Alex Ono, co-founder and president, had increasingly become aware of global marketing trends in the hi-technology industry. While working together with Sheila Anderson, co-founder, and heading the direction of Ottawa’s Corel Corporation Localization Department, they were able to assist in re-shaping the future of their department and the technologies required to streamline the globalization and localization processes at Corel. Immediately following their departure from Corel, Sheila and Alex immediately dove into the creation of Sivano in order to expand their vision of providing Localization and Globalization services to local Canadian firms. Together forming Sivano Inc, July of 2000.

Sivano Facts

• The name Sivano was derived from taking the first two letters of the words “Silicon Valley North”, which the Ottawa region has become dubbed by the community in part due to a large growth of high technology related firms in the area. Canada’s capital, Ottawa, now boasts over 1,000 companies and over 69,000 employees in the hi-tech field, soon overtaking the Canadian federal government as the number one employer in the area.
• The Sivano logo represents two quotation marks joined together to form a single “S” in the centre to form the first letter of the company name. Quotation marks are the key to symbolizing speech, language and other especially memorable passages used in the western culture. In keeping with the spirit of our logo, Sivano offers translations into many languages and a wide range of localization services for companies large and small.
   

Alex Ono (President & co-founder): Before starting Sivano Inc, Alex was the International Software Development Manager at Corel Corporation. At Corel, Alex was responsible for the development of important software feature specifications for many of Corel’s products. These included features for the CorelDRAW suite, Corel WordPerfect office suite and a number of other leading software products. His vision and focus was to build product features that were easily integrated to the needs of Corel’s international customers. These feature specifications included adding vertical and horizontal text input methods for Corel’s products, as well as other specific features deemed necessary by non-North American users and cultures. His relationship with Corel’s many Sales and Marketing teams and its numerous worldwide partners helped him develop a deep understanding of global software requirements and needs of individuals worldwide. Alex worked at Corel for over seven years, and was a part of the Localization team since its inception. As a key member, he was responsible for project schedules, localization vendor management and sales and marketing planning for product development. At Sivano, Alex works to strengthen partner contacts and customer relations, while maintaining his focus on localization and globalization project management.

Sheila Anderson (co-founder): Prior to starting Sivano Inc, Sheila was the Development Manager of the Localization department at Corel Corporation’s world headquarters in Ottawa. Corel develops award-winning software, including CorelDRAW and Corel WordPerfect. A native of Ottawa, Sheila grew up and worked in the Ottawa region for firms such as Cognos and BNR (now called Nortel) as a software engineer, eventually joining Corel, where she had been working for ten years as a software developer and subsequently manager of the Localization Department. She had first been introduced to localization as the sole engineer working on localizing CorelDRAW 3.0 into 17 different languages – ranging from German, Italian to Turkish and Japanese. Eventually her experience and team grew to include engineering development, quality assurance testing, documentation and project management. As a pioneer in the localization and globalization of software products, her many accomplishments were invaluable to Corel. After departing from Corel, Sheila had immediately seized the opportunity to combine her talents with Alex Ono, to grow their concept together. Sheila has since decided to pursue other opportunities outside Sivano.