Denzil Doyle to be inducted into C.I.P.A. Hall of Fame

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Influential builder and mentor calls for more focus on technology as an instrument of industrial development

TORONTO, October 22, 2001 - Denzil Doyle, the 2001 inductee into the Canadian Information Productivity Awards Hall of Fame, says the high-tech industry he helped to build in Canada could employ many thousands of more people, but is not being exploited to its full potential.

Doyle, the outspoken "father of high tech" in the Ottawa region, will be inducted November 22 into the Hall of Fame on the World Wide Web, established in 1995 as a permanent tribute to Canadian pioneers of the Information Age. It resides on the Web site of the Canadian Information Productivity Awards (www.C.I.P.A..com), Canada's largest information management awards program.

Doyle has been an investor in advanced technology companies for many years, but fears that a chronic lack of financial resources could further erode the industry and, with it, the Canadian standard of living. Canada's share of the world market in high-tech products and services now stands at 1.5 per cent, compared with 4 per cent 30 years ago. We are becoming an obsolete trading nation, Doyle said.

"If Canada's exports of high-technology products and services were equal to its imports, we would have another 50,000 people employed in the high-technology industry. This could be achieved if we got serious about restructuring our financial infrastructure in Canada.

"In the United States, venture capital companies get 60 per cent of their funding from pension funds," Doyle said. "In Canada the figure is 5 per cent. This is a serious structural problem that governments should be addressing.

"In fact, the whole financing spectrum should be reviewed. There is also a serious problem in financing start-ups. Many of our policymakers seem to think that storks bring them."

Doyle, 69, was the founding president of Digital Equipment of Canada Ltd. and, as chairman of Capital Alliance Ventures Inc., has helped to finance and manage the growth of many advanced technology companies. His book Making Technology Happen has provided management guidance to thousands of technology entrepreneurs and investors.

"Denzil Doyle is an archangel to the information technology industry, and a mentor to many executives across the country," said John Tory, chair of the C.I.P.A. Hall of Fame Selection Panel and president and chief executive officer of Rogers Cable Inc. "He has helped to make governments and the public aware of the critical role of technology industries in our economy."

Doyle will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at the C.I.P.A. Gala Banquet, Canada's most important information management eventlargest and longest-running information technology awards program, at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto. Winners of the 2001 C.I.P.A. competition will also be honoured before a black-tie audience of senior executives.

C.I.P.A. was created in 1992 under the auspices of founding managing partners Canadian Business magazine, now published by Rogers Media, and Capgemini Canada Inc.