President and CEO, ORION
Darin Graham was appointed President and CEO of ORION on August 1, 2010 and is a true leader in international information communications technology. Darin was most recently Director of NZi3, New Zealand’s ICT Innovation Institute at the University of Canterbury at Christchurch, where he was invited to establish the institute as an innovation centre and global ‘hothouse’ of strategic ICT research – moving ideas from the lab, across the innovation gap, and into industry and commercialization. With NZi3, Darin built a collaborative culture and effective operational structure with $10M+ in funding from New Zealand’s Partnership for Excellence program in conjunction with matching contributions from industry.
Prior to this role, Darin was President and CEO of the former Communications and Information Technology Ontario (CITO) – one of the original Ontario Centres of Excellence. CITO’s mandate was to support leading-edge research and academic and industry collaboration. Through his leadership, CITO developed several key programs that significantly increased the engagement of industry in research and development projects, supported innovative research leaders throughout Ontario, and helped nurture successful start-up companies from the academic level.