ORION Newsletter

May / June 2005

Ontario's Internet and Advanced Network pioneers recognized

ORION Award launched

The new ORION Award, being launched at the R&E Summit, is paying tribute to some of Canada's most distinguished leaders in advanced network technology and recognizing their work as Internet and research and education (R&E) network pioneers.

The ORION Awards will be presented at a Summit reception in Toronto June 13.

Celebrating the achievements of some of Ontario's and Canada's best known advanced network professionals, the ORION Award recognizes visionaries and innovators in a field that is critical to our ability to collaborate, learn and conduct research.

"We can draw a straight line from the work these people did, some more than 20 years ago before the Internet was born, to what we have in place today with ORION and CA*net 4," says ORION President/CEO Phil Baker.

"The impact of their vision and dedication cannot be underestimated," said Dr. Stan Shapson, VP Research and Innovation, York University and chair of the ORANO Board of Directors.

"They helped bring the Internet to Ontario and to Canada and helped establish our province as a globally-leading jurisdiction in advanced networking." he said. "We are proud to be able to recognize their achievements," he said.

Among the recipients is Dr. Ross H. Paul, President of the University of Windsor and founding Chair of the Ontario Regional Advanced Network of Ontario, which built and launched the ORION network.

Among his long list of accomplishments, he served as the founding President of CREAD, a distance education consortium for all of the Americas, and as Vice-President (North America) for the International Council for Distance Education (ICDE).

Also recognized is Andrew K. Bjerring, President and CEO of CANARIE, Canada's Advanced Internet Development organization, who was chair of ONet, the networking body that was the precursor to ORION.

Other recipients include Robert Chambers and Eugene Siciunas of the University of Toronto. Both were involved in the development of the original CA*net and were instrumental in the development and operation of ONet Networking, playing a critical role in the creation of ORION and later, GTAnet, Toronto's regional advanced network.

John Drake, Director of McMaster University's School of Geography and Geology was very involved in the early development of Ontario's and the Canadian Internet. A chair and board member of ONet Networking and a member of the board of the original CA*net Inc. At McMaster, he pioneered a number of technological advances including universal networking, email and electronic business forms.

Warren Jackson, until recently Russian Network Feasibility Consultant at NATO Scientific Affairs Division, he served on the Board of ONet Networking and was Chair of the Board for two years. He was Director of the UofT Computing Services and later Director of Special Projects, Information and Diagnostic Services at the Hospital for Sick Children. He led a consortium that produced the original proposal to the National Research Council for the creation of CA*net.

The Government of Ontario's Corporate Chief Strategist Joan McCalla played a pivotal role, leading the critical policy and program development work in the original Ontario Telecommunication Strategy and introduction of seminal programs. She pioneered e-government in Ontario and is credited for helping Ontario gain international recognition as a leader in the delivery of electronic services to the public.

Roger Taylor was Director General of Informatics at NRC when he co-led a movement to establish a national high speed R&E network in Canada, leading to the creation of CA*net in 1990. In 1995, he became Executive Director of ONet Networking, Ontario's first IP-based research network. He was a strong advocate of the vision that would lead to the creation of ORION.

Roger Watt, Group Director, Systems, Information Systems and Technology at the University of Waterloo was among the original Directors of ONet Networking, serving as Chair from 1994 to 1996. A founding member of the CA Domain Registration Committee that oversaw the assignment of ".CA" Internet domain names until it was replaced by CIRA in 2000, he participated in the technical and review committees that made recommendations on the evolution of CA*net, and was part of the committees that created the ONet and NetNorth networks.

2006 award criteria and nomination forms will be announced in the Fall.

Find out more about the background of advanced networking in Ontario and read the full biographies of the 2005 award recipients at the ORION Award web site.

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