Perfect.
With this in mind, I set up the Norgen biotechnology company. We started in 1998. The company started in an old library and moved into a much larger state-of-the-art building. We're pursuing the commercialization of technology and the selling of products at the same time.
What is the main focus of Norgen Biotek? The umbilical cord of the company is products, sales, and services. That is growing very nicely, and it provides sustainability.
All four of the areas listed here—diagnostics on demand in resource-limited areas, point-of-care diagnostics, home testing, and prenatal diagnosis—are very important, and are the future for this century. They can be home runs for the company if any one of them succeed.
The company is fully regulated, ISO certified, Health Canada approved, with CE-marked products. In terms of patented technology, we have over 20 patents already issued and 15 pending. We isolate DNA on protein from all kinds of specimens. The products are innovative and excellent in quality.
Who are our customers? With computer technology being the equalizer right now, we sell products all over the world to companies, to universities, and to institutions. We have distribution channels all over the world.
Last century, it was the century of physics and chemistry. This century will be dominated, as you already know, by the digital revolution and by biotechnology.
What is the world's most dominant language at the present time? You can't speak it. You can't read it. You need tools to read it. It's the strings of ones and zeros: that's the digital revolution. That's the age we're living in. It will dominate this century.
What is the other language? It's the code of life. It's also written by “A, G, C, T”—four letters—but they must be in base pairs: “AT” and “GC”. Again, it's like digital.
Those two are the most dominant forms. Technology, specifically biotechnology, will transform lives, will transform companies, will transform countries, and will transform continents.
I would like to conclude by thanking the NRC for supporting our quest to develop diagnostics on demand in resource-limited areas. In my view, NRC-IRAP is the engine of technological innovation in Canada and should be supported as much as possible.
Thank you very much.