City of Alexandria, Virginia
Office of the City Manager
Alexandria City Hall
301 King Street, Suite 3500
Alexandria, Virginia 22314-3211
www.alexandriava.gov
Telephone: 703.838.4300
Fax : 703.838.6343



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: MARCH 19, 2001

CONTACT:
Eric Dobson, Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, Inc.
(703) 739-3820;
Barbara Lord, Alexandria Chamber of Commerce
(703) 549-1000; extension 210
Kendel Taylor, City of Alexandria
(703) 838-4780


ALEXANDRIA ANNOUNCES 2001 TECHNOLOGY ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

On Friday, March 16, Alexandria Mayor Kerry J. Donley presented the 2001 Alexandria Technology Achievement Award to Digital Paper Corporation for its use of technology to allow for global access to information. The Mayor also recognized the accomplishments of the other finalists, Aaron B. Floyd Enterprises, Inc., Carney Interactive, Inc., and Segue Technologies, Inc., and gave a special recognition award to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Over 200 people attended this annual awards luncheon which included reports on the status of the four previous award winners.

The guest speaker was Reggie Aggarwal, President of Cvent.com, the premier provider of web-based event planning and eMarketing tools for professional organizations. Washington Business Forward magazine recently named Mr. Aggarwal, who grew up in Alexandria, to the list of the region’s 40 most influential business leaders.

Digital Paper's docQuestTM family of solutions simplifies the way companies do business by allowing complex technical documents (e.g., engineering drawings) to be sent quickly and securely over the Internet rather than printed and shipped. The patent-pending DirectSightTM technology reduces the size of document images to small 50kb packets enabling efficient transmission and viewing over internal networks and the Internet. With Digital Paper's solutions, companies see a significant cost-savings and a streamlining of the procurement process.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) was recognized for its effort in utilizing technology to safeguard children. NCMEC created a partnership with Computer Associates and Sun Microsystems to develop a state-of-the-art, multilingual web site to find missing children and to prevent child victimization. Missingkids.com includes a CyberTipline created to report suspicious Internet activity involving child sexual exploitation. Currently twelve foreign law enforcement agencies are participating in this project with another five planning to join in 2001. The website averages 2.9 million hits daily.

Alexandria Technology Achievement Week and the Alexandria Technology Achievement Award are sponsored cooperatively by the City of Alexandria, the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce, and the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, Inc. The award originated in 1997 with the Ad Hoc Task Force on Information and Communication Technologies, which has been succeeded by the Commission on Information Technology. The Commission is comprised of two members of City Council, Redella S. Pepper and Joyce Woodson; representatives from the Alexandria City School Board, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Library Board; City telecommunications providers; and citizen representatives. Alexandria is part of Northern Virginia's fast growing technology industry. Currently, more than 400 technology firms employ nearly 12,000 workers in Alexandria.
-30-