A subsidiary of Macdonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) is among four B.C. high-tech companies to get help from Ottawa under a procurement policy designed to help Canadian firms commercialize innovative technologies.
Under the Canadian Innovation Commercialization Program, launched in 2010, Ottawa uses its purchasing power to help tech companies by essentially testing out their technologies in various government departments.
Four B.C. companies that have qualified under the program are: MDA Systems Ltd. (a subsidiary of MDA), Corvus Energy Ltd., Ondine Biomedical Inc. and SideStix Ventures Inc.
In total, 19 companies across Canada have qualified under the program. Ottawa provided initial funding of $95 million over three years for the program, and is allocating another $40 million annually to keep the program running beyond 2014.
MDA is the only B.C. company to have two of its technologies approved under the program.
MDA Systems Ltd.’s innovation, the Automated Motion Imagery Exploitation, is a software tool that generates geo-registered products for surveillance and reconnaissance from airborne video, has been awarded a $565,000 contract under the scheme.
All the qualifying companies have developed products that the federal government will use in its own various governmental departments.
“We are proud to help kick-start Canadian businesses to get their innovative products and services from the lab to the marketplace,” said James Moore, MP for Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam.
Rona Ambrose, Minister of Public Works and Government Services, said, “By supporting Canadian innovations, we are helping these businesses take one step closer to success in domestic and international markets.”
