Judging

Selection Criteria:

CDN will invite industry judges to review the entries and select the winners. The Judging Panel will consist of current or recently retired CIO or IT director level executives from high profile organizations in Canada. Judges will be selected for their experience in the IT channel as solution providers and as CIOs who have worked with Solution Providers. Judges may not be currently employed by a sponsor or entrant.

The Judges may select up to three winners in a category: Gold, Silver, and Bronze, except that there will only be a Gold winner for Solution Provider of the Year. If, in the Judges’ opinion, there are not sufficient entries in a given category, fewer may be selected.

Judging Criteria:

Category winners will be chosen based on the following judging criteria:

INNOVATION: originality in the application of the IT solution to the business problem

IMPROVED SALES OR REVENUE: evidence that the solution benefited the customer with improvement in sales, revenue or cost reduction measured in dollars or percent

IMPROVED EFFICIENCY: evidence that the solution benefited the customer with increased efficiency

CUSTOMER SERVICE: evidence that the solution benefited the client with improved internal and/or external customer service

X-FACTOR: in what way(s) did the solution provider and/or the solution go above and beyond industry norms.

Our Judges

Robert Di Stefano – Director, IT Systems of Earth Rangers

Rob Di Stefano has been the IT Director for Earth Rangers since 2008. Rob is an industry leader in green technology – and his work helps teach kids how to preserve the environment and save animals!

Rob helped the Earth Rangers Centre of Sustainable Technology (ERCST) win three global awards for the cutting-edge, smart green technologies in its data center. The center’s size is only 100 sq/ft in size thanks to green tech. Otherwise, it would need to be 10 times larger! Rob travels to tech conferences across North America to present and promote the data centre while helping other companies adopt green tech too.

Rob mashes environmental technologies that keep buildings cool in summer and warm in winter with trail-blazing info tech. He works at Earth Rangers, an award-winning charitable organization located in Woodbridge, Ontario. Earth Rangers and their animal ambassadors like Cosmo the lemur and Sonic the barn owl visit schools and communities across Canada. They aim to inspire everyone to adopt sustainable behaviors that will protect animals and their habitats.

Ted Maulucci – President & CEO of SmartONE Solutions Inc.

Ted Maulucci was recently named President of SmartOne Solutions, a smart building solutions company. Prior to the appointment Ted spent over 20 years with Tridel Group. He has been recognized with several international and local awards for IT leadership, IT application development for the real estate industry, smart buildings, and innovation. He was the 2016 CanadianCIO of the Year (Private sector).

David Walsh – Senior Channel Executive

David Walsh is a senior Sales & Marketing executive with a genuine passion for developing winning business strategies, growing markets, and coaching people and teams to achieve whatever they want to. Walsh has been the General Manager with strong business acumen, extensive financial operating knowledge for several top IT vendors in the channel. He was also the VP of Sales and Marketing for Ingram Micro Canada.

After a 30-year proven record of accomplishment in delivering progressive results in the Canadian, U.S., and global IT markets, Walsh joined the Canadian Channel Chiefs Council as a Pathways Examiner.

Walsh started his career as a leading executive for NEC Technologies of Canada.