Ottawa: ’We’re Number One in Photonics’

When Ottawa's Scott Marshall is asked to comment about how Canada's capital stacks up against other high-tech centers around the world, his bullish response is anything but the kind of self-effacing modesty one so often gets from Canadians.

"Ottawa is one of the big high-tech centers in North America, and for that matter, the world," says Marshall. "But in terms of optical companies, I would argue that Ottawa is number one."

Marshall is president and CEO of Ceyba Inc., an Ottawa-based photonics company that specializes in next-generation core optical networks. The company, founded in May 2000, already employs about 250 high-tech workers. A month after it opened, Ceyba set a new Canadian record for seed investments that weighted in at US $15 million. A year later, it set a new investment record for private telecom startups: $93 million...