SMART wins Lifetime Achievement Canada Export Award
SMART recognized for world-class best practices and leadership in international business
CALGARY, Alberta --- December 6, 2005 --- SMART Technologies Inc. announces it has won the Lifetime Achievement Canada Export Award for its leadership in international business and its ongoing standard of excellence. This prestigious national award acknowledges exporters’ significant contribution to Canada’s economy and highlights excellence in global competitiveness. A nationwide panel of prominent business people and government officials selected winners of the Canada Export Award in a number of categories, and recognized three-time award winners with a Lifetime Achievement Award. This year, SMART is one of two companies to win the Lifetime Achievement Award. SMART won the Canada Export Award in 2000 and 2002 and was also named Canada’s Exporter of the Year in 2000. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade recognized the winners at a ceremony yesterday in Ottawa.
Canada Export Award winners are selected based on notable performance in areas such as increasing export sales, introducing new products abroad, maintaining high Canadian content and achieving a high ratio of export sales to total sales. Since 1996, SMART has introduced more than 225 new and upgraded products domestically and internationally – increasing its overall sales by 1,971 percent. In 2005, the company’s export sales accounted for 97 percent of revenues. As a result of strong global demand for SMART products, the company has also opened offices in Bonn, Tokyo, New York City and Washington DC. SMART has sustained a cumulative average annual growth rate of approximately 30 percent and currently sells its products through resellers in more than 75 countries worldwide. SMART is the global market leader in interactive whiteboards, with a growing installed base of more than 250,000 units (as of January 2005) – more than any other interactive whiteboard manufacturer in the world. SMART’s diverse product installations include many high-profile organizations such as NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Mission, CTV and TSN SportsCentre, Los Angeles Lakers, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, New York City Board of Education, Disney Imagineering and Harvard University.
“It has been very exciting to bring a Canadian innovation such as the SMART Board interactive whiteboard onto the world stage,” says Nancy Knowlton, SMART’s president and co-CEO. “As the adoption of interactive whiteboards continues to accelerate around the world, SMART is pleased to accept a Lifetime Achievement Canada Export Award in recognition of our international success and our team’s commitment to strengthening Canada’s position as a global technology innovator.”
About the Canada Export Awards
Since 1983, the Canada Export Awards have celebrated the success of Canadian companies that demonstrate excellence in competing internationally. The awards recognize small, medium-sized and large exporters. For more information on the Canada Export Awards, visit www.infoexport.gc.ca/awards-prix.
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For more information, contact
Public Relations
SMART Technologies Inc.
1207 – 11th Avenue SW, Suite 300
Calgary, AB T3C 0M5
CANADA
403.802.2595
pr@smarttech.com
Please note that SMART is written in all capital letters.