Pythian Donates $30,000 to Telfer School of Management

OTTAWA, CANADA--(Marketwire - Sept. 15, 2011) - Ottawa-based The Pythian Group Inc. has donated $30,000 to the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa. The scholarship will support four Honours Bachelor of Commerce students specializing in Management Information Services (MIS) each year by providing them with a $2,500 scholarship and a paid internship with the fast-growing company.

Since opening its doors in 1997, the Pythian Group has grown from an ambitious local startup into one of the world's most respected database services companies. Founder Paul Vallée and other team members are