Last May York Region’s ventureLAB hosted a Startup Canada Town Hall.

At the time, the Startup Canada, team set out to “brainstorm community-driven ideas for supporting local entrepreneurship” with the the 80 entrepreneurs and mentors in the audience that day.

It was exciting and productive. York Region was very happy to have contributed.

During 2012-13, Startup Canada co-founder Victoria Lennox went on to tour 40 Canadian cities and gathered a following of more than 30,000 entrepreneurs and 300 partners.

And Startup Canada stayed in touch with York Region through its connections at ventureLAB.

Jeremy Laurin, Victoria Lennox, and Paul Shaw at the Startup Canada 2012 event in York Region

On May 2, Startup Canada, announced that York Region has been named as part of the first wave of 15 Startup Canada Communities, a national pilot project trailblazing a new approach to supporting entrepreneurs – it will be Canada’s first coast-to coast community network for entrepreneurs and is looking to build regional economies ‘ from the inside out.’ Startup York Region will give local entrepreneurs a single doorway to enter their entrepreneur community to access mentors, funding, space and support to start and grow their businesses and to connect with other startup founders.

Jeremy Laurin, President & CEO of ventureLAB, supports the Startup Canada Community in York Region.

“Startup Canada Communities is important because it coalesces the energies, best practices and innovations of individual Canadian startup communities, enabling each community to learn from the experiences of others,” said Laurin. “This has the potential to be a driving force in promoting and advancing entrepreneurship in Canada.”

Entrepreneur Jeremy O’Krafka is a co-lead for the Startup Canada Communities project in York Region. His company MENTORnetwork operates out of ventureLAB. He describes Startup York Region as a grassroots movement, led by local entrepreneurs and supported by organizations committed to help early stage businesses succeed.

“Startup York is building on the Region’s reputation for collaboration.” said O’Krafka. “Our focus is to engage local entrepreneurs to collectively provide leadership for the startup community and cultivate a culture of entrepreneurship. The mission is to get people together to support one another (in both success & failures) as we create fantastic new companies in York Region”.

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The Regional Municipality of York is located in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area and is home to 1.1 million residents and 42,000 business establishments, making it one of Canada’s largest municipalities and the second largest business centre in the Province of Ontario.

Comprised of nine local municipalities, York Region is a premier business location in Canada. The Region is home to operations of 14 Fortune 100 companies, four of Canada’s top 10 corporate R&D investors, Canada’s second largest Information & Communications Technology (ICT) cluster and global industry leaders in Life Sciences, CleanTech, Financial Services and Advanced Manufacturing.

As Canada’s fastest growing large municipality, York Region has one of the most educated and diverse workforces in North America, the lowest commercial property taxes in greater Toronto and an exceptional quality of life attracting top global talent.

York Region’s local municipalities include the City of Markham, the City of Vaughan, the Town of Richmond Hill, the Town of Newmarket, the Town of Aurora, the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, the Town of East Gwillimbury, the Town of Georgina and the Township of King.

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The Canadian Digital Media Network today announced that ventureLAB will join its nationwide network of more than 20 hubs that embody the collaborative and entrepreneurial spirit necessary to create companies, jobs and wealth as part of Canada’s digital economy.

ventureLAB is York Region’s innovation centre for advanced health tech, digital media, ICT, green energy, clean tech and advanced materials & manufacturing entrepreneurs. It is the GTA’s most northerly centre in the Ontario Network of Excellence [ONE], Ontario’s client-focused, province-wide innovation network. ventureLAB works locally in York Region to facilitate mentoring, partnering and connecting advice for innovative small to medium sized and start-up entrepreneurs to help turn their great ideas into globally competitive products and services.

“By joining the Canadian Digital Media Network, ventureLAB connects its growing community of digital media and ICT entrepreneurs to a national movement where all partners are dedicated to establishing Canadian companies as global powerhouses,” said Jeremy Laurin, President and CEO ventureLAB. The CDMN already has a substantial list of best in class partners supporting the network all across Canada and ventureLAB is proud to connect and contribute York Region’s best and brightest with other entrepreneurs and organizations working together to grow global class export oriented firms.”

