Grads – AC Demo

April 10, 2017

AC Grad Alaunus Unveils Bloom

New Platform Puts Ontario Patients and Families in the Driver’s Seat When Accessing Home Healthcare Services

April 10, 2017 (WATERLOO, ON) — Alaunus, an emerging leader in technology-enabled care solutions today launches Bloom, a new technology platform to directly connect Ontario patients and families with caregivers, accelerating access to high quality home-based care.

Targeting the 1.46 million people, mostly seniors, in Ontario today who receive community support such as meals, transportation and caregiver services in their homes, Bloom gives patients and family members more choice, using modern technology to connect and match patients to high quality, fully vetted caregivers. The platform streamlines the existing home health care delivery system, empowers full patient-choice, enhances accountability, and elevates the quality of accessible caregivers, all while strengthening the voices of patients and families in their own healthcare planning.

In Ontario today, 93% of eligible home care patients receive their first nursing visit within five days of being approved and 84% of home care patients with complex needs receive a visit from a personal support worker (PSW) within the five day target[1]. The ultimate goal of the Bloom platform is to narrow that time window even further, says Andrew Ringer, CEO of Alaunus, Bloom’s creator.

“With the home health care market expected to grow internationally to reach $400 billion by 2021, our healthcare system can expect to see more cost constraints, more hospital admissions and more “aging in place” preferences. Bloom is a much-needed platform for the time,” says Ringer. “It puts flexibility, real-time communications and on-demand service directly in the hands of patients and their families, while leveraging proven evidence-based practices for increased client satisfaction and care outcomes. At this time of growing demand, we want to provide fast, safe, secure, and affordable home care for everyone.”

Bloom Capabilities:

● Full alignment with Patients First Act and Better Care Closer to Home

● Patient choice of personal support worker (PSW) or health care provider (HCP) on-demand, with real time notifications

● Easily search PSW or HCP by geography, skill-set, experience, & ratings/reviews – ideally matched based on Bloom’s matching algorithm

● On demand service capability, easily scheduled by patient, family, or care team

● Geo location time and attendance verification to increase caregiver accountability, alleviate over-billing & reduce administrative burden.

Bloom’s Advantages:

● 15-20% reduction on home care services spend

● Provides more care and control to more patients

● Encourages faster, more accountable and efficient care

● Increases at-home quality of care, motivating caregivers to do better work

● Adds value to the community, and

● Supports an increased number of caregiver jobs in order to provide better care closer to home

Fuelled by Ontario Health Technologies Fund (HTF)

Bloom’s innovation is fuelled by the Ontario Health Technologies Fund, a $20M Fund developed specifically to support the development of leading, market-ready, made-in-Ontario health technologies. The first priority area for the HTF is Better Care Closer to Home, enabling Health Innovation Teams from across Ontario to work on projects related to home and community care through virtual, digital and mobile health-care technologies. Alaunus is one of 15 health innovation projects selected province-wide for HTF funding.

Pilot Projects in Hamilton, Waterloo Region.

Bloom will be piloted in partnership with Brain Injury Services of Hamilton and the Waterloo Wellington LHIN/CCAC.

“We have the ability with Bloom to leverage technology transform the traditional home health care delivery model,” says Laurie Graham, Director, Residential Services, Brain Injury Services. “Patients and their families are provided with greater control over their health care decisions and more expedited care. This drives better outcomes. Care workers as well, are provided with better support to succeed in their roles. Across the board, quality goes up.”

“The Waterloo Wellington LHIN was pleased to support Alaunus’s application for funding from the Ontario Health Technologies Fund, given its potential to facilitate a better connection between patients and caregivers, while reducing costs and increasing transparency and accountability. This is directly aligned with Ontario’s Patients First Action Plan,” says Bruce Lauckner, CEO, WWLHIN.”

