ASTech Awards honour wide range of innovations

Aqtiva's technology to improve crop health and productivity earned it the Innovation of the Year award at the ASTech Awards, continuing a string of successes for the University of Alberta-born company. Founder Tanay Kumar was among several Edmontonians to be honoured at the 37th annual awards celebrating science and technology at The Westin on Nov. 6. He'll be onstage again on Nov. 12 to pitch for investment at Startup TNT's fall investment summit finale. And the company is preparing for commercial deployment.

Among the winners for the best in sector categories was Zero Point Cryogenics. "We are building the ecosystem for quantum technology right here in Edmonton," said founder John P. Davis, whose dilution refrigerators create the cold conditions that make quantum computing possible. Thomas Jones of Jones Microwave, who won the award in aerospace and defence, also celebrated localness in his acceptance speech. "We're making this right here in Edmonton," he said. "Very exciting!" Roland Lee of MacEwan University was recognized for his work on sustainable water management and waste conversion. DrugBank's Michael Wilson took home the award in the health, medical, and life sciences category, and David Wishart, whose research led to the creation of DrugBank, was named Researcher of the Year. (See the Nov. 10 edition of the Health Innovation Roundup for more on that.)

Tara McGee of the University of Alberta and Amy Cardinal Christianson of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative were recognized for their innovative work to reduce the negative impacts of wildfire evacuations on First Nations. Adeiza Suleman and Efemena Ikpro of 10Alytics were honoured for their platform for practical tech training. Barb Carra of Cybera won in the Women in Innovation category. Amanda Lockhart of Canada Security Collective and Alireza Bayat of the Canadian Underground Infrastructure Innovation Centre went home with special awards for championing innovation. The inaugural Breakout Venture of the Year award, the culmination of the Alberta Capital Connect program, went to Calgary's Propra, with Edmonton's Nanostics and Zylotex as runners-up. The latter is also among the six finalists for Startup TNT's fall summit.