Microsoft Canada congratulates the winners of its 2020 IMPACT Awards

Microsoft Canada has recognized 16 partners across Canada for their achievements in delivering transformative solutions that have an impact in their communities. The 2020 IMPACT Award winners were announced during the Microsoft Inspire Digital event.

This year’s awards had added significance because of the way partners stepped up to meet the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, said Suzanne Gagliese, VP, One Commercial Partner, Microsoft Canada. “Our Canadian partner ecosystem really rallied as digital first responders to drive business continuity, so it is critical they are recognized for their tireless efforts,” she said.

Microsoft’s success as a company depends on its partners who drive over 95 per cent of the company’s commercial revenue. The awards go to partners who develop innovative solutions using Microsoft products.

Winners are selected from nominations submitted by partners based on a list of judging criteria, such as customer excellence and economic impact. This year, Microsoft added metric-based awards to recognize partners who have been very successful in driving overall growth, said Gagliese.

Making a difference during the pandemic
The slate of nominations was impressive this year, said Gagliese. “What I am most proud of is the way our partners have stepped up during this pandemic to serve customers,” she said. “The passion to support, level of resilience, agility and creativity they’ve shown is truly remarkable.”

For example, it took less than ten days for the Crisis Champion award winner, Novari Health, to build a province-wide virtual care waiting room and train over 1000 health care professionals on how to use it. During the crisis, patients with non-COVID-19 symptoms were afraid to go to the ER and family doctors lacked the personal protective equipment to see patients. The virtual waiting room allows patients to be triaged, diagnosed and treated for non-urgent issues without leaving their own homes. The solution was built on the Azure cloud and Novari used Microsoft Teams to quickly train health care professionals.

Similarly, Social Impact award winner RedBit used Azure to help Second Harvest’s Foodrescue.ca platform to meet the spike in need for fresh food by hungry families during the pandemic. The organization’s site was not robust enough to meet demand and could not scale quickly. RedBit optimised the existing platform in the Azure Cloud and developed a mobile app and a portal using Dynamics 365. “To have this technology available across the country so quickly has helped thousands of communities get food to people in need during this time of unprecedented crisis,” said Lori Nikkel, CEO, Second Harvest.

When the lockdown occurred, the education sector had to move quickly to provide online learning for students. Edsby received the Public Sector IMPACT award for its digital learning platform for K-12 education. The all-in-one platform provides solutions for learning, attendance, report cards and parent interaction. It relies on a number of Microsoft technologies including Teams, Azure and OneDrive.

Innovation at its best
Many of the winners were chosen for developing innovative to solve common business problems, such as the challenge to tag thousands of digital assets so they can be managed. AI & Machine Learning IMPACT Award MediaValet, solved that problem. It automated the process by using Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services. By doing so, it dramatically reduced tagging time and improved asset discoverability for its customers.

“We feel so blessed and humbled by all of the accomplishments of our partners,” said Gagliese. “I’d like to extend our gratitude to each of our partners for your submissions and congratulate our finalists. Thank you for helping us to accelerate our Microsoft mission of empowering every organization and person in the world to achieve more.”

And the winners are:
Winners for partner self-nominated awards:

Modern Workplace IMPACT Award: Bulletproof
Business Applications IMPACT Award: XRM Vision
Datacenter Migration IMPACT Award: Tata Consultancy Services
AI & Machine Learning IMPACT Award: MediaValet Inc.
Application Innovation IMPACT Award: Dapasoft Inc.
Commercial IMPACT Award: Adastra Corporation
Public Sector IMPACT Award: Edsby
Surface IMPACT Award: Insight Canada Inc.
Social IMPACT Award: RedBit Development

Winners for metric-based awards:

Enterprise IMPACT Award: Accenture / Avanade
Regional Cloud Solution Provider IMPACT Award: ProServe IT
National Large Solution Provider IMPACT Award: Insight Canada Inc.
Indirect Cloud Solution Provider IMPACT Award: Ingram Micro Inc.
Data Platform Modernization IMPACT Award: Lixar I.T. Inc.
ISV IMPACT Award: PointClickCare
Modern Marketing IMPACT Award: Ingram Micro Inc.
Tech Intensity IMPACT Award: ISM Canada
Crisis Champion IMPACT Award: Novari Health