The Hamilton pilot kicks off in June 2017. For more information visit joinbloom.com

For more information contact:

Andrew Ringer

CEO Alaunus

Phone 416-800-9071

Email andrew.ringer@alaunus.com

OR:

Ellyn Winters

Ignition Communications

PR for Alaunus

Phone 519-574-2196

Email ellyn@ignition.ca

March 22, 2017

Fleet Complete acquires BigRoad

Originally Published on YahooFinance.com

TORONTO , March 22, 2017 /CNW/ – Fleet Complete^®, a leading global IoT provider of fleet telematics and mobile workforce technology, continues its growth through the acquisition of BigRoad, a leading provider of hours-of-service (HOS) and regulatory compliance solutions. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. This partnership will enable Fleet Complete to offer the industry’s best electronic logging device (ELD) compliance platform in North America

Based in Waterloo’s thriving tech hub, known as Canada’s Silicon Valley, BigRoad was founded to address the new HOS regulations imposed on the commercial motor vehicle (CMV) industry. The company released one of the first mobile HOS applications, BigRoad Mobile App, and today, with over 480,000 downloads, it is the most downloaded HOS application available. It continues to receive rave reviews on Google Play and iTunes, solidifying its premier position in the market.

In advance of the ELD mandate, BigRoad launched DashLink, an engine-connected electronic logging device that provides owner-operators and commercial fleets with a scalable, affordable, and easy-to-use solution to meet the upcoming FMCSA and Canadian Ministry of Transport requirements. Today, over 30,000 fleets in North America rely on BigRoad to achieve ELD compliance ahead of the mandated deadline.

“We are very excited about this acquisition,” said Jake McGuire , Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Customer Success at BigRoad, “BigRoad is an established leader in the HOS and ELD compliance space and now, supported by the Fleet Complete IoT platform, I am confident we will continue to exceed customer expectations by providing the best ELD and connected vehicle solution on the market.”

Fleet Complete’s acquisition of BigRoad is part of the company’s explosive growth, following its expansion into Europe in 2015 and Australia in 2016. Fleet Complete recently received the Greater Toronto Area Top 100 Employer award, ascertaining its position as one of the most forward-thinking workplaces in the tech industry. Striving to lead the global market with a superior and the most comprehensive telematics platform, Fleet Complete’s partnership with BigRoad squarely positions its ELD and HOS solutions as the best in the industry.

“BigRoad is an impressive organization that has had a laser focus on creating the industry’s leading product for ELD compliance,” said Tony Lourakis , CEO of Fleet Complete. “Outperforming the competition in usability and connectivity, BigRoad’s driver-friendly and feature-rich application will be a great complement to our integrated platform, giving Fleet Complete customers the most reliable top-of-the-line HOS solution.”

Supported by Fleet Complete’s expansive IoT infrastructure, BigRoad will continue to operate and sell directly to owner-operators and fleets, maintaining the BigRoad brand. Whereas the integrated Fleet Complete BigRoad platform will be offered through the North American partner channels, AT&T and TELUS.

“Leveraging BigRoad’s immense success and combining it with Fleet Complete’s strong partnerships with North America’s mobile carrier elite, we can capture the largest share of the 4 million+ truck driver market,” says Lourakis. “Through this integration, all of our customers, from individual truck drivers to large commercial fleets, will be equipped with the industry’s best ELD compliance solution before the December 2017 deadline.”

February 17, 2017

TrustPoint finds a culture fit with ETAS Embedded Systems

Originally Published in Communitech News

Written by Craig Daniels

It was the autumn of 2015 and TrustPoint co-founder and CEO Sherry Shannon-Vanstone knew she had a decision to make.

TrustPoint, which develops secure products for the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine communication, needed to grow. And it needed to grow fast. The IoT was booming. Security, smart cities, connected critical infrastructure, all the areas in which TrustPoint was working, were generating unmet demands.

“It takes a lot of resources,” Shannon-Vanstone explained recently. “We had bootstrapped the company, and we weren’t going to be able to move fast enough. It was time to go out and get a huge investment, and work with a VC, bring in lots of cash, hire people. But even then we would have had to disrupt some of our current projects, just to try to grow. We had to move faster.”

And then opportunity presented itself.

Shannon-Vanstone learned that ETAS Embedded Systems, which provides secure diagnostic and calibration solutions for the automotive industry, was going to open an office in Waterloo Region. A subsidiary of the Bosch Group, ETAS was well known to Shannon-Vanstone and her late husband and co-founder, Scott Vanstone.

Discussion began.

“At first it was just a conversation,” said Shannon-Vanstone, “just a general information gathering of what they were looking for and what we were looking for. At that time, we were interested in a strategic partnership or an investment.

“The conversation was on a casual basis until June (2016) when ETAS Canada opened their office in Kitchener. And at that time, they indicated an interest in TrustPoint.”

Fast forward through many more conversations, and a process of technological and legal due diligence, and you reach the events of last week, when TrustPoint agreed to be acquired by ETAS — when Shannon-Vanstone agreed to sell her “baby.”

