Calgary individuals and companies are well represented among ASTech Award recipients and finalists. They are:
* David Mitchell (recipient: Outstanding Contribution to the Alberta Science and Technology Award) is the former president and chief executive of Alberta Energy Company. Mitchell spearheaded the creation of the Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation. The program recognizes leading Canadian innovators with $135,000 in prize money each year.
* Mentor Engineering Inc. (recipient: National Research Council/ASTech Innovation in Industrial Research Prize) is a market leader in providing wireless data/GPS solutions for fleet and mobile workers.
* Larry Comeau (finalist: Outstanding Leadership in Alberta Technology Award) is president of Computalog Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Precision Drilling Corporation. Comeau, with 21 patents to his name, is a leader in research, development and manufacturing of emerging oilfield technologies.
* Veer Gidwaney (finalist: Leaders of Tomorrow) is the 21-year-old chief executive officer of Control-F1, an Internet-based, business-to-business software company.
* Also a finalist in Leaders of Tomorrow, Dr. Rita Aggarwala, 29, a professor of mathematics and statistics at the University of Calgary, has led development of the university's statistical consulting laboratory known as StatCar.
* Cipher Systems Ltd. (finalist: Outstanding Commercial Achievement in Alberta Science and Technology, gross sales less than $25 million a year) provides enterprise resource planning software and services to organizations around the world.
* Also a finalist in the same category, CSI Wireless is a global leader providing low-cost advanced wireless and high-accuracy GPS technologies for the automotive, commercial and consumer markets.