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The Regional Municipality of York is located in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area and is home to 1.1 million residents and 42,000 business establishments, making it one of Canada’s largest municipalities and the second largest business centre in the Province of Ontario.

Comprised of nine local municipalities, York Region is a premier business location in Canada. The Region is home to operations of 14 Fortune 100 companies, four of Canada’s top 10 corporate R&D investors, Canada’s second largest Information & Communications Technology (ICT) cluster and global industry leaders in Life Sciences, CleanTech, Financial Services and Advanced Manufacturing.

As Canada’s fastest growing large municipality, York Region has one of the most educated and diverse workforces in North America, the lowest commercial property taxes in greater Toronto and an exceptional quality of life attracting top global talent.

York Region’s local municipalities include the City of Markham, the City of Vaughan, the Town of Richmond Hill, the Town of Newmarket, the Town of Aurora, the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, the Town of East Gwillimbury, the Town of Georgina and the Township of King.

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The most attractive employer in the technology secor was IBM Canada, which ranked third overall. BlackBerry ranked second among attractive employers in tech.

The Randstad Award rewards and encourages best practices in building the best employer brands, and is the only employer award where winners are chosen entirely by workers and job seekers in search of employment opportunities within Canada’s leading organizations.

Along with identifying Canada’s most attractive employer, the survey also unveiled many interesting insights into the changing demands and priorities of the Canadian worker. Some of the key findings from the study revealed:

Top Attractiveness Factors: For Canadians, Competitive Salary & Employee Benefits is the top attractiveness factor when considering an employer (26%), replacing long-term job security – showing that Canadian confidence in the strength of the job market and the marketability of their skills is once again high. Long-term job security (15 per cent) remained important; as did a pleasant work atmosphere (11 per cent) and good work-life balance (9%).

Sectors: Job seekers and workers see the High Tech Manufacturing (44 per cent) sector as the most desirable in Canada, with respondents ranking the sector first for interesting job content, long-term job security, competitive salary & benefits, and good training. Transport and Logistics (41 per cent), Engineering & Construction (37 per cent), Raw Materials (36 per cent) and Finance (35.8 per cent) also ranked highly amongst the most desirable sectors to work in by Canadians.

Gender: Men and women seek different things when determining what makes a workplace/organization attractive. Women continue to prefer flexible working arrangements (14 per cent more women compared to men), convenient location (10 per cent more women) and pleasant working atmosphere (9 per cent more women), men prefer financially sound companies (21 per cent more men compared to women) with strong management (19% more men) that offer career progression opportunities (9% more men) and quality products and services (8 per cent more men) when seeking an employer.

Age: Younger Canadians (under the age of 40) mainly look for career progression opportunities (15 per cent above average) and flexible working arrangements (7 per cent) while older members of the Canadian workforce (40 and above) are more concerned with organizations that are financially healthy (19 per cent), offer competitive salary and employee benefits (17 per cent) and provide better accessibility (4%).

Education: Canadians with a higher education (university &F graduate studies) are more attracted to companies that are perceived to offer more interesting job content (16% above average), career progression opportunities (12%), a strong image and values (11%) and strong management (10%), whereas Canadians with college and post-secondary education look more organizations that offer good training (8% above average), long-term job security (7%) and better accessibility (6%).

“Canadian job seekers and employees have spoken, and for the second year in a row have chosen WestJet as Canada’s Most Attractive Employer,” says Jan Hein Bax, President, Randstad Canada.

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The Regional Municipality of York is located in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area and is home to 1.1 million residents and 42,000 business establishments, making it one of Canada’s largest municipalities and the second largest business centre in the Province of Ontario.

Comprised of nine local municipalities, York Region is a premier business location in Canada. The Region is home to operations of 14 Fortune 100 companies, four of Canada’s top 10 corporate R&D investors, Canada’s second largest Information & Communications Technology (ICT) cluster and global industry leaders in Life Sciences, CleanTech, Financial Services and Advanced Manufacturing.

As Canada’s fastest growing large municipality, York Region has one of the most educated and diverse workforces in North America, the lowest commercial property taxes in greater Toronto and an exceptional quality of life attracting top global talent.

York Region’s local municipalities include the City of Markham, the City of Vaughan, the Town of Richmond Hill, the Town of Newmarket, the Town of Aurora, the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, the Town of East Gwillimbury, the Town of Georgina and the Township of King.

