Wyvern among winners at YEG Startup Community Awards

Wyvern among winners at YEG Startup Community Awards

· The Pulse
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A company that successfully launched a satellite into space was recognized as the "Most Edmonton Startup of the Year" at the third annual YEG Startup Community Awards on May 10.

Wyvern specializes in high-resolution hyperspectral imaging taken from space for use in agriculture, energy, mining, forestry, and defence. Dragonette-001, which was launched on the SpaceX Transporter 7 mission on April 14, is the first of three satellites the company plans to launch this year, while it continues to work on a deployable telescope to get even better images.

CEO Chris Robson said he and his co-founders started Wyvern because they wanted to stay in Alberta and have a career in space. "It's great … to be able to have our team do that kind of thing here," he said as he accepted the award. "It's also fun to have a satellite in space — it's pretty cool!"

Wyvern beat out fellow finalists Air Trail, Future Fields, and Loop Strategic Marketing for the award, which recognizes the startup "that has most embodied the spirit of Edmonton's startup community in the past year (and) has shown resilience, innovation, risk-taking, and a great focus on community."

Here are the rest of the awards presented at a ceremony at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii):

Photo: Mike Wilson of DrugBank, which won last year's Most Edmonton Startup of the Year award, presents this year's award to Wyvern CEO Chris Robson and chief growth officer Meghan Dear. (YEG Startup Community Awards/YouTube)