role may traditionally have fallen to government and universities, the company feels it’s also the private sector’s job to make sure the tech ecosystem is thriving.

“It’s not just everybody else – industry

needs to step up as well and contribute to the solution,” Carmichael says.

The benefits are a bit more obvious for Carleton. Howe says this program is a way to attract top students away from other Canadian and American universities, specifically mentioning the University of Waterloo as a notable competitor.

Shopify and Carleton have an exclusive partnership for the next two to three years, but both Howe and Carmichael expressed interest in expanding the program in coming years, and even open-sourcing the model so the program can be replicated in an effort to fill talent gaps across the country.

“Right now we have 11 students. That’s just a drop in the bucket. If we can scale this model across different partnerships, then we can start making a bigger dent,” says Carmichael.

05 TECHOPIA.CA

a look at what BCS students learn and places students in projects and roles where they can acquire the requisite skills and knowledge.

“Students get the opportunity they can’t get anywhere else, to work and earn money, work with high-end developers solving real-world problems and at the same time get their BCS. It’s a really attractive package,” Howe says.

Gail Carmichael leads Shopify’s external education team, where the broad mandate is to “make learning computer science better for everyone.” When Shopify was looking for a partner on a project like this, Carmichael’s connections as a former lecturer at Carleton led her to believe the university would be willing to try something new.

“I’ve always been very passionate about computer science education, and trying

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

The program is unique in Canada. By the end of their four years, students will graduate not only with a BCS, but with four years of on-the-job experience. They still take classes and attend lectures, but many of their days and afternoons are spent entirely at Shopify learning the basics of coding. In the coming semesters, students will join teams at Shopify and give input on the company’s projects – and get paid for it.

“It couldn’t be better. I love spending time here,” says Adrianna Chang, one of the students enrolled in the ShopifyCarleton program. “I love going back and forth between Shopify and Carleton. The workload has been really manageable and the work has been really fulfilling.”

Chang says that the practical elements of the program caught her eye when she was applying to schools. She knew of Shopify when she participated in an event sponsored by the company in high school, and figured working with the company would add a great deal to her education.

“It was definitely a big factor, taking into consideration which program or school would prepare me for the workplace, because at the end of the day, that’s really what matters,” she says.

One of the unexpected positives in the program from Chang’s perspective was the diversity of students in the program.

She says she was expecting an experience similar to her high school computer science classes, filled largely with males.

The Shopify program’s cohort is more than 50 per cent female, though, including older returning students and a few international participants from Colombia and China.

Professor Douglas Howe, chair of Carleton’s Computer Science Department, sees this as an unprecedented opportunity for students.

“These students will be exceptionally career-ready,” he says.

Howe says that while traditional co-ops can sometimes be random in terms of where students end up and what they end up learning, the Shopify program is better aligned with the Carleton curriculum.

Shopify’s external education team takes

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OTTAWA’S VERSATURE GROWS THROUGH INTEGRATION TECHOPIA.ca

MADE IN OTTAWA: RIMIKON LIGHTS UP THE CAPITAL While a licensed electrician is required to install most traditional lighting systems, Despite their ubiquity in homes and the low-voltage nature of Rimikon’s offices around the world, traditional light technology means it can be installed by bulbs come with significant drawbacks: contractors performing other fit-ups in a Toxic components, limited lifespan, building, according to the company. electrical shock hazards and, in the case of LED lights are growing in popularity older incandescent bulbs, heat and wasted in large part because of their long life and electricity. relatively low operating cost.

An Ottawa-based firm believes it has According to the U.S. Department of the solution.

Energy, the average annual operating Rimikon develops LED lighting control cost of a 12W LED is $1. It produces the systems that allow users to adjust a room’s same amount of light as a traditional illumination with their smartphones.

60W incandescent bulb, which costs The low-voltage lighting systems – which $4.80 a year, and a coiled 15W compact include recessed lights, strips of LEDs and fluorescent light, which costs $1, the ceiling panels – can be installed in places government agency says. that were traditionally off-limits for lighting Rimikon’s lights are manufactured installations, such as showers and exterior in China, but the control systems are areas that are exposed to rain and snow, and designed in Ottawa. have a lifespan of 50,000 hours.

“We didn’t invent the wheel. We just

BY PETER KOVESSY

RIMIKON’S LIGHTS ARE TESTED AT THE OTTAWA OFFICES. PHOTO BY MARK HOLLERON

made it better,” said co-founder Richard St-Jacques. The company is looking to double in size to 15 employees over the next year by hiring more engineers so more prototypes can be developed at Rimikon’s headquarters.

“We’re trying to do everything here in Ottawa,” St-Jacques adds.