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Huawei Technologies Canadian Headquarters, Markham (York Region), Greater Toronto Area

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, China’s telecommunications giant with a global business in routers and other telecommunications equipment, is poised to introduce innovations for carrier operators in Canada, including new smartphones.

Scott Bradley, Huawei’s vice-president for corporate and government affairs in Canada, said the company continues to do very well in Canada, with customers in almost every province and territory stretching six time zones from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.

“We are adding new carrier customers and expanding our business with current operators here in Canada,” he told China Daily.

While Huawei boosted sales and gained market share in Europe, Africa and Asia last year, it encountered obstacles in markets such as the United States and Australia on national security and cyber espionage concerns. A US congressional subcommittee report indicated that equipment from Huawei, its rival ZTE and other Chinese vendors pose a security risk, but investigations revealed no evidence linking the vendors’ gear to espionage.

Despite what it called unfair and unsubstantiated attacks on its integrity and business intentions and operations, Huawei has won significant contracts in Canada and elsewhere, with 103 billion yuan ($16 billion) in first-half revenue last year. Major customers in Canada include Telus Corp, BCE Inc, Canada’s largest telephone company, and Wind Mobile of Toronto.

Bradley told China Daily that the company works openly and is transparent with customers and Canadian authorities.

“We have been doing so (open and transparent) since coming to Canada in 2008,” he said. “We have always complied with Canadian guidelines and will continue to do so. As we continue to grow our business and add new customers, this practice continues.”

The Shenzhen, Guangdong-based private company is the world’s second-largest telecom gear company after Sweden’s Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson and operates in 150 countries.

Huawei was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, a former technician in the People’s Liberation Army. He began reselling other companies’ gear and then started making routers and switches, the core components of phone and Internet networks. The company is poised to overtake Ericsson AB, as the world’s largest maker of wireless network equipment.

Huawei is also looking at developing and expanding its device and enterprise businesses, starting this year, Bradley said. “We believe they will be a positive addition to the consumer mobile market and will provide wireless customers with good quality, affordable and reliable handsets,” he said.

Bradley said Huawei is mindful of the need to build trust and assurance with the products it sells in Canada.

“We understand and appreciate that the Canadian government will take reasonable measures to ensure the safety and security of Canada’s telecommunications networks as will carrier operators,” he said. “We have absolutely no issue with this, and again, have been working transparently with government and carriers since 2008. They know exactly what we are doing in Canada. We want to be an important player in a healthy, thriving and innovative Canadian IT industry.”

Bradley, who travels regularly between Huawei’s offices in Ottawa and Toronto (Markham, York Region), said the company has long-term commitments to Canada.

“We continue to invest in Canada. We now employ over 500 people here and our Canada’s R and D centre in Ottawa now employs 190 engineers and researchers,” he said.

Bradley said Huawei also is working with a number of Canadian universities on research partnerships.

“All of these investments are part of our long-term commitments to Canada,” he said. “The more people see us in the community and recognise the investments we are making to build a strong Canada operations, the more we hope people will start to look at us differently.”

Innovative products like Huawei’s new smartphones will help get people thinking about the company differently, he added.

The company has said it expects a compound growth rate of 10 percent in annual sales over the next five years, boosted by cloud computing and smartphone sales.

On April 7, at the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen, rotating CEO Guo Ping confirmed a 32 percent increase in Huawei’s 2012 net profit to 15.4 billion yuan ($2.5 billion). Revenue rose 8 percent to 220.2 billion yuan. Unaudited figures were released in January. Chinese sales were up 12.2 percent to 73.6 billion yuan. Sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa rose 6.1 percent, Asia Pacific sales climbed 7.2 percent, and revenue in the Americas gained 4.3 percent.

Information and communications technology will continue to grow, with new opportunities coming from cloud computing, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), and big data, and feature phones being replaced by smartphones at a faster rate, the company said in a statement.

Eric Xu, executive vice-president of Huawei said in Shenzhen recently that the company had no intention of being listed in the near future, suggesting that it is not likely to make major mergers and acquisitions due to financial pressure.

