My name is Sue Abu-Hakima. I am the CEO and co-founder of Amika Mobile Corporation. This company in its current form was founded in 2007. This is my second start-up, my second company, and my second SME. The first one was built up as a compliance company. It was acquired by Entrust and had 18 patents behind it.
My companies have contributed over $18 million to the local economy in investments and revenues and have created approximately 200 high-tech jobs. According to OCRI, that resulted in four spin-off jobs per high-tech job for a total of 800 service jobs.
My current company is self-funded, funded by angel investment, and focuses on emergency mass notification. It has had approximately $3 million worth of investment since its inception. Members of our current team are all angel investors, so our team are committed to the company. We are raising $1.5 million in this poor investment climate and find that there is definitely an absent venture capital market. Only 4% of companies ever get venture capital, and female-led ventures get 0.1%. That's very little, but that's another story altogether.
We've had an excellent channel to market in the United States through the PSA Security Network, with over 300 system integrators in the United States focused on security, as well as our recent integration with the UTC-Chubb-Lenel folks and their OnGuard system for access control, fire panels, etc. That allows us to receive direct sensor input so we can save people's lives.
At a recent U.S. security trade show, over 80 customers came up to us, from a lot of blue-chip companies looking for our capability, and 120 channel partners have asked to sell our products. Of course, we can't deal with all of this, because after all, we're but an SME.
We've won 12 awards. We've won four for innovation in security over other international players. One was judged by FEMA and emergency management folks in the United States. IDC has named us one of their 10 companies to watch, and we're part of the Branham 300.
We have innovative and unique technology. With this company, we now have 12 patents. I'm happy to say that our second U.S. patent has been granted.
What we can do is automatically discover wired and wireless people. For example, we can discover your mobile devices in this facility without having your e-mail addresses. So if there is an emergency at the airport, a shopping centre, in a hospital, on a campus, etc., we can reach you and save your life.
Let's talk about government programs. We've benefited from government programs, of course, such as SR and ED, Precarn, and IRAP. IRAP has been a godsend. So has SR and ED.
We have supported universities and colleges through collaborative research funded through the Ontario Centres of Excellence and NSERC to help train students and make professional research more relevant. I'm on the boards of both. I'm actually the vice-chair of the board of directors of the Ontario Centres of Excellence, and I'm on NSERC's private sector advisory board. I really don't have time, but I do this because I'm trying to help the community.
Over the last 12 years we've responded to at least 30 RFPs from the Government of Canada. We have not won a single one. Even in our first company, which was a compliance-based company with content analysis, our products were always selected as the top technical innovative products in an RFP. However, we were never awarded the contracts. The reason for it, I have to tell you, is that we're an SME. It's that simple.
Once Entrust acquired our compliance business, where we were selling a compliance server that can look through your e-mail and tell if your secrets are being sent out, the Government of Canada then bought the product and bought a site licence for over 250,000 government users for several million dollars. But they did not buy this product from us as an SME. The technology was obviously good enough for the government, but not from an SME.
Last year we found out about OSME--and thank you very much for setting it up--and we immediately signed up for their excellent training. They then announced the CICP. I've spent 13 years being an entrepreneur and, in my opinion, CICP is a fantastic idea. It is the natural next step in getting innovative technology into trials in government departments, especially for a company like ours that has leveraged IRAP, SR and ED, and other government grants.
While in trial with the testing departments at CRC, our product for emergency mass notification was able to successfully evacuate buildings in a haz-mat type of emergency at Shirley's Bay. There's no better proof that this is a good product. This product has given us our first customer and what would be considered our first significant revenues. It'll also give us feedback on the product so we can improve it for all these other customers who are asking for it.
The other thing about CICP is that it has also really helped to us understand the PWGSC process for contracting, which in itself is a full-time job. I spent four months, full time, working on the CICP contract. In any case, in round one, over 375 companies applied. Amika Mobile was chosen as one of the 26 that was awarded. With a pool of only $4 million, this is a very small amount of money from a government procurement perspective when the government spends billions and billions of dollars annually on large companies like IBM and CGI.
The CIC program, which I understand is $40 million over three years, should be expanded, in my humble opinion, to at least $250 million. Canada has over one million SMEs, small and medium-sized enterprises of our size, that contribute a good chunk to the country's tax revenues, and they need to be better leveraged for Canada and the government departments to become more innovative.
CICP at OSME should become the gateway program for innovative SMEs to enter the federal government and be guided to various departments that can procure their products.
Thank you very much.