PwC Canada announces finalists in 2019 Vision to Reality Awards
Accounting and consulting firm PwC Canada announced the finalists in its annual Vision to Reality (V2R) Awards, which recognize innovative and creative Canadian organizations.
The finalists included organizations across a wide range of industries, including agriculture, healthcare and life sciences, financial services, and the public sector. Twenty organizations were chosen across the four categories of visionaries, builders, reinventors, and accelerators.
“The visionary” award is given to a small organization with $0-50 million in revenue (including pre-revenue) that has a new idea that is adding value to people, businesses, or society. “The builder” award is given for the same sort of innovation, but eligibility is limited to organizations with between $51 million - $1 billion in revenue.
“The reinventor” award is presented to a company with more than $1 billion in annual revenue that has transformed how it operates or interacts with customers in a way that supports overall strategy and gears the company towards future success. “The accelerator” award is conferred on a public sector organization (of any size) which has launched a progressive initiative that positively impacts Canadians.
The visionary award finalists for 2019 are: Decisive Farming, GHGSat Inc., Livestock Water Recycling, Loop Industries, Inc., and Ondine Biomedical Inc.
The builder award finalists are: Interac, Mircom Technologies Ltd., PointClickCare, Raptor Mining, and the Vancouver Airport Authority.
The reinventor finalists are: Agropur Cooperative, BMO Financial Group, Loblaw Digital, Rogers, and Sun Life Financial.
The accelerator finalists are: The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), British Columbia's Ministry of Health, Canada Border Services Agency, Medavie Health Services New Brunswick, and Oakville Hydro.
The organizations across the four categories are strong indicators that innovation – a major component of competitiveness in a globalized world – is still alive and well in Canada. GHGSat, for example, is using high resolution satellites to detect greenhouse gas emission from industrial sites anywhere in the world. The Vancouver Airport Authority has implemented the first automated border clearance kiosk in the world, using biometrics and self-service technology to speed up border clearance and improve customer experience.
Sun Life Financial has introduced digital platform Lumino, which helps Canadians find healthcare providers and innovations with built-in credible ratings and cost information to enable informed choices. Oakville Hydro has also blazed into the future with the implementation of distributed grid intelligence that automatically responds to changing grid conditions and cuts down on outage frequency.
The shortlisted organizations were chosen by an independent panel of judges from the public and private sectors who have experience assessing innovative organizations. The panel will continue its work as it selects the four ultimate winners next month. They will be announced at an exclusive event in Toronto on May 9th.
"We're thrilled to celebrate our V2R Awards finalists who represent some of Canada's best innovators and leaders," Chris Dulny, chief innovation officer, PwC Canada, said. "In addition to giving innovators well-deserved recognition, V2R brings together a community of trailblazers to collaborate and share ideas. Ultimately, this type of collaboration helps make Canada a more competitive place for innovation and we're proud to be a part of that."