In remarks made at the 2013 Huawei Global Analyst Summit, he said, however, that Huawei does not rule out the likelihood of purchasing smaller companies for technologies or for markets to improve its competitiveness.

Commenting on the tightening of rules and regulations especially in the US to keep Chinese high-tech and IT and wireless companies and suppliers deemed high security risks from getting a foothold, Kevin Jun Ye, co-chair of Canada-China Sci-Tech Alliance, said Canada should learn to trust Chinese companies doing business locally.

“This is a sensitive topic and whether it is in China or Canada, we have to do business in line with local laws,” he said. “Even with laws and regulations, we can still do business without worrying about them.”

Ye said certain Chinese companies had become stronger and no matter what they do, they are seen as a threat to local industries and raise tensions, especially when an Internet hacker attack occurs.

“Canada should continue to trust companies from China as not many can threaten us,” he said. “We can do business in the consumer market, like dealing with handsets and not at the government level, to avoid sensitive areas. In Huawei’s case, it can shift the product lines.”

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The Regional Municipality of York is located in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area and is home to 1.1 million residents and 42,000 business establishments, making it one of Canada’s largest municipalities and the second largest business centre in the Province of Ontario.

Comprised of nine local municipalities, York Region is a premier business location in Canada. The Region is home to operations of 14 Fortune 100 companies, four of Canada’s top 10 corporate R&D investors, Canada’s second largest Information & Communications Technology (ICT) cluster and global industry leaders in Life Sciences, CleanTech, Financial Services and Advanced Manufacturing.

As Canada’s fastest growing large municipality, York Region has one of the most educated and diverse workforces in North America, the lowest commercial property taxes in greater Toronto and an exceptional quality of life attracting top global talent.

York Region’s local municipalities include the City of Markham, the City of Vaughan, the Town of Richmond Hill, the Town of Newmarket, the Town of Aurora, the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, the Town of East Gwillimbury, the Town of Georgina and the Township of King.

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Markham, York Region based IT solutions and enterprise data centre provider OnX Enterprise Solutions has won a contract with mobile service provider Public Mobile for hosted data centre services.

OnX, which was recently named one of the Top 100 Solution Providers in Canada by our sister publication, CDN, has been tapped to deliver a dual data centre hosted infrastructure solution for Public Mobile, which needs a data centre with increased availability and reliability to handle increasing amounts of data and support its market growth.

“Given our growth trajectory, we required a data centre provider that could deliver with confidence in terms of meeting our timelines as well as security and availability requirements,” said Andrew Laidlaw, director of IT operations for Public Mobile. “OnX provided a well thought out infrastructure solution and developed an execution plan resulting in the smooth migration and seamless transfer of data with zero impact to our user base.”

Public Mobile will have access to fully redundant and secure managed infrastructure data centre services from OnX with 24×7 support, allowing the company to focus on its core business. OnC notes that its data centres are e SSAE 16 and PCI DSS compliant.

“OnX is very pleased to have been chosen by Public Mobile to meet their data centre infrastructure requirements as they continue to build on their success,” said Paul Khawaja, OnX executive vice-president and COO, in a statement. “The successful deployment was possible because we were able to work together and define a detailed transition plan to ensure flawless delivery.”

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The Regional Municipality of York is located in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area and is home to 1.1 million residents and 42,000 business establishments, making it one of Canada’s largest municipalities and the second largest business centre in the Province of Ontario.

Comprised of nine local municipalities, York Region is a premier business location in Canada. The Region is home to operations of 14 Fortune 100 companies, four of Canada’s top 10 corporate R&D investors, Canada’s second largest Information & Communications Technology (ICT) cluster and global industry leaders in Life Sciences, CleanTech, Financial Services and Advanced Manufacturing.

As Canada’s fastest growing large municipality, York Region has one of the most educated and diverse workforces in North America, the lowest commercial property taxes in greater Toronto and an exceptional quality of life attracting top global talent.

York Region’s local municipalities include the City of Markham, the City of Vaughan, the Town of Richmond Hill, the Town of Newmarket, the Town of Aurora, the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, the Town of East Gwillimbury, the Town of Georgina and the Township of King.

