It was Oscars meets The Voice meets the Summer Olympics for the Nerd Community. Over two hundred attendees walked the red carpet tonight at the annual YQG Tech Awards to watch outstanding colleagues recognized for their leadership in growing the tech community in Windsor-Essex and Chatham Kent. The Tech Awards are organized by WEtech Alliance, sponsored by the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) and hosted at the Dr. John A. Strasser Student Life Centre at St. Clair College. “This is a night to bring our tight knit tech community even closer together and celebrate those who have brought forward our best as individuals, as organizations and as a region,” says Yvonne Pilon, President and CEO of WEtech Alliance. The twelve winners across ten categories that include:

• Tech Company of the Year – CenterLine
• Tech CEO of the Year – Brent McPhail, Brave Controls
• Tech Researcher of the Year – Lisa Porter, University of Windsor
• Tech Professional of the Year – Hassan Farhat, AlphaKOR Group
• Young Tech Professional  of the Year – Andre Khayat
• Tech Teachers of the Year
  • Melissa Krausse, Tecumseh Vista Academy
  • Jason Charlton, L.A. Desmarais Elementary School
• Tech Mentor of the Year – Frank Abbruzzese, AlphaKOR Group
• Technology Adaptation – Windsor Eats
• Technology Innovation – Intellitix
• Tech StartUP of the Year – ITOS Oncology
• WEtech Choice Awards
  • Hackforge
  • Adam Davis, Next Dimension

The winners were selected through a three-part process that included public voting via Facebook as well as deliberation from sponsors Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) and WEtech Alliance. Over 3,500 votes were cast by the public over one week in November. The Tech Awards were preceded by the sixth and final event of the Nerd Olympics – a classic on-stage Rock Band battle of the bands.  The three month-long Nerd Olympics pitted sixteen tech companies and organizations against each other in a series of Olympic style challenges such as archery, curling, trivia, disc golf and trampoline. “Nerd Olympics is a great way to build camaraderie within tech companies and also between tech companies and organizations, ” says Frank Abbruzzese, President of AlphaKOR and founding member of WEtech Alliance.  “It strengthens what we are trying to build here, and that is a vibrant tech community that works hard, plays hard and looks after each other.” Libro Credit Union graciously sponsored the Closing Ceremonies of the Nerd Olympics where teams Brave Controls & Next Dimension, who finished tied atop the leaderboard, hoisted the Nerd Cup as Co-Champions and will co-host the Nerd Cup until next year’s Nerd Olympics. Join the conversation online: Tech Week YQG: #TechWeekYQG Nerd Olympics: #NerdOlympicsYQG Tech Awards: #TechAwardsYQG   Photos by Stephanie Pilon