04 May 2018 Cast Your Vote Now for the Spirit of BC Tech Award

Vote for the company that you, the community, think should win the Spirit of BC Tech Award!

The ‘Spirit of BC Tech’ award goes to the company that most exemplifies the true spirit of BC Tech. Entrepreneurial to the core, the winner’s story is one of bold goals and remaining bold in executing on those goals. Determined to succeed, the winner has pursued a particular kind of success—one that is grounded in a strong sense of purpose and succeeding together as a team. Instantly recognizable as a role model for others, the winner exemplifies BC Tech’s vision of technology as a powerful force for good in society.

Ayogo Health is pioneering an entirely new approach to patient engagement that is built from the ground up right here in British Columbia: a breakthrough blend of gamification, behaviour psychology and economics and technology to personalize at scale interventions to patients needs, in the face of conventional wisdom, conservative customers, and very well-capitalized competitors.

Finger Food’s CEO knew when he first tried HoloLens in 2016 that the future was here and was ready to change everything, investing in holographic technology research and development, including HoloLens, VR, and Google’s early AR platform Tango, Azure, and more. Led by its creative, inquisitive nature and a passion for solving problems, the company is an inspiration for the local technology community bringing clients from around the world to the Vancouver area.

Vancouver Island’s LlamaZOO’s initial target market was veterinary education—an underserved niche with major pain-points, slow to make decisions or adopt innovation, constricted by tight budgets. From its beginning success in building an accurate replica of the complete 3D canine anatomy (something never before accomplished) the company has grown in unexpected ways—most recently partnering with Vancouver-based Teck Resources (Canada’s largest diversified mining company) to develop truly disruptive technology for the mining industry.

When founders Dana Stephenson and Dave Savory graduated from UVic they realized that the challenges of graduate underemployment faced by youth, and the challenges of access to talent faced by organizations, was not unique to Victoria, or BC, but rather, a global issue. So they developed Riipen, an experiential learning platform which enables students, educators, and organizations to connect through real-world industry project experiences.

Doing something no one else has done and doing it so well that the UN has recognized the work, that’s Technical Safety BC, not your typical public regulator. Leading the way in an age where people are asking the question: “Can you be trusted with my data?” Technical Safety BC embraces the latest data science tools, tackles issues such as roboethics and DataOps and are one of the first in the public sector to combine an AI roadmap with ethics guidelines.

Victory Square’s mission is based on 3 fundamentals: 1. Funding socially responsible companies, 2. Providing opportunities to female founders, thought leaders, and those who choose British Columbia as a key place to “start and 3. a mandate to give back to the community with time, talent and treasure. We are strong individuals but unbreakable as a team and have collectively helped launch over 40 start ups in over 24 countries generating well in excess of $100M in sales.

Founded by Vancouver’s Tea and Chris Nicola, WealthBar was started with one clear objective – to make it easier for Canadians to invest and manage their finances. It wasn’t easy but the massive regulatory challenges involved in effectively starting a new fintech sector did not dissuade WealthBar’s co-founders who pioneered the robo-adviser model in Canada.

The concept of Wiivv Custom Fit Technology itself was a moonshot: a couple of talented 3D printing enthusiasts with backgrounds in product (one not even out of University at the time) saw a problem in the insole and footwear markets, decided additive manufacturing was the solution, and has spent the last three years connecting the dots from there. The technology is highly accessible, and Wiivv’s engineers, notably many senior women engineers, love to demonstrate the custom process to customers young and old.

Voting for the inaugural “Spirit of BC” award is now closed and will be presented at the 25th Anniversary TIAs (Technology Impact Awards) gala on June 01, 2018.