From developing Java and the Blackberry to defining the specifications for XML, Canadians have blazed trails in the worlda s most innovative companies. Canadians have also risen to the top of the largest technology firms, providing a CEO for Yahoo!, Jeff Mallet, and eBaya s first president, Jeff Skoll.

Canadians have quietly altered the face of the world economy with business models that have changed the way the world does&everything.; From developing Java and wireless e-mail to defining the specifications for XML, Canadians have sculpted, touched, researched, improved processes and blazed trails in the world's most innovative companies. Canadians have also risen to the top of the largest technology firms in the United States, providing a COO for Yahoo!, Jeff Mallet, and eBay's first President, Jeff Skoll.
While fascinating and compelling, these stories are not well known either in Canada or around the globe. This sets the stage for Innovation Nation, a fascinating new book designed to cut through traditional Canadian modesty and provide a window into the fibre, minds and makeup of 30 Canadians whom the world needs to know.
Demonstrating qualities such as innovative thinking, entrepreneurial drive, and team building, these profiled Canadians are leaders for today and tomorrow. While their stories are as rich and varied as the people themselves they share a common characteristic-they have all overcome barriers to make a very personal and momentous contribution to the technology landscape.
These fascinating, sometimes chaotic and always exhilarating struggles both entertain and inform us as we learn lessons from flesh-and-blood Canadian entrepreneurs. Readers will come to understand how Canada as a nation helped shape the thinking of these business minds. With qualities such as strong communities, favourable technology tax laws and geographic and cultural proximity to the US, Canada is building the physical and intellectual infrastructure necessary to continue to develop as a leading Innovation Nation.