Rimikon, which was founded in 2013, sells to contractors and distributors who are in turn hired by homebuilders as well as commercial and institutional property owners. The company’s technology can be found in thousands of buildings across Ottawa, including classrooms in St. Paul’s

University as well as homes constructed by Minto, Brigil, Valecraft and Tamarack.

It’s also recently been approved to sell its products through Canadian Tire stores, giving it access to the retail market.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

07 TECHOPIA.CA

CONNECTED ON THE GO Check out TECHOPIA newsfeed on your mobile device at techopia.ca

Moving to Canada?

We can help.

American tech workers, businesses likely to be welcomed by tech hub, Ottawa “Deep in our history of struggle for freedom, Canada was the north star. The freedom road links us together.”

the President-Elect plans to deport millions, to close America’s doors (and build a wall), Canada is in the process of implementing a robust plan to increase our population and build a stronger country by actively recruiting the skill and experience of those from abroad. We value not just demographic diversity but diversity of values and beliefs. Canada’s future depends on the contributions of newcomers.

will find themselves very much at home in Ottawa. A technology hub and home to research and development offices for many U.S. multinational corporations, Ottawa is already a premier destination for technology expertise. Ottawa’s highly educated workforce means that those who come to our City with an eye towards starting businesses and hiring local talent will have no shortage of qualified people to hire.

President Obama summed up the shared values between Canada and the United States later on in his speech to our Parliament. Those values include “pluralism and tolerance, rule of law, openness, global engagement, and commerce, and cooperation, coupled with equal opportunity and an investment in our people at home.”

The United States is Canada’s sixth largest source of immigrants. Throughout our history, many have moved north to do business, reunite with family, and to find love. The North American Free Trade Agreement, which united the diverse populations and economies of the United States, Canada and Mexico, has led not only to the free flow of goods between our countries but also of people. Thanks to NAFTA and our bilateral relationship, American citizens do not need visas to visit Canada and can apply more easily for work permits. While Canada cannot accommodate every potential immigrant, American applicants for permanent resident status will find themselves nearer to the front of the line and with shorter wait times than those from elsewhere.

To those Americans (and of course others) who want to live in a country that values diversity and progress, we welcome you. As

Among the skilled potential immigrants who may see a future for themselves in Canada, those who work in the tech industry

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hen U.S. President Barack Obama invoked the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. while addressing the Canadian House of Commons in June 2016, few could have imagined that the election of Donald Trump would once again turn American eyes to the North. On election night, as state after state turned Republican red, the website of the Canadian Department of Citizenship, Immigration and Refugees crashed. Moving to Canada could be an option for many Americans (and others) who no longer see their own values reflected in their country’s leadership and growing divisiveness.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

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Adam Sadinsky s a Student-at-Law at Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall. He can be reached at asadinsky@perlaw.ca or 613.238.2022.

WHAT’S HAPPENING Stay up to date with TECHOPIA’s calendar of events at techopia.ca

ANGEL INVESTOR LAURIE DAVIS. PHOTO PROVIDED

People sometimes have way too muddled of a message.”

WOOD: “We need to know who you’re competing against and why you’re going to defeat them. And also a financial view of what investments you need and how you’re going to turn profitable.”

TECHOPIA: What’s the best way to connect to an angel?

DAVIS: “Warm introductions always work

STRAIGHT DOPE - HOW TO PITCH TO AN ANGEL If you’re looking for funding, sometimes your best shot is

an angel. But more often than not, your prayers fall flat and investors aren’t impressed. Techopia spoke to angel investors Laurie Davis and Rob Wood, members of both Purple Angel and Capital Angels Network, to hear their dos and don’ts of pitching to an angel.

TECHOPIA: When you’re being pitched to, what’s your mindset going in? What are you looking for in an investment opportunity?

DAVIS: “It’s pretty straightforward: Do we

WOOD: “In very simple terms, very low risk, very high profit. We’re looking for things that may have an explosive, exponential growth.

At the same time, we’re looking at all aspects of the business to minimize our risk. The people that are running it, what their experience is, how creative the technology

is, what the competitive landscape is, what’s their business model, how creative are they.

There’s a number of boxes that have to be filled in in order for us to move ahead.”

TECHOPIA: What are the biggest dos and don’ts when you’re pitching an angel?

DAVIS: “Some people try to make things sound too complicated because they think complicated means sophisticated. If you can’t describe a business model for a startup company in a few sentences, there’s something fundamentally wrong with it.

have websites that allow entrepreneurs to approach the angel organizations directly. There are also organizations that are cultivating startups, the Lead To Win organization, L-Spark, Invest Ottawa and the TiE organization.”

DAVIS: “At the end of the day, a city like Ottawa is a small community. We all know each other, either directly or one step removed. All those organizations Rob mentioned, we’re always talking. Getting into that community is an important step.”