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Richmond Hill, York Region based PCI Geomatics, a world-leading developer of remote sensing and photogrammetric software and systems, announced today that it has released key technology in China to help its customers manage increasingly large geospatial projects.

“PCI Geomatics is releasing several new products simultaneously in China in response to a demand for new and innovative tools to meet the increasing need for high volume data management and processing solutions. As recently announced, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SATIND) plans to launch 5 to 6 new satellites before the end of 2015, starting with the first in April 2013”, said Terry Moloney, President and CEO at PCI Geomatics. “We are pleased to release GXL 2013, Geomatica Discover, and showcase the latest technology from our Geomatica 2013 software.”

“We have been demonstrating the new capability to customers in China and have received a great deal of interest,” said David Stanley, Chief Technology Officer at PCI Geomatics who was present during the announcement and also gave a keynote address during the 35th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment (ISRSE), being held in Beijing, China . “Big data represents a key challenge for organizations in China who deal with large volumes of geospatial imagery on a daily basis. In my keynote address, I highlighted how PCI Geomatics is helping organizations handle these big data challenges.” PCI Geomatics, together with its exclusive Chinese Distributor, Beijing Space Eye Inc. (BSEI), is a Gold sponsor of the ISRSE Symposium

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The Regional Municipality of York is located in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area and is home to 1.1 million residents and 42,000 business establishments, making it one of Canada’s largest municipalities and the second largest business centre in the Province of Ontario.

Comprised of nine local municipalities, York Region is a premier business location in Canada. The Region is home to operations of 14 Fortune 100 companies, four of Canada’s top 10 corporate R&D investors, Canada’s second largest Information & Communications Technology (ICT) cluster and global industry leaders in Life Sciences, CleanTech, Financial Services and Advanced Manufacturing.

As Canada’s fastest growing large municipality, York Region has one of the most educated and diverse workforces in North America, the lowest commercial property taxes in greater Toronto and an exceptional quality of life attracting top global talent.

York Region’s local municipalities include the City of Markham, the City of Vaughan, the Town of Richmond Hill, the Town of Newmarket, the Town of Aurora, the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, the Town of East Gwillimbury, the Town of Georgina and the Township of King.

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Markham, York Region based Redline Communications a leading provider of broadband wireless solutions for machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, today announced that it has received its largest contract to date for a wireless oilfield network installation. The contract, from an existing oil and gas customer and having a value over its life of more than 10% of Redline’s 2013 revenue budget, is for a rugged high-capacity wireless private network for communications between wells, assets, drilling rigs, and their centralized control offices – to bring the field to the office and the office to the field.

This major oil company customer has already installed Redline solutions in six other oilfields in three countries. This expansion into a large oilfield in the Gulf States of the Middle East marks this customer’s largest commitment to using Redline to power their digital oilfields. Delivery of products and services associated with the contract begins immediately and management expects full deployment of the network to take between 18 and 24 months.

“I am excited that we have won yet another field from our customer,” said Eric Melka, CEO of Redline. “This is exactly how we plan to grow our business – by bringing value, delivering excellence and growing our footprint and influence within the global operations of our customers.” He also added, “The size of this contract validates the importance of our place in the digital oilfield.”

Redline’s advanced wireless broadband system, which leads the industry in reliability, distance, capacity and low-latency, allows personnel to securely remotely monitor and control oilfield production – including the ability to capture data in real time from thousands of M2M sensors at remote sites.

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The Regional Municipality of York is located in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area and is home to 1.1 million residents and 42,000 business establishments, making it one of Canada’s largest municipalities and the second largest business centre in the Province of Ontario.

Comprised of nine local municipalities, York Region is a premier business location in Canada. The Region is home to operations of 14 Fortune 100 companies, four of Canada’s top 10 corporate R&D investors, Canada’s second largest Information & Communications Technology (ICT) cluster and global industry leaders in Life Sciences, CleanTech, Financial Services and Advanced Manufacturing.

As Canada’s fastest growing large municipality, York Region has one of the most educated and diverse workforces in North America, the lowest commercial property taxes in greater Toronto and an exceptional quality of life attracting top global talent.

York Region’s local municipalities include the City of Markham, the City of Vaughan, the Town of Richmond Hill, the Town of Newmarket, the Town of Aurora, the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, the Town of East Gwillimbury, the Town of Georgina and the Township of King.

