Suhayya (Sue) Abu-Hakima, Co-Founder, President/CEO Amika Mobile Corporation

Sue is co-Founder, President/CEO of her second start-up Amika Mobile Corporation launched March 7, 2007. As one of a handful of women technology CEOs who has built her reputation on excellence and innovation, Sue is the driving force behind the company.

As a two-time founder/CEO, she has formed boards of directors and advisors and directs the business strategy, ensuring that product development matches customer pain points, as well as customer relationships which are key to an SMB. Her leadership is pivotal in securing private financing and forming effective management, business and technical teams. Her first company, launched as a spin-off from NRC in 1998, is AmikaNow! The compliance business unit within AmikaNow! was purchased by Entrust in June 2004. As VP of Content Technology at Entrust between June 2004 and Dec 2006, Sue transitioned the compliance business within Entrust. Sue started her career at Nortel Labs (formerly knows as BNR). Over her tenure as a CEO she has created over 130 jobs - 80 of them in software engineering using AI.

Sue holds a Bachelor of Engineering from McGill University and Masters and Doctorate degrees from Carleton University specializing in Artificial Intelligence. Sue is an adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa and has mentored countless undergraduate and graduate students in AI. She holds an Adjunct Professor position at the University of Ottawa. She sits on the Board of Directors of the Ontario Centers of Excellence and is the Chair of the Board of Management for the Center of Excellence for Communications and Information Technology. She is also on the Executive Board of the Ottawa Software Cluster created by OCRI. In 2003 she was one of the contributors to the Prime Minister's Task Force on Women Entrepreneurs.

She has given countless invited talks on entrepreneurship, lessons on start-ups as well as on AI as it pertains to messaging and security. CATA WIT honoured her as Canada’s Advanced Technology Entrepreneur in 2007. During her 26 years in the high-tech sector, Sue has established an exemplary record of professional accomplishment and service to her community; as an Industry leader, employer and a technology pioneer in the field of practical applications of AI. Sue holds 15 International patents in messaging and content analysis (and has 5 pending). As many as 27 Global Companies have cited her pioneering patents. She has published and presented over 100 papers. Sue is an avid Ottawa Senators hockey fan. View some of the Dr. Sue Abu-Hakima publications.

Rick Shorkey, CFO, Amika Mobile Corporation

Rick is the current CFO at AmikaNow! Rick Shorkey is a Chartered Accountant with more than 25 years of experience in senior financial and general management roles. He currently provides part-time CFO services to start-ups and small companies.

In the past he worked at Bitflash Inc. where he helped in its financing and acquisition by OpenText in 2004. He also worked for ATMOS and helped with its acquisition by a public US company. He also worked for 8 years at Gandalf Mobile Systems Inc. (GMSI) which sold mobile communication products. He has also worked at Zontec and Pelada Informatica which focused on software. He was also CFO at Bytec-Comterm which manufactured IBM-compatible products and he helped the company through its IPO. He has also held senior financial positions at Bowmar Canada and Leigh Instruments after obtaining his Chartered Accountancy designation while at Clarkson Gordon or Ernst & Young.

Ken Grigg, Co-Founder, CTO/CIO, Amika Mobile Corporation

Ken is the Co-Founder CIO/CTO at Amika Mobile. Prior to that he was the Director of Content Analysis Products at Entrust while the Compliance Products were transitioned from AmikaNow! to Entrust.

Prior to Entrust's acquisition of the Compliance Business Unit in June 2004 from AmikaNow!, Ken served as the Chief Technology Officer at AmikaNow! He joined AmikaNow! in early 2000 as Vice President of Engineering. Prior to joining AmikaNow! Ken helped shape the early direction of the company as an advisor on the BOA. Ken has worked for 25 years as a senior architect leading teams for Internet and Telecommunications products. He worked for 6 years at Mitel Corporation where he helped pioneer the core of Mitel's VoIP-based telephony and wireless products. At Precise Software Technologies he worked on the core of their popular embedded networking protocol stack. Ken managed the development of a Satellite Ground Station system for Calian/SED Systems.

Ken began his career with 9 intensely formative years at Bell-Northern Research labs (now Nortel Labs), where he worked on projects such as prototyping the concepts of Internet newsgroups (1982) and developing the PC-and phone-based technology for achieving the world's first converged ISDN voice and data call (1986). He holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia, and a Masters in Engineering in Systems and Computer Engineering from Carleton University, where he specialized in parallel and distributed computing. He has filed a number of patents and is considered a pioneer in mobile messaging and VoIP.