TECHOPIA: Anything else?

DAVIS: “It’s the team that’s the important thing. It’s a small group of people that are determined to make a product successful that makes a difference. It’s investing in people that have what it takes. Technology’s always great, market’s always great, but you have to have somebody who will make it happen.”

WOOD: “We certainly see a range of entrepreneurs, from those that are very open to those that are very open to directional discussions, and there’s other people that are adamant that they know the route to success and are unwilling to take any input. Those, invariably, are the ones that get us in trouble. We’re very much looking into what sort of people are we investing in.”

09 TECHOPIA.CA

think it’s going to be profitable? Although angel investing has the word ‘angel’ in it, it’s not some sort of gift from God. Our intent is to make investments that will return a

profit. I wish we were always right – we’re generally not – but at the end of the day there’s got to be something you believe is the right kind of business with the right kind of people that can turn it into something that’s going to be profitable.”

WOOD: “At the most basic level, we

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

What follows is an edited transcript of an interview between Techopia, Laurie Davis and Rob Wood.

better than cold introductions. I get asked this question all the time by entrepreneurs, and I always say there’s three answers: ‘Networking, networking and networking.’

They gotta get out there. Every day of the week there’s some event going on in Ottawa for entrepreneurs and you gotta attend these things, you gotta get to know people.”

FEENICS DOUBLES OTTAWA FOOTPRINT WITH EYES ON NEW HIRES TECHOPIA.ca Sponsored content

This ivory tower is open for business uOttawa Innovates builds bridges with Faculty of Engineering alumni

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

t’s been a priority for Dr. Ioan Nistor, Interim Dean, from the day he joined the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Engineering – break that old perception of academia as an ivory tower distant from the corporate world.

Many Faculty of Engineering alumni, after all, have achieved great things through their careers as innovators, entrepreneurs and executives. They have a lot to offer.

For students, they are mentors and potential employers. For professors and grad students, they are collaborators and partners who can help focus academic research on areas of value to local technology companies and specific industry sectors.

“We have such a tremendous pool of talent that has come out of the university that we barely tapped into in previous decades,” said Dr. Nistor. “I think universities, as a whole, in Canada do a rather poor job at that.”

Earlier this month, the Faculty held its first uOttawa Innovates event as part of a new strategy to address this gap.

The uOttawa Innovates event series connects the Faculty of Engineering with its alumni, partners and friends from the technology and innovation sectors.

Each uOttawa Innovates event will feature updates on the latest technologies and initiatives developed by the Faculty’s researchers, students and alumni.

TECHOPIA.CA

10

An inside look at CEED The inaugural event on Nov. 4 featured a Design Showcase that provided an inside look at the Faculty’s engineering design facilities that are part of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Engineering Design (CEED). These include the Brunsfield Group Student Engineering Project and Entrepreneurship Centre, where students can design, fabricate and test complex prototypes; the Manufacturing Training Centre, where students get formal instruction on how to fabricate in

Photos by davidtaylorphotostudio.com

I

Nick Burgel, shares the importance of the CEED for students.

A member of the uOttawa Supermileage team explains the efficient operation of the car.

Dr. Ioan Nistor hands out the Alumni Award of Excellence to Mr. Jean-Michel Lemieux.

a machine shop; and the Project Integration and Team Space, or “PITS.” Attendees could also network with the 2016 recipients of the Faculty of Engineering Alumni Awards of Excellence (see Sidebar).

“As an alumnus, you always take pride and experience some sense of belonging when your school reaches out and values your achievements,” Dr. Nistor said of the Awards. “I want to ensure alumni feel that they belong to the Faculty and that there is something in this for them as well.”

Taking it on the road The uOttawa Innovates event series will not be limited to the campus. Kyle Bournes, Alumni Relations Officer for the Faculty of Engineering, intends for this to be a roadshow, with open houses at host companies. Earlier this year, the Faculty held a successful pilot

event at Pivotal Labs in Toronto, where alumnus Rahul Singh serves as VP of Engineering. The event featured an appearance by the Faculty’s Make Mobile.

“We want to demonstrate that the Faculty is open for business and seeking collaboration,” Bournes said. “Not only with our alumni, but with the innovation and technology sector in general, whether that is here in Ottawa, or in other cities where we find many of our alumni, such as Toronto and Montreal.”

In fact, uOttawa’s Faculty of Engineering is becoming a school of choice in Ontario. More of its first and second year undergrad students now hale from the GTA than from the National Capital Region.

“It’s great to launch something and see such a positive impact from it,” Bournes said. “We want to engage with strong corporate partners to help us build out the tech innovation sector in Ottawa and elsewhere because each year we graduate so many people who go to work in the local industry, as well as other tech clusters between here and Silicon Valley.”

