BEST OTTAWA BUSINESS AWARDS announced the impending opening of its first Toronto-area location in Etobicoke. In July, Kettleman’s also announced that Kanata will soon be home to the “world’s first Montreal-style bagel shop with a drive-through.” Kanata residents welcomed the news. Kettleman’s made the announcement on social media. Within 24 hours, its Instagram post had received more than 660 likes, while its Facebook post had 406 comments.
Best Businesses MDS AERO SUPPORT CORP. The company sums up its success as the union of culture and strategy – a culture that is “high performance” and a strategy that is “balanced and ambitious.” The numbers say it all. MDS works with the world’s largest aerospace companies to deliver customized and turnkey test facilities in 23 countries. It is active in the markets for gas turbine R&D and testing, aviation engine maintenance, repair and operation services, and electrical propulsion. MDS is the market leader in the first two segments with more than 75 per cent global market share. The company continues to invest in its leadership, technical expertise and product offering. It’s also looking at new opportunities in the wind tunnel, space propulsion and urban air mobility markets.
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SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETING ASSOCIATES OTTAWA INC. (SLIAO)
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In a city like Ottawa, it’s easy to think of interpretation and translation services only in the context of spoken language. But this, of course, is not the only way in which people communicate. The team at SLIAO specializes in sign language translation and interpretation, bridging the communication divide between a Deaf and a hearing person – in several spoken languages. Since SLIAO’s founding in 1997, its in-person translation services have been widely used for conferences, court proceedings, federal government
Best New Business VITALTRACER A medical smart watch that monitors all vital signs – it’s been a decade-long odyssey for company founder Azadeh Dastmalchi. VitalTracer’s wearable is much more than just another fitness device in the Fitbit category. In addition to heart rate, it uses biosensors and machinelearning algorithms to measure blood pressure, respiratory rate, blood oxygen levels, body temperature and the heart’s electrical signals. Dastmalchi’s inspiration came 10 years ago, when her father, diagnosed with hypertension, was told to take his blood pressure three times a day, but found the typical blood pressure cuff too uncomfortable. Dastmalchi, a University of Ottawa PhD candidate in biomedical engineering, soon realized that her idea of combining biosensors with artificial intelligence could do much more than just take blood pressure readings. With more than $1 million in grants received to date to fund continued development, and orders already in hand from four hospitals, Dastmalchi is hopeful VitalTracer will be certified as a medical device by this fall.
AGILE WORK EVOLUTIONS Founders Dr. Lisa Chillingworth Watson and Meredith Thatcher launched Agile Work Evolutions in 2019 with “a mission to remove barriers and future-proof organizations for remote working.” The company developed what it calls North America’s first servicesenabled software, to help employers
services, hospitals, community and academic settings, and in a variety of other scenarios. In 2018, SLIAO launched a video remote interpreting service, in which a sign language interpreter facilitates communication between a Deaf
VitalTracer implement more flexible and efficient work environments. AWE’s cloud-based analytics platform surveys employees to provide accurate profile data and comprehensive reporting. This helps employers better understand how their people are working today, how and where they want to work, and easily create and manage a truly agile workforce. Not surprisingly, this proved to be a highly valuable resource when the pandemic struck. In the first seven months of 2020, AWE logged revenue growth of 900 per cent.
QUANTROPI Quantum computing may become a reality in a few short years. With it, the cryptography used to secure the internet and internet-based communications will become obsolete. The privacy and security
and hearing person via video using a smartphone, tablet or computer webcam. VRI has quickly grown to account for about 60 per cent of the company’s revenue. This remote capability proved invaluable, not just for SLIAO’s
that we rely on will be gone. Enter the team at Quantropi. The company was founded two years ago with the express purpose of figuring out how to secure data and privacy in the quantum age in a way that is accessible to anyone, with as little effort or cost as possible for the end-user. Quantropi is of course not the only team to be working on this challenge, but it argues that most approaches to quantum-ready cybersecurity fall down outside a laboratory environment, require new dark fibre infrastructure, are prohibitively costly or unscalable, or otherwise fail the real-world adoption test. Quantropi is addressing this quantum conundrum with a quantum solution that it says is easily deployable, cost-effective and effortlessly scalable, to upgrade existing network infrastructure.
clientele, but for the company itself when the pandemic limited in-person engagement. Over the past four years, SLIAO has opened four call centres across Canada with a fifth in the works. Revenues have tripled during this time.