The 14 teams competing in the third annual Vancouver Canary Derby raised $82,550 last weekend for the early detection of cancer, with additional funds still coming in. Established in 2006, the Canary Derby has now raised over $820,000 to date, with all funds remaining in British Columbia. Canary Foundation of Canada’s annual Canary Derby helps fund research by bringing together the technology and business communities of Vancouver and Victoria with Canary and the BC Cancer Foundation to help support early detection cancer research.

The 2010 Vancouver Derby was held on a sunny Saturday, September 25 at Deer Lake Park in Burnaby. Canary Foundation founder Don Listwin said of the event, “We are fortunate to have such great support in the Vancouver area. This event would not be possible without our 9 corporate sponsors, over 20 in-kind sponsors, 14 fundraising teams, over 100 volunteers, and the city of Burnaby.”

Teams at the event included: 6S Marketing, Aquatic Informatics, BCTIA & BCIC, FCV Interactive, Revenue Services Group, Rogers Wireless, Sales Xperts Solutions, Simon Fraser University, Telus, Webnames.ca, Wired Woman, Work at Play, and Xomo & Big Green.

The Canary Style/Obstacle portion of the day is the time to show spirit. Unlike the Speed category, any vehicle propulsion is permitted, costumes and decorations are highly encouraged, and crowd involvement is a plus. The Top Gun inspired team from Xomo & Big Green took the cup for the Canary Style/Obstacle course with their rendition of “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling.” In the Canary Speed category, Aquatic Informatics defended its championship and took home the first place trophy after barreling down the track in 36.26 seconds. The top four fundraising teams were Webnames.ca, Telus, Xomo & Big Green, and Aquatic Informatics who together raised more than $36,000. Webnames.ca took first place with $16,751 raised.

Race Director Ryan Schmidt received the Volunteer Award for contributing countless additional hours to fill in the gaps whenever the need arose. This year he volunteered at both the Vancouver Derby and the Victoria Derby in June.

Of course, this event would not be possible without the support of our corporate sponsors. Gold Sponsors for the event included the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) and Telus. The seven Bronze Sponsors were Corporate Recruiters, Deloitte, Fasken Martineau, KPMG, MCL Motor Cars, Teligence, and Webnames.ca.

Canary Derby cars are designed and hand built by corporate or private teams and are unpowered, relying completely upon gravity and team ingenuity. For more information on the Derbies, please visit: www.canaryderby.com.

Techvibes is a media sponsor of the Vancouver Canary Derby and Polycom has entered a team.

“We hope that, even in a small way, our efforts and those of other participants will mean more smiles, more hugs, and many more years together for families touched by cancer.”

Polycom once again is participating in the Canary Derby in hopes “that someday, a discovery from the Canary Foundation will make all the difference for someone and their family.”

Although Zachary Blair would not give away too many secrets about Polycom’s soapbox car, he did make it clear that it was “meticulously engineered and gruelingly road tested.” Polycom’s soapbox, also known as the Polycom-Phonie-Mobile, “is a testament to what’s possible when people and plywood get together.”

In regards to fundraising, Polycom employees have been holding bake sales, barbeques and many other events to collect donations. Polycom’s fundraising goal this year is $5,000 towards Canary Foundation’s early cancer detection.

Polycom, a multinational corporation, delivers innovative telepresence and voice communication solutions to customers. Their vision is to enable people to connect any time, any place, and with any device in a virtual experience as natural as actually being there. Polycom has approximately 2,700 employees worldwide, including about 65 at their Burnaby R&D facility.

Polycom’s Vancouver presence dates back to its 2001 acquisition of Vancouver-based Circa Communications, a developer of Voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephony products. Today Polycom continues to develop VoIP solutions at its Burnaby R&D facility, including the iconic tricorn-shaped SoundStation IP conference phones and the new WX 1500 business media phone.

Although Polycom is present in 40 different countries, it is often able to avoid frequent travel expenses by using Polycom unified communications (UC) solutions. In fact, Polycom employees conduct about 975,000 video-conferences each year over Polycom’s global network.

To find out more information on Polycom, visit them at polycom.com.

For more information on the Canary Derby, please visit: www.canaryderby.com. See you September 25th!

Techvibes is a media sponsor of the Vancouver Canary Derby and Work at Play has entered a team.

"Try to have a better team outfit than us on race-day. Just you try it."

Work at Play is a digital agency that provides strategy, creative, and development for large organizations and agency partners. In many ways it’s a continuation of a company David Gratton started in 1999, called ici Media. This company was purchased in 2001 by Totally Hip, a local Vancouver Software company. In 2002 David left Totally Hip and rebuilt his agency with one employee. It has now grown to 30 people and has recently been named to this year’s Profit 100 as one of Canada’s fastest growing companies. In the last decade, the company has developed interactive experiences for such projects as BMW’s wildly successful BMW FILMS, digital campaigns and sites for global giants like MTV, NBC, and Mattel, as well as great local partners like Knowledge Network, Rocky Mountain Bikes, and BC Children’s Hospital Foundation.

In addition to helping clients deliver engaging digital experiences, Work at Play also has its own R&D team. An example product from this arm of the business is the audience engagement product, DEQQ, which aggregates content from all major social media services. Check it out at www.deqq.com.

As Russell Barnes reports, Work at Play joined the Canary Derby because “it’s a fun way to raise serious money for a truly valuable cause; researching early diagnosis (and hence higher chance of successful treatment) of a disease that touches so many of us, or our loved ones, throughout our lives. Great fun with serious intent couldn’t be more in-line with our company ethos, so it was only natural for us to get involved.”

When asked about Work at Play’s soapbox car, Barnes added, “Our car is most definitely build to ROCK. It might not necessarily break any records for speed, but with the name ‘Highway to HTML’ we feel it’ll definitely raise some smiles and money. The driver will likely be the smallest one of our team of ‘engineers’, who feels confident enough in the stopping-power of a hockey-puck braking system to sit at the wheel…”

On the fundraising front, Work at Play is contacting clients and partners to humbly ask for their support, in addition to planning an innovative social media-based sponsorship campaign. Depending upon the level of donation made, Work at Play has created a number of different ways for the sponsors to benefit. At the top of the tree—for the Platinum Sponsor package—Work at Play is offering (in addition to other more traditional sponsor privileges) a Pacific Salmon barbecued to perfection by the CEO, and a personally dedicated acoustic recording of “Highway to Hell” by platinum recording artist David Usher.

To find our more, follow Work at Play on www.twitter.com/h2html or visit www.workatplay.com.

For more information on the Canary Derby, please visit: www.canaryderby.com. See you September 25th!