Winners of the uOttawa Faculty of Engineering’s Alumni Awards of Excellence: Alumni Award of Excellence Jean-Michel Lemieux (BSc ’96, Computer Science), SVP of Engineering at Shopify, Ottawa, ON Entrepreneur of the Year Mina Lux (BSc ’90 (BASc ’92, Chemical Engineering), Founder & CEO at Meelo Logic, New York, NY Young Alumni Award of Excellence Mike Cook (BASc ’03, Computer Engineering), President at Identos, Toronto, ON Alexandra Bissinger (BASc ’09, MEng ’13, Civil Engineering), Team Leader, Programs at Defence Construction Canada, Comox, BC

Learn more about uOttawa Innovates at engineering.uOttawa.ca

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he capacity of current mobile networking solutions at a fraction of their costs. Ranzure’s solution is unique in that it can be deployed as an underlay, without disturbing the operator’s legacy 4G network.

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“Ranzure’s revolutionary approach to mobile networking is going to give mobile operators OTTAWA SOFTWARE FIRM SPARTAN BIOSCIENCE WINS TECHOPIA globally a cost effective mechanism to meet the ON TOUR MYDOMA STUDIO HAS IEEE AWARD FOR DNA VIDEO: LESSONS FROM performance that they DESIGNS ONchallenges SUCCESS TESTING CUBE face as they ROSS VIDEO move forward into the ever-more-mobile world of T we live in” says Terry Mathews, Mitel chairman

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Ranzure Networks is Growing!

W

Come join an exciting development in the world of 5G!

e introduced the exciting arrival of Ranzure Networks onto the Ottawa high-tech scene in a previous issue of OBJ/Techopia. Ranzure, seed funded by anchor investors Mitel Mobility and Live Oak Investments, is a growing new company focused on bringing 5G to the planet.

“Ranzure’s innovative development of 5G Cloud RAN technology is going to revolutionize the way mobile networks are deployed and how they deliver services”, says Erik Boch, co-founder and CTO of Ranzure.

Ranzure is growing its world-class R&D operations to fuel the development of revolutionary Cloud-based SW and highly deployable, auto-configuring micro basestations that will deliver 1000 - 10000X the capacity of current mobile networking solutions at a fraction of their cost.

Currently, Ranzure Networks Canada is searching for experienced, expert engineers to fill the following key positions in our Ottawa R&D team:

RNCN_001_Embedded Software Engineer - BSP/OS • Linux Kernel BSP development for custom multi-core, multi-processor platform. Requires experience developing Linux drivers for customer hardware, as well as standard peripherals/ interfaces/controllers.

RNCN_002_Embedded Software Engineer – OAM/EMS • LTE/eNodeB OAM design and development. Define/ design/implement RRU embedded OAM data objects. Strong understanding of SNMP protocol and/or TR-069

RNCN_003_Embedded Software Engineer – Networking and Connectivity • Networking stack integration, including rich Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) and Carrier Ethernet features & services; QoS, MPLS, VLAN, link aggregation, E-Line, E-LAN, E-Tree

RNCN_008_Embedded Software Engineer – Simulation, Test & utilities • Continuous integration, including CM scripts & make files. Hands on Experience in Yocto/ make/Python /C/C++. Experience working with ARM, FPGA SoC devices, as well as board bring up and hardware debugging RNCN_009_FPGA Design Engineers • Experience working with FPGA SoC devices. Especially involving radio design and development. Knowledge in RAN technologies; LTE, eNB, 3GPP IRP, NRM. Desirable to have experience with algorithm design using Matlab Simulink. FPGA design; pin mapping, constraints, RTL, Simulation, etc…

Please send your CV to kay.sloan@ranzure.com. We look forward to adding you to our world class R&D team!

11 TECHOPIA.CA

Candidates require excellent multi-site & team-environment working skills, excellent English written and oral communication skills, 4-8 years’ experience combined with a BSEE or MSEE, and a legal ability to work in Canada.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2016

RNCN_006_Application Software Engineer – OAM/EMS • LTE/eNodeB OAM design and development. Primary application SW contact for remote team.

Define/ design/implement RRU application level OAM objects, in accordance with associated embedded data model.

RNCN_007_Embedded Software Engineer Datapath Control • Experience working with ARM, FPGA SoC devices, as well as with LTE/eNodeB/RAN technology development. Algorithm design using Matlab, including Simulink and 3rd party DSP implementation blocksets

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LIGHT UP YOUR TASTE BUDS Enjoy our delicious holiday menus at Banco Bistro and Arôme as well as our prestigious Five Diamond restaurant Le Baccara.

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