You couldn’t find better proof of that old saw than looking at the winners of the first annual Mississauga Technology Awards.
Held in partnership with the Mississauga Business Times, the Mississauga Technology Association (MTA), Sheridan College, the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC), the City of Mississauga, and the Government of Ontario, the goal was to recognize the big and small companies and individuals that used innovative technology to create a better world.
The inaugural lunchtime event on June 16th at the Living Arts Centre, drew a full house of 255 people to the RBC Theatre. The response was enthused.
A video greeting and congratulations from Premier Dalton McGuinty kicked off the event, which was followed by a keynote address from an obviously delighted Mayor Hazel McCallion.
In between, the hour-long show was highlighted by videos of the three finalists in each award division explaining what and how they put their technological innovations to good use.
A "big' business winner (250+ employees) and "small" business winner (less than 250 employees) were chosen, and two "honourable mentions" were named in each category.
In all, over 60 nominations were received and put under the scrutiny of an impressive list of judges from business, academia, and the media.
Rob Turner, president of Sheridan College, which is hoping to build a campus in Mississauga, presented two Sheridan scholarships – one to Zayna Shahzad, who is finishing high school at Streetsville Secondary and has already started her own web design business, and Girish Bothe, a newcomer from India, who will be taking the fast-track program at Sheridan to help get his credentials recognized in the Canadian labour market. Both winners reside in Mississauga.
Paraphrasing Arthur C. Clarke, Rick Drennan, managing editor of Business Times, and emcee. co-chair of he event said, “technology is magic.” Those companies which came up with the tech wizardry and put it to work in unique ways bore witness to how true a statement that was.
Fielding Chemical Technologies Inc. (located on Mavis Road) took the prize in the small business category with a new technology that separates water from solvents.
Ellen McGregor, chair and CEO of the solvent recovery company founded by her father Jack McGregor 55 years ago, says it makes environmental and economic sense to reclaim solvents that have become hazardous waste through manufacturing process.
McGregor said it took 12 years and millions of dollars to develop the new evaporation technique that extracts water from chemicals and credited her brother Ian as the “technical brilliance” who had “the tenacity to convince our board, our family, to stick to it and perfect this technology. He deserves the kudos.”
She credited also Fielding employees who “worked tirelessly on a project that did not contribute to profit in a profit-distributing company."
"That was a big thing to ask,” she said, adding: “Innovation hasn’t been a luxury at our company, it’s been a necessity.”
It’s part of the ‘green dream’ bequeathed to her family and the company by her father. McGregor says that we’ll run out of oil some day – and since all chemicals start with oil, saving oil by recovering and recycling used chemicals makes huge sense. She admits that her company is often misunderstood – it is most definitely a part of the environmental business sector, but that hasn’t slowed down the Fielding determination to be a leader in its sector. The company was the first in its field in the world to be registered as ISO 14001, and has been named an Environmental Leadership company by the provincial government.
The honourable mentions for the small business category were also impressive. Baylis Medical Company specializes in the engineering and manufacturing of minimally invasive treatments to treat newborn hearts, and chronic back pain that doesn’t respond to more common therapies or chiropractic. While Instrumed Surgical which began 18 years ago selling lasers for surgery out of a basement, has created and markets smoke evacuation products that remove surgical smoke from operating sites to protect patients from bacterial infection or chemical contamination.
Lynne Mack, one of the judges for the awards (and a columnist with the Business Times) said Fielding Chemicals is “the best kept secret in Mississauga – we should know about them, we should boast about them. This company shows the calibre of the amazing nominees we saw. As an entrepreneur in Mississauga, I’m very proud of our business and tech community.”
Mack also lauded St. Lawrence Cement Inc., which won in the big business category with a new technology that manufactures Portland and slag cement using a common process. The facility in Mississauga that was installed and started manufacturing last year uses a new process that allows the company to produce an additional 500,000 tons a year of cement for the local market without using additional fossil fuels.
The company has been a fixture in Mississauga for 52 years, producing cement for the local and U.S. market. In a video Lloyd Davidson, project manager of the Increased Grinding Capacity Project,' explained that three years ago the company recognized it needed to increase production, but do it without consuming additional fossil fuel resources and limit its greenhouse gas emissions. A daunting challenge, but one the company solved. The new facility is a vertical mill that is the first of its kind in North America. It uses the waste heat from the Portland cement manufacturing process as the heat required for the new process – eliminating the use of about 3 million cubic metres of natural gas per year. Additionally, because they use waste slag from the steel industry, they don’t have to burn limestone, which again reduces emissions from the process.
Stephen Harkness, general manager of the Mississauga plant said that cement might seem like a ‘Flintstones’ material, but hearing how much technology is involved brings the Jetsons to mind – a 60s animation series that boasted a futuristic world of high-tech living. “Even the magnitude of the plant is stunning,” he said. “I’m still amazed by the technology, automation, and computers we use."
Dufferin Construction is owned by the company, and between Dufferin and the cement plant Harkness says, “We built Mississauga from the beginning – it’s our material in the Living Arts Centre.” That’s something the facility’s 200 employees take great pride in. And with 88 years of material left in the quarry, Harkness says the company has great plans to grow in Mississauga.
Harkness and Davidson thanked the Business Times and the MTA for creating the new awards and said it was an honour to be nominated with the other companies in their category. Davidson went on to say the “St. Lawrence Cement is committed to environmental improvement and sustainable development. By applying new technologies such as the vertical mill, we insure further minimization of our environmental footprint in our community and on our planet.”
Honourable mentions were awarded to two companies in the big business category. CPI Plastics Group Ltd. was nominated for its zero waste stream for building expanded poly- styrene fencing and decking which is unique in the fencing and decking business. Xerox Research Centre of Canada (in the Sheridan Park Research Centre) was nominated for its environmentally friendly EA toner technology that uses less energy to manufacture, and use.
The event were capped with a special presentation honouring Mayor McCallion’s 30th year in office in 2008.
She was presented with an original piece of artwork from Steve Nease, the extraordinary and award-winning cartoonist with the Mississauga News. It shows her as the ‘Goddess of Technology.'
Not a bad monicker for an 87-year-old.
As the event drew to a close, Adolpho Prioetti, president of MTA and the event’s co-chair said, “it [the event] was absolutely outstanding. Its success has exceeded our goals and speaks volumes for the business and technology culture of Mississauga. And now with the commitment to make this an annual event – it’s more than we could ask for.”
The event was sponsored by the City of Mississauga, the Government of Ontario, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), blink Communications, Siemens, Bell, BDC, Rogers TV, BDO Dunwoody, Pyman Video Group, and Metalworks.