“Emotionally, yes, it was tough,” she said. “It’s my baby, and it’s hard to let go of it.”

But the time was right. The fit was right. “There’s a huge opportunity in the Internet of Things right now,” she said.

TrustPoint grew out of a company called Certicom, which was founded by Scott Vanstone in 1985 along with two professors from the University of Waterloo. Certicom worked closely with Research In Motion in the late 1990s, providing security for the company’s smartphones. In 2009, RIM acquired Certicom, and Vanstone and his wife, recognizing the market for secure devices that was building around the rise of IoT, left in 2012 and started TrustPoint.

For Shannon-Vanstone, the decision to throw in with ETAS — other suitors were also interested, she said — was in large part motivated by culture.

“We found the cultural alignment was high on the list. Bosch is a private corporation. They are owned by a foundation. That foundation uses all the profits to build hospitals around the world.

“When Scott and I started TrustPoint, one of our objectives was to be philanthropic. To be a positive influence, globally and locally. So this aligned perfectly with our founding principles.”

The deal with ETAS is still subject to antitrust approval. When it’s finalized, TrustPoint’s 30 people will join ETAS in a yet-to-be-determined location in Waterloo Region.

“I’ll be staying involved for the time being,” said Shannon-Vanstone. “The work, the focus will be the same. Most of the people will have the same job description. We may fine tune over time.”

She doesn’t need to fine-tune her commitment to local tech ecosystem, which she has watched grow since the mid-80s — before there even was a local ecosystem.

“It’s tremendous. We decided to set up in K-W because of the access to talent. The access to the university. The access to the resources for a startup.

“This is my fourth startup but my first as a founder.

“It’s supportive even for people who are little more grey-haired than others.”

December 12, 2016

Local Underwater Drone Company Celebrates Expansion with New Head Office

New office expansion enables Deep Trekker to accelerate growth in the submerged robotic vehicle industry.

Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, December 05, 2016 – Deep Trekker Inc., Canadian manufacturer of underwater remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and submersible pipe crawlers, is pleased to announce the expansion to their new head office in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario to accommodate for the growing, global popularity the company’s robots.

In addition to the head office relocating within Kitchener-Waterloo, the new, larger office and manufacturing space supports the company’s growth strategy. With Deep Trekker’s expanding product line from ROVs to include the DT340 Pipe Crawler, a tool used to inspect sewer, storm, and potable water infrastructure, the company was in need of more space and resources.

“For us, staying within Waterloo region made perfect sense,” explains Sam MacDonald, President of Deep Trekker. “The region is rich with diverse talent from well-known prestigious colleges and universities, as well as tech companies. With this new office, we have the opportunity to further expand our team and engineering capabilities; also, increasing our ability to service current and future projects.”

Incorporated in late 2010, Deep Trekker sold its first ROV to a fish farm in Norway. Since then thousands of Deep Trekker ROVs have been delivered to aquaculture companies, search and rescue teams, police squads, navy fleets, hydro dam operators, and commercial divers around the world.

The company continues to disrupt the ROV and crawler markets by providing exceptional, portable robotic systems. Deep Trekker takes tremendous pride in their products and their willingness to support their community of customers.

Deep Trekker Inc. was founded in 2010 with a mission to create portable, affordable, and easy to use underwater inspection tools. The company is headquartered in Ontario Canada, with engineering and manufacturing all completed in house. Based on a clean sheet design, the premiere product, the DTG2 ROV was introduced in limited run in August 2011. With the success of the DTG2 ROV system, the company launched the DTX2 ROV in 2015. These robust underwater ROVs are currently being used around the world in industries such as aquaculture, commercial diving, municipalities, police search and rescue, military, and research. In 2016, the company expanded the municipalities market by launching a submersible pipe crawler system, based on the same principles of the ROV systems.

To learn more about Deep Trekker Inc. and their products visit www.deeptrekker.com or email at sales@deeptrekker.com.
Media Contact: Brendan Cook
Deep Trekker Community Coordinator
519-342-3177
bcook@deeptrekker.com

November 18, 2016

Seven Waterloo Region firms on Technology Fast 50 list

Seven Waterloo Region companies are on a new list of Canada’s fastest growing technology companies.

Sortable, Axonify, Clearpath, Magnet Forensics, Aeryon Labs, eSentire and Dejero Labs are on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 list for 2016, which ranks the companies by revenue growth over the previous three years.

