MEDIA RELEASE
Thursday, December 16, 2021
LOCAL GUELPH BUSINESS WINS SMALL BUSINESS AWARD
Northern Village Named First Place Winner in Provincial Contest
(Guelph, ON) Guelph-based web and software business Northern Village Inc. has been announced as the First Place award winner in the province-wide Meridian Small Business Awards.
“We were blown away by the quality of over 1,000 entries for our Small Business Contest, and all nominees deserve a shout out,” said Jason Teal, Vice President, Business Banking, “Northern Village was the unanimous choice for its resilience, innovation, and community spirit. Congratulations!”
“We are thrilled and honoured by this recognition”, said Arni Mikelsons, Founder and CEO of Northern Village, “because those qualities are at the heart of who we are and what we do.”
Northern Village Inc. was started in 2002 as a website company by Mikelsons, who has been creating websites since the “beginning of the internet” with a focus on providing services to social benefit organizations including charities. Northern Village is a registered B Corp certifying that they are using business as a force for good.
In the spring of 2020, when COVID was on the rise, demand for websites suddenly declined. In response, Northern Village pivoted to focus on creating custom software for social impact organizations. “Resiliency is all about our ability to solve problems in a changing world,” according to Mikelsons. “And problem-solving drives our innovation,” he adds.
“The community spirit part of the award is what motivates us every day,” Mikelsons says of his team of five employees. “We love to work with organizations that are making a difference in the lives of the people they serve.” One local example of their work is custom software Northern Village developed for the Children’s Foundation of Guelph and Wellington to manage their Adopt-a-Family program which helps over 1,400 families at Christmas.
The Meridian Small Business Contest comes with a $15,000 prize. Mikelsons intends to use the award to complete their Access2ID software service to assist social service agencies to manage ID recovery programs for members of the homeless community based on software created for Street Health in Toronto.
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Contact Information:
Arni Mikelsons, Founder and CEO
Northern Village Inc.
Guelph, ON
Phone: 519-240-8896
Email: arni@northernvillage.com