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Redline Communications, headquartered in Markham, York Region, is aiming to be a pioneer in the “digital oilfield.”

The company provides oil and gas producers with a secure, high-capacity wireless communication network to monitor their operations in harsh or remote areas.

“The digital oilfield is a brand new industry, a nascent industry, that we’ve really taken a hold of and we’re growing very well,” says Redline CEO Eric Melka.

“So we have an opportunity to be able to do more.”

Last year, half of Redline’s US$50 million in revenues came from the oil and gas industry.

Melka says a digital connection to an oil field allows a company to remotely monitor and manage it in real time.

For example, Redline can build a network in an oilfield that can handle phone calls between staff, transfer files and share data as well as monitor drilling and production and do video surveillance.

Melka, who has been restructuring and refocusing Redline over the past three years, notes that oil fields are too big and remote to monitor by cellphone or a short-range WiFi network.

“So the networks with our customers are growing,” Melka said.

Redline Communications Group Inc. had its contract expanded last year for the Shell Oil joint venture petroleum development project in Oman. That project is wirelessly connecting thousands of oilfields, eliminating the need for workers to drive from well to well to collect information.

The company hasn’t been without problems. It deployed a network technology in recent years that didn’t take off. Accounting irregularities led to a cease trade order on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the settlement of a class action lawsuit.

The management team was replaced and Melka came on board to turn things around for the 150-employee company, which has its head office in Markham, Ont., north of Toronto.

One of Melka’s main areas of growth has been energy, which he calls recession proof.

Redline’s energy customers include BP, Chevron, Encana. But it has military customers such as the U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy and telecom customers such as Toronto’s TeraGo Networks and France’s Orange.

Technology analyst Noel Atkinson of Loewen, Ondaatje, McCutcheon USA Ltd. noted that Redline has strong demand from the oil and gas industry.

“We believe Redline is the early leader worldwide in this segment, which could represent a market opportunity in excess of $3 billion,” Atkinson said in a recent note.

But Atkinson said Redline’s radios last for years and, while their reliability wins orders, this has also limited the revenue stream to replace them.

Stifel Nicolaus analyst Blair Abernethy said Redline’s small size relative to competitors could make it a takeover target.

“Longer term, given Redline’s relatively small size, advanced and flexible core technology and market focus, we see the company as a potential take-out candidate for larger communications equipment and oilfield technology providers,” Abernethy said in a research note.

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The Regional Municipality of York is located in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area and is home to 1.1 million residents and 42,000 business establishments, making it one of Canada’s largest municipalities and the second largest business centre in the Province of Ontario.

Comprised of nine local municipalities, York Region is a premier business location in Canada. The Region is home to operations of 14 Fortune 100 companies, four of Canada’s top 10 corporate R&D investors, Canada’s second largest Information & Communications Technology (ICT) cluster and global industry leaders in Life Sciences, CleanTech, Financial Services and Advanced Manufacturing.

As Canada’s fastest growing large municipality, York Region has one of the most educated and diverse workforces in North America, the lowest commercial property taxes in greater Toronto and an exceptional quality of life attracting top global talent.

York Region’s local municipalities include the City of Markham, the City of Vaughan, the Town of Richmond Hill, the Town of Newmarket, the Town of Aurora, the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, the Town of East Gwillimbury, the Town of Georgina and the Township of King.

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Markham, York Region based Spectra7 Microsystems Inc., a high performance analog semiconductor company delivering unprecedented speed, resolution and signal fidelity to consumer and wireless infrastructure products, today announced that Konka Group Co., Ltd, a leading television and mobile phone manufacturer in China, has selected Spectra7 as the major supplier of advanced TV tuner chips across 9 different flat panel TV models. These next generation silicon tuner chips replace bulky, expensive electro-mechanical tuners, allowing flat panel displays to be thinner, sleeker and less costly to manufacture. The achievement of a low-cost single chip analog TV tuner is exceptional and as a result Spectra7 has earned several patents for its signal processing research efforts and unique architecture.

Spectra7′s patented TV tuners have been designed-in to Konka’s expanded ultra-thin LED TV product line expected to launch shortly in multiple geographies including under its own brand in China and under OEM brands in the U.S., Europe, South America and Australia.