Sortable, a Kitchener company that developed an automated advertising platform, is the top local firm on the list. It ranked eighth with three-year revenue growth of 1,705 per cent.

Axonify, a Waterloo firm that develops corporate e-learning software, ranks 10th with revenue growth of 1,520 per cent

Kitchener robotics company Clearpath is 17th with revenue growth of 662 per cent.

Magnet, a Waterloo provider of digital forensics tools, is 19th with revenue growth of 587 per cent.

Waterloo drone-maker Aeryon ranks 24th with revenue growth of 494 per cent. Aeryon also received a Leadership award from Deloitte in recognition of its innovation and leadership.

Cambridge-based eSentire, a provider of cybersecurity tools and services, is 35th with revenue growth of 361 per cent.

Dejero Labs, a Waterloo firm that provides a platform for live-to-air broadcasting, is 37th with revenue growth of 332 per cent.

Urthecast, a Vancouver firm that specializes in Earth observation data, is the top company on this year’s list, with revenue growth of 72,938 per cent.

Deloitte says the companies on the list averaged three-year revenue growth of 2,652 per cent.

Last year, there were six Waterloo Region firms on the Fast 50 list — Magnet, Aeryon, Dejero, Miovision Technologies, eSentire and Igloo Software.

October 6, 2016

Clearpath raises $30M to expand indoor self-driving vehicle market

Funding from iNovia Capital, Caterpillar Ventures, GE Ventures and previous investors will expand AC Grad’s new OTTO Motors division

Clearpath Robotics, a leading provider of self-driving vehicle solutions, announced today the completion of a $30 million (USD) investment led by iNovia Capital with participation from Caterpillar Ventures, GE Ventures, Eclipse Ventures, RRE Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank.

Clearpath will use the funding to grow the company’s industrial division, OTTO Motors. Clearpath launched OTTO Motors in 2015 to focus on self-driving vehicles for material transport inside manufacturing and warehouse operations.

“Factories operate like small indoor cities, complete with roads, traffic, intersections and pedestrians,” said Matt Rendall, CEO and co-founder of Clearpath. “Unlike city streets, a factory floor is a controlled environment, which makes it an ideal place to introduce self-driving vehicles at scale. Companies like Google, Tesla and Uber are still testing, whereas our self-driving vehicles are commercially available today.”
Companies including GE and John Deere have deployed OTTO’s material handling equipment in their facilities.

“The market for self-driving passenger vehicles will be over $80 billion by 2030,” Rendall said. “We believe the market for self-driving materials handling vehicles will be equally significant. Clearpath has a big head start, and this new funding will allow us to further accelerate the development of the best self-driving software in the industry – and bring more OTTOs into the world faster.”

“Software-differentiated hardware will disrupt every major sector over the next decade,” said Karam Nijjar, Partner at iNovia Capital. “Self-driving vehicles are already revolutionizing transportation. Clearpath has built a world-class team, technology and customer base to accelerate that vision. Clearpath isn’t just building the factory of the future; they are laying the foundation for entirely new business models enabled by artificial intelligence, autonomy and automation.”

Manufacturers need flexible and efficient automation more than ever due to rapidly changing market demands. The U.S. alone anticipates a shortage of more than two million skilled manufacturing workers over the next decade. Meanwhile, consumers are increasingly demanding ethically sourced, domestically made products. OTTO Motors’ self-driving indoor vehicles help fill the labor gap while providing manufacturers an affordable way to keep or return operations onshore. Clearpath is helping create a new industry and category of domestic jobs developing, servicing and working with their self-driving vehicles.

“Clearpath is developing exciting self-driving vehicle technology for industrial environments,” says Michael Young, Director at Caterpillar Ventures. “We look forward to collaborating with Clearpath to drive efficiency gains in Caterpillar facilities.”

Clearpath previously raised $11.2 million (USD) in a January 2015 Series A round led by RRE Ventures with participation from iNovia Capital, GE Ventures and Eclipse Ventures to develop their OTTO product line. Officially launched in 2009, Clearpath’s founders established the company by participating in a U.S. Department of Defense-funded robotics competition to design a robot that could detect and remove land mines. With help from a $300,000 angel investment the following year, the team pivoted from mine removal to providing unmanned vehicle development platforms for the global research community. After launching the first OTTO product in September 2015, Clearpath established its OTTO Motors division to focus on self-driving vehicles for materials handling.

