Western Canada Cleans Up at PwC’s Vision to Reality Awards

May 11, 2018

PwC’s annual Vision to Reality awards (V2R) took place last night in Toronto and companies from Western Canada dominated the awards.

Companies that believed they continually pushed boundaries and added value to people, businesses or society applied to the awards, and then from there a panel of judges separated finalists into four different categories: Visionary, a small organization or startup; Builder, a mid-market organization; Reinventor, a large enterprise; and Accelerator, a public sector organization. These companies were also divided by revenue.

Visionary (up to $50 million)
FREDsense Technologies took home the small organization award for their portable water chemistry kit that can help engineers better understand the process involved in sensing chemicals in a given environment. The Calgary company’s flagship product is the Field Ready Electrochemical Detector (FRED).

Builder ($50 million to $1 billion)
Ballard Power Systems won the mid-size award for their technology that accelerates the adoption of fuel cell technology for zero-emission power systems. The Burnaby-based company focuses on portable power systems, forklifts, and other heavy-duty vehicles.

Reinventor ($1 billion-plus)
PCL Construction took home the enterprise recognition for eliminating their data centre and focusing on four pillars of tech: cloud computing, enterprise-wide integration, data analytics and field mobility. The massive Edmonton company made the move to help save time and enable data-driven scalability.

Accelerator
The BC Civil Resolution Tribunal won the award for public sector organizations for their free and constant access to strata and small claims dispute resolution services. These services have typically been very complex to access and understand, so the added flexibility is invaluable to startups and entrepreneurs.

“Congratulations to all winners and finalists! They make it clear that Canada is a global innovation centre that has the talent to compete on a world stage,” said Tahir Ayub, managing partner of markets and industries at PwC Canada. “The V2R awards is a catalyst for bringing together Canadian organizations to showcase their innovations and network among a group of leaders to create a dynamic ecosystem that will shape the future of Canada and the world.”

All four winners were from western provinces, recognizing the increasing amount of innovation coming from Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and other hubs.