“Konka is a technology and performance leader in the Asian marketplace for HDTV products and we’re pleased with their decision,” commented Tony Stelliga, CEO of Spectra7. “We’ve achieved a major milestone with a cross platform set of design wins in Konka’s ultra-slim LED product line – the mainstream sweet spot in the marketplace.”

“Spectra7 is a critical partner in our television strategy of delivering world class, innovative flat panel TVs with outstanding image quality to the worldwide market,” commented Hu Qin , the project head of Konka’s Multimedia Technology R&D Center. “Our decision to utilize their SimplyRF™ silicon tuner technology is based on performance, support and cost effectiveness. Spectra7 has worked hard on this project and we appreciate their efforts.”

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The Regional Municipality of York is located in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area and is home to 1.1 million residents and 42,000 business establishments, making it one of Canada’s largest municipalities and the second largest business centre in the Province of Ontario.

Comprised of nine local municipalities, York Region is a premier business location in Canada. The Region is home to operations of 14 Fortune 100 companies, four of Canada’s top 10 corporate R&D investors, Canada’s second largest Information & Communications Technology (ICT) cluster and global industry leaders in Life Sciences, CleanTech, Financial Services and Advanced Manufacturing.

As Canada’s fastest growing large municipality, York Region has one of the most educated and diverse workforces in North America, the lowest commercial property taxes in greater Toronto and an exceptional quality of life attracting top global talent.

York Region’s local municipalities include the City of Markham, the City of Vaughan, the Town of Richmond Hill, the Town of Newmarket, the Town of Aurora, the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, the Town of East Gwillimbury, the Town of Georgina and the Township of King.

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ARCADIS, the leading pure play global engineering and consultancy firm, today announced that it has acquired SENES Consultants Limited and its affiliated company DCS Limited. SENES is a Richmond Hill, York Region based firm specializing in environmental, radiological and risk assessment services for the mining, energy, oil & gas and industrial sectors. DCS provides site assessment and remediation services and together they have approximately 250 employees and annual gross revenues of CAN$31 million. SENES has six offices spread throughout Canada, an office in the United States and majority interest in a subsidiary with four offices in India.

The addition of SENES to the ARCADIS presence in Canada greatly enhances ARCADIS` services to its Canadian clients as well as multi-national clients who have interests in Canada. In addition, SENES`s specialized expertise in environmental, radiological, social, and health impact assessments will complement ARCADIS` services outside of Canada. In the developing Indian and mid-east environmental market, SENES has a growing presence serving large private sector clients.

“SENES`s environmental expertise in the energy, oil & gas, nuclear and mining sectors will further enhance the support we provide our clients in Canada and beyond,” said Steve Blake, CEO of ARCADIS U.S. and member of ARCADIS Executive Board. “Together we strengthen our leadership position to bring innovative solutions to our clients` toughest challenges while minimizing impacts to the environment.”

Don Gorber, current and founding president of SENES, added: “SENES and its affiliated company DCS have a long standing tradition of offering high quality services to the energy, environmental and remediation sectors around the world.  The combination of SENES with ARCADIS joins similar minded organizations and will allow us to expand into technical and geographic areas that we couldn`t secure on our own.”

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The Regional Municipality of York is located in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area and is home to 1.1 million residents and 42,000 business establishments, making it one of Canada’s largest municipalities and the second largest business centre in the Province of Ontario.

Comprised of nine local municipalities, York Region is a premier business location in Canada. The Region is home to operations of 14 Fortune 100 companies, four of Canada’s top 10 corporate R&D investors, Canada’s second largest Information & Communications Technology (ICT) cluster and global industry leaders in Life Sciences, CleanTech, Financial Services and Advanced Manufacturing.

As Canada’s fastest growing large municipality, York Region has one of the most educated and diverse workforces in North America, the lowest commercial property taxes in greater Toronto and an exceptional quality of life attracting top global talent.

York Region’s local municipalities include the City of Markham, the City of Vaughan, the Town of Richmond Hill, the Town of Newmarket, the Town of Aurora, the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, the Town of East Gwillimbury, the Town of Georgina and the Township of King.

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