September 12, 2016

Accelerator Centre announces its largest graduating class to date

Four graduates, four unique business stories

The AC is excited to announce our largest graduating class in our ten year history. The graduation of Ecopia, InTheChat, Trending.info and Knowledge In Development brings the total number of companies to successfully complete the AC’s intensive multi-year business commercialization program to 55. The occasion also marks the AC’s first graduate from our facility in Stratford, Ontario.

“The companies graduating from the Accelerator Centre today represent the diversity of industry segments and founder backgrounds that characterize the AC’s client base,” says Paul Salvini, CEO of the Accelerator Centre. “Within just this graduating class we have mature business executives, tenured professors, and serial entrepreneurs — all realizing their dream of starting and building a world-class business. We are also very excited to have our first graduate from our Stratford facility represented today. Trending.info was in on the ground floor with us when we expanded our programming to the University of Waterloo campus in that city. It is fantastic to see the company leave today a graduate.”

Ecopia
Millions of geospatial images are collected by satellites, airplanes, and vehicles every day. With large amounts of data becoming available at an increasing rate, efficient retrieval and organization of useful information from this data has become a large issue. As a result, much of this information is not accessible to those who need it most. Ecopia Tech creates intelligent systems that vastly improve the process of analyzing geospatial imagery through the employment of computer vision techniques.

Knowledge in Development
Founded in 2008, by University of Waterloo professor and researcher Dr. Daniela O’Neill, Knowledge in Development (KID) Inc. publishes and distributes the Language Use Inventory (LUI), a unique assessment of early pragmatic language development, to professionals and researchers. Knowledge in Development’s online platform now allows users to administer the LUI fully online with parents, in house or via email.

IntheChat
InTheChat (ITC) is an industry-leading digital customer engagement platform that enables large-scale enterprises to serve their customers via today’s preferred communication channels: text messaging, social media, web and mobile chat, email and messaging apps. Global leaders in the banking, telecommunications, retail and other industries are using ITC today to free their customers from phone calls to their call centres, while also simplifying contact handling for the company’s front-line teams.

Trending.Info
Trending.Info provides social media solutions for businesses, services and associations, allowing them to harness the power of online marketing while building communities of social interest showcased in one place. Founded in 2013 by Randy Huitema, the company today becomes the Accelerator Centre’s first Stratford-based graduate.

June 2, 2016

AC Grad Intellijoint Surgical wins the Shopify Grit Award

TORONTO (May 31, 2016) – At today’s Action Entrepreneurship Canadian Summit in Toronto, Futurpreneur Canada and Shopify announced Intellijoint Surgical Inc. as the winner of the Shopify Grit Award. The award celebrates the kind of business success that comes from having “true grit” – creativity, ingenuity and resilience when faced with challenges.

“Futurpreneur has helped launch thousands of businesses and we are honoured to be 1 of 3 recipients of the prestigious 20th Anniversary Awards,” said Armen Bakirtzian, Co-Founder and CEO, Intellijoint Surgical Inc. “Business owners across this country face countless challenges, and we are humbled and extremely proud to represent the hard work and determination it takes to succeed.”

The team at Intellijoint Surgical started out as three graduates from Waterloo University with no medical background or entrepreneurial experience who set out to undertake a major challenge – creating a medical device and putting it on the market. They overcame many obstacles to create a surgical device that is FDA-approved, has a Health Canada medical device license, and has been used successfully over 350 times across North America. In just six years, they’ve gone from one desk at the Accelerator Centre in Waterloo to 10,500 square foot facility and have hired 22 people.

“Starting a business takes dedication, hustle and a desire to succeed. We’re excited to support the next wave of entrepreneurs, especially the incredibly talented team at Intellijoint Surgical,” said Harley Finkelstein, COO of Shopify.

“Starting a business can be challenging for anyone without entrepreneurial experience, but putting a medical device on the market is a huge test of resilience,” said Scott Bowman, Senior Director, Ontario, Futurpreneur Canada. “The team at Intellijoint Surgical have proven that determination and persistence are one of the greatest contributors to entrepreneurial success.”

The Grit Award was one of five awards that Futurpreneur presented today. Other awards included the Clearwater Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the BDC Mentorship Award, the Youth Business International Beyond Borders Award and the RBC Community Partner Award. These awards are one way the organization is celebrating its 20th anniversary, by recognizing top Futurpreneur-supported entrepreneurs and the people and organizations that support their success.

