OTTAWA - John Carbrey, 27, founder and co-owner of Intrafinity, last night received the Export Development Canada (EDC) Export Excellence Award, at the Business Development Bank of Canada's 2009 Young Entrepreneur Awards (YEA) ceremony in Ottawa. He also won BDC's 2009 Young Entrepreneur Award for Ontario.

The EDC Export Excellence Award honours the YEA winner with the most outstanding export objectives, strategies and results. Mr. Carbrey received the award in recognition of his company's outstanding success in exporting which currently generates about 70% of Intrafinity revenues.

"Given that many young entrepreneurs see the world as their marketplace, EDC is proud to encourage their strategies and successes in exporting and investing globally. Intrafinity sets an inspiring example for other new businesses to grow internationally," says Benoit Daignault, EDC's Senior Vice-President of Business Development.

Founded in 2001, Intrafinity provides an integrated suite of Web-based tools and applications that create, publish and manage digital content and enable collaboration for portals, websites, communities, document management, event coordination, mentoring and online learning. Since its inception, the company has focused on building a scalable software platform that would enable global export of the solution. Overcoming challenges related to time-zone differences and the need to effectively communicate in numerous languages, the company counts international corporations such as Intel, Kennametal and OST (Brazil) among its clients.

Intrafinity has also developed a division focused on providing products and services to school districts across the U.S. Its software solutions have been used by more than a million users in over 900 client organizations, including the University of Illinois, Michigan State University, Texas Education Agency, Intel, Discovery Channel, Nationwide Insurance and many other large public, private and not-for-profit organizations.

Young Entrepreneur Awards and Small Business Week

BDC's Young Entrepreneur Awards are a highlight of Small Business Week, providing the opportunity to honour the entrepreneurial spirit and business success of Canadians between the ages of 19 and 35. Platinum partners of the 2009 Young Entrepreneur Awards and Small Business Week are Export Development Canada and Deloitte. Gold partners are Borden Ladner Gervais and Maclean's.