Yesterday, the Ultrasonix soccer team played their last game of the Corporate Champions Soccer tournament. Despite losing every game, moral was kept high by our supportive friends and families on the sidelines cheering us on. We did, however, have lots of fun and participation from staff, and that was the main goal for this corporate tournament; so in that aspect, we did achieve something!

Special thanks to Sergio, team leader, for organizing everything and coaching the team. He is now looking for a full-time corporate league so that the team can practice teamwork and come back next year to win the tournament.

Honourable mentions to Corporate Champions Vancouver and its sponsors for organizing the event, and also to Totally Soccer for printing and delivering our soccer jerseys on such short notice.

Ultrasonix donated a battery-operated fully featured Sonix Ultrasound System to the Angkor Children Hospital in Cambodia…

“On behalf of al the staff and kids here at Angkor Hospital for Children in Cambodia, I would like to say thank you so much for the donation of the Ultrasonix ultrasound machine. It just arrived at our hospital yesterday and the doctors could not be more excited.

“I am very surprised.  I know we will get a new machine but I did not think it would be this good. I like it.  The image is so clear, the machine is quiet, and it is very easy to move around. I never see such a modern machine as this.”

- Dr. Luy Lyda, Chief of Imaging Dept.
As the reputation of Angkor Hospital for Children for providing quality child heath care continues to rise, so do the numbers of poor Cambodian families bringing their children to the hospital for treatment. Your donation of this wonderful machine will help to ensure that our staff can continue to deliver the best child health care possible.Within 24 hours of the machine arriving at our hospital our doctors have already put it to use in our Emergency Room. The first use helped to diagnosis a Cambodian child with a liver abscess.   With more than 6000 children seen in our Emergency Room in 2009 alone we can be assured that the machine will be put to good use.

Thank you very much to everyone at Ultrasonix Medical Corporation for this incredibly generous gift. A special thank you to Lisa Chow, the Order Fulfillment Manager at Ultrasonix, who went above and beyond in helping to coordinate the shipping of the machine to Cambodia – that in itself is never an easy endeavor.

I do hope that if you, or any of the Ultrasonix employees find yourself traveling through Cambodia that you will stop by and visit us at Angkor Hospital for Children. It would be our pleasure to show you just how much your generosity is truly making a difference in the lives of the children here.

Sincerely,

David Shoemaker

Director Medical Angkor Center

Angkor Hospital for Children

Siem Reap, Cambodia

AHC’s Chief of Imaging, Medical Director and Cardiologist with Ultrasonix machine when it arrived

Dr. Lyda demonstrates how to use machine to other Cambodian doctors

Thank you to our Polish Partners Peter, Peter and Christopher from Trimed, who also happen to be the recipients of our 2010 EMEA Distributor of the Year award, for presenting the SonixTOUCH at the Salmed Medical Expo.

Our SonixTOUCH won the Gold Medal for Best Medical Product Design 2010!

Check out Trimed’s website at http://www.trimed.pl/ !

Tuesday saw our first EU Researcher’s Forum held in Munchen, Germany. Spawned from a smaller UK Researcher’s Forum last year, we thought we would expand the group to all of Europe; it proved to be very successful, with 30 persons attending. Company-wise, we premiered the new SonixDAQ parallel channel acquisition device, and also demonstrated the novel SonixGPS system for freehand needle guidance. Five great presentations were made from researcher’s using our systems, all covering different and unique topics.

We look forward to next year’s meeting, and perhaps expanding to host other continental meetings.

Today marks the first day of the 2010 Winter Olympic in Vancouver, which is also where our North American head office is located. The Olympic fever has hit the office strong and has been spreading faster than the contagious cold going around the office. This week our Director of Operations Accounting, Li Wei Xiao, brought in the Olympic torch her husband ran with. Below are some of the “Olympic game faces” the staff put on for pictures.

As we enter in our 10th year of operation, it is nice to reflect back and see how we’ve grown. A recent photograph shows the team that started in 2000/2001, some of us with more hair, some of us with less, but still the same great group.

From left to right, back to front: Tomas Bobovsky, Software Engineer; Barry “Joe” Irish, Principal Investor; Laurent Pelissier, Founder/CEO; Sergio Bernardo, Mechanical Engineer; Trevor Hansen, Software Engineer; Thang To, Manager – Repair & Logistics; James Chung, Manufacturing Team Lead; Kris Dickie, Software Engineer.

Our lovely and cheerful Lisa Chow from our North American office will be taking a month away from work here at Ultrasonix so that she can be a part of the 2010 winter olympics. Lisa, according to a recent email, is “ready to put [her] blood, sweat, tears, and passion into the games” starting February 3rd.

During the games, Lisa will be helping out with logistics and will also serve as an assistant and guide to corporate executives. Judging by the excellent work she accomplishes here in the office day in and day out, I’m sure she’ll serve as a great representative for the games. Lisa hopes by the end of this tenure that she will be known, in her own words, as “the HOSTESS with the MOSTEST.”

On behalf of everyone in the Richmond Office i’d like to thank (from left to right) Serpil, Kelly, Frances, Li Wei, Lisa, Jimmy, Roderick and Anna (the only one missing on the picture!…) for a great event in Grouse Mountain…. Ziplining was fun trying and I think everyone really enjoyed the evening as well…

Some pics are uploaded on flickr… Nice view up there…

We would like to congratulate Reza Zahiri-Azar on successfully defending his Ph.D this week. Reza is a graduate of the University of British Columbia and a part-time employee of Ultrasonix. He is also the inventor of the real-time elastography mode used on the Sonix systems.

We hope he won’t make us address him as Dr. in the office from now on

Congrats!

We are pleased to announce the winner of the 1st annual Ultrasonix Student Award. This award is given to the university student who makes the largest impact on the Ultrasonix research community through their:

- Contribution to open-source programs and code that help the research community
- Active support of other students with questions related to Sonix RP and SonixTOUCH Research usage

The award consists of $1000 for the student and a transducer for their lab.

This year’s award is split between two students who have both made equally excellent contributions to the research forum.

Congratulations to both winners!

- Thor Andreas Tangen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

- Michael Stauffer, University of Pennsylvania