May 10, 2016

Waterloo firm charging ahead with electric vehicle stations

Waterloo Region Record

By Brent Davis

WATERLOO — The Ontario government is leading the charge, so to speak, to expand facilities for electric vehicles.

By next March, a network of nearly 500 charging stations will spring up at more than 250 locations across the province — in cities, along highways and at workplaces and condo buildings.

Six of those stations will join three already in place at the Waterloo headquarters of FleetCarma, a company that produces a connected-car platform with a focus on electric vehicles.

FleetCarma’s in-car dongle — a small piece of computer hardware — gathers driving and charging data from electric vehicles, and can communicate with smart-charging stations that allow utilities to adjust the charging speed to accommodate broader demands on the power grid.

“For us, it’s really a chance to refine and showcase our smart-charging system,” said FleetCarma chief executive officer Matt Stevens.

The company has conducted demonstrations in such places as Germany, the United Kingdom and California. “It’s really nice to be able to showcase this at home,” Stevens said.

The government is footing the capital and installation costs of the $20-million charging station project — adding the six 7 kW chargers at FleetCarma’s building on Northland Road will cost just over $61,000.

“Part of this is going to be having a living lab,” Stevens said, adding his new stations could be installed by the end of the summer.

The charging stations will be available free of charge to FleetCarma employees. Currently, three of the 25 employees drive plug-in vehicles.

The public will also be able to access the stations at a cost of $1 per hour of charge. At least one station will be available at all times for the public and will deliver a full-speed charge.

Two types of stations are being installed in the provincial project — 213 will be level three or fast-charging stations that can charge many electric vehicles to about 80 per cent capacity in about half an hour, while 280 (including the ones at FleetCarma) will be level two stations that can charge most vehicles from empty in about four to six hours.

“Getting 213 fast-chargers in there dramatically changes the landscape for Ontario,” Stevens said. “This program will actually make owning a full electric possible.”

It’s estimated there are more than 18,000 electric vehicles on the road in Canada.

While plug-in hybrids have the flexibility of falling back on a gasoline engine once their batteries are depleted, all-electric owners don’t have that luxury and need to be thinking of their vehicle’s range and charging availability.

Right now, there aren’t many fast-charging stations in place in Ontario, Stevens said.

Adding charging stations at workplaces is also incredibly important in getting more electric vehicles on the road, he said. But charging vehicles can add considerable demand to a business’s power supply, and that’s where FleetCarma’s smart-charging technology comes in.

Vehicle owners can indicate when they need a charge to be completed by, and the charge can be portioned out accordingly. Moderating this electricity use can keep a business’s peak demand charge down and it can help utilities better manage demand on the grid.

“We want to make sure that electric vehicles aren’t making the grid less reliable, but actually making the grid more reliable,” Stevens said.

FleetCarma was founded in 2007 and was originally known as CrossChasm. Its connected-car technology has been sold in 23 countries and the company counts fleet operators, leasing companies, researchers and utilities among its customers.

April 26, 2016

Clearpath Named 2016 Edison Award Winner

Clearpath wins Silver at New York Ceremony for OTTO 1500 self-driving vehicle

(Kitchener, ON, Canada – April 26, 2016) Clearpath, provider of self-driving vehicle technology and services, was named a Silver Winner for their OTTO 1500 self-driving vehicle by the prestigious Edison Awards. The award program celebrates 29 years of honoring the best in innovation and excellence in the development of new products and services. The announcement was made at an annual award gala on April 21^st at The Capitale in New York City.

“The OTTO self-driving vehicles leverage new technologies to enable factory operators with a more cost-effective, safe, and efficient method of moving materials in their facilities. We’re thrilled to be named a winner and to see that the Edison Awards recognizes the potential of our OTTO solution,” said Simon Drexler, Director of Industrial Solutions at Clearpath.

The ballot of nominees for the Edison Awards™ was judged by a panel of more than 3,000 leading business executives including past award winners, academics and leaders in the fields of product development, design, engineering, science and medical.

“Our judges recognized the OTTO 1500 self-driving vehicle as a true innovation out of the many products in its category,” said Frank Bonafilia, Executive Director of the Edison Awards.

Being recognized with an Edison Award has become one of the highest accolades a company can receive in the name of innovation and business. The awards are named after Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) whose inventions, new product development methods and innovative achievements literally changed the world, garnered him 1,093 U.S. patents, and made him a household name around the world.