Toni Bailetti to be honoured by OCRI

Professor Tony Bailetti will be presented with the 2011 Ottawa Innovation Community award from the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) on Thursday, May 5.

“Tony has been instrumental in developing very successful local ecosystems including Lead to Win and Coral CEA,” says Claude Haw, president and CEO of OCRI. “The Lead to Win companies represent a significant portion of the successful start-ups in Ottawa over the past two years. Tony has given freely of his time and energy to help OCRI define a broad economic development ecosystem which will have major benefit for the Ottawa region.”

Bailetti is a 32-years Carleton veteran and holds a faculty appointment in both the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering and the Sprott School of Business He was the director of the School of Business from 1981 and 1988, a time of hyper-growth. He established and grew the Technology Innovation Management (TIM) program which is offered by the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering.

“Tony has taken Carleton’s innovative entrepreneurship and technology programs to the marketplace, joining brilliant colleagues and students with nascent companies and working with organizations in the community like OCRI,” says Carleton President Roseann O’Reilly Runte. “Tony is creative, energetic and committed to the success of his students, Ottawa and our country.”

Over the years, Bailetti has worked with technology entrepreneurs, Carleton faculty, students, staff and alumni, talented individuals, senior company managers, economic development organizations, service providers, non-profits and other academic institutions to:

• Deliver the highly successful Lead To Win (LTW) program. Alumni of the LTW 2002 program launched technology businesses that attracted over $90 million of venture capital. During 2009 and 2010, the program trained 276 founders of technology companies as well as helped launch 110 technology companies and grow 75 technology companies in the region. Both the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce have presented awards to LTW.
• Offer the Talent First project to accelerate the adoption of open source technology by Ontario companies and explore a new approach to develop and commercialize technology products, services and solutions that promote open source projects.
• Spin off companies that generate their revenue leveraging global open source projects and creating jobs.
• Develop skills in dozens of graduate and undergraduate students on how to make money by leveraging global open source projects.
• Deliver Carleton Entrepreneurs, a program that helps student entrepreneurs transform their ideas into compelling opportunities and successful ventures.
• Establish Coral CEA, a multi-million dollar project focused on providing Ontario with a leadership position in communications-enabled applications.
• Publish the Open Source Business Resource (OSBR.ca), a monthly online journal about innovative company issues that attracts thousands of visitors worldwide every month.
• Develop the Keystone-off-the-shelf (KOTS) platform to support Model C, a new approach to commercialize products and services of technology companies.
• Entice companies to set up R&D facilities in Ottawa and attract public and private funding to the region.
• Spin off BigBlueButton as an open source project. Today, thanks to Blindside Networks, Carleton and open source developers worldwide, BigBlueButton is one of the two most used open source web conference systems in the world. The system supports 24 languages and has been deployed in many countries.
• Deliver conferences on issues relevant to the development and commercialization of products and services of local companies.
• Provide suitable jobs with technology companies to dozens of new immigrants and students.
• Increase the number of females in senior management positions of technology companies.
• Promote the Ottawa region as a centre of innovation and entrepreneurialism.

“Tony is legend in the local tech community,” says Brian Hurley, president and CEO of Purple Forge Corp. and an LTW alumnus (2002). “For decades he has worked tirelessly to guide budding technical entrepreneurs in the National Capital Region along the path from crazy idea to viable business. He freely offers his advice, network of contacts and moral support without any expectation of reward or compensation. Tony is highly respected, valued and appreciated and he is eminently deserving of this recognition.” Hurley is now part of the LTW faculty.

The Ottawa Innovation Community award will be presented to Bailetti at OCRI’s annual general meeting on May 5 in Room 102 of the Ottawa Convention Centre between 4:30 and 5 p.m.