By Rosa Saba
The Magnet Forensics team in Kanata North celebrated their achievements and their community with an open house Oct. 18. Employees from the software company’s Waterloo headquarters were there to celebrate alongside members of the Kanata North tech community and Ottawa’s Magnet team, providing demos of Magnet’s forensic investigation software.
Vice-president of engineering Jeff LeJeune told the crowd that the Ottawa team’s work developing the cloud acquisition component of their software has been essential for leading the company’s work into the future.
“One of our key visions is to transform policing, to modernize policing, and the work that the Ottawa team here does is right at the forefront of all of that,” he said. “We really see (cloud acquisition) as a great opportunity for the future … the ability to retrieve that data is becoming more important to all kinds of investigations.”
Read more: Magnet Forensics’ growing Kanata team helps law enforcement fight crime in the cloud
LeJeune added that Jad Saliba, the founder of Magnet Forensics and a former forensic investigator himself, is proud of the work the Ottawa team has done, and of their growth in the past two years from seven people to 20.
“We’re a huge believer in Ottawa and in the talent that’s here,” LeJeune said. “As we continue to grow and invest in Magnet, we’re going to continue to grow and invest here in Ottawa.”
Thusha Agampodi, the manager of the Ottawa team, thanked the Kanata North community as well as local post-secondary institutions, Invest Ottawa, and her own employees for making their venture a success.
Technical manager Andy Kwak said the whole team has been looking forward to the open house as an opportunity to show their neighbours what they do.
“There’s a lot of excitement in the air,” Kwak said, adding that as a manager, he has enjoyed helping the team grow.
“They become part of our family,” he said. “It’s been very rewarding for me.”