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Carter Li of SWTCH awarded Lieutenant Governor's Visionaries Prize

By: Matthew Kerry
October 17, 2017

Carter Li (left) and the Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.  

Carter Li, the CEO and cofounder of Clean Energy Zone startup SWTCH (external link, opens in new window) , has been awarded the prestigious 2017 Lieutenant Governor's Visionaries Prize in Scientific and Technological Innovation for "fighting climate change with a community-based platform for electric-vehicle charging."

Supported by the Walrus Foundation, the prize was created (external link, opens in new window)  by the Lieutenant Governor in 2016 to help tackle some of the major challenges that Ontarians and Canadians will face over the next 50 years — climate change prominent among them.   

Carter received his award from the Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, at a special ceremony on October 3 at the Lieutenant Governor’s Suite inside the Legislative Building at Queen’s Park in Toronto. This followed a presentation by the six finalists at the Isabel Bader Theatre on October 2 where Carter pitched his solution to a live audience of policy makers, industry executives and thought leaders — including a panel of expert judges. You can check out the talk that won them over below and view photos from the award ceremony via Flickr (external link, opens in new window) .  

It's been an exciting few weeks for Carter. This prize follows hot on the heels of him picking up Zone Learning's 2017 Joseph and Antoinette Sobara Entrepreneurial Award (opens in new window) , which is awarded to a zone member that "demonstrates passion passion to build their business idea and a willingness to collaborate with other zone members."

"My vision for Ontario is to build a world-class, low-carbon transportation system where electric vehicles vastly outnumber gas counterparts."