BC Business
This is the organization's 14th annual program.
In its annual recognition of Indigenous businesses and entrepreneurs breaking new ground in the local economy, Vancouver-based awards body BC Achievement Foundation is celebrating eight B.C. organizations and changemakers for its 14th Indigenous Business Award (IBA) in partnership with the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation.
With an alumni roster of 210, a major component of this year’s theme, “Thuyshaynum: preparing the path, directing the feet,” is to nurture respectful and meaningful relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous economies. The judging panel was composed of tech company Animikii’s CEO and APTN board member Jeff Ward, Ojibwe and Métis, as well as lawyers Jessie Ramsay, Métis, of Baker Newby Law and Leah George-Wilson of Miller Titerle + Company, who previously served as chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation.
“When we come together to celebrate Indigenous business achievement, we are also blazing a path for today’s youth and for the generations that will follow,” said Anne Giardini, chair of the BC Achievement Foundation, in a release. “Every year, the enterprises recognized with an Indigenous Business Award highlight ways we can all benefit from an ongoing reconciliation of the practices of the past with the economies of the future.”
A formal ceremony will be held on November 29 at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver to celebrate the recipients below. They will each receive a certificate and medal, designed by First Nations artist Robert Davidson. Tickets are $200 per person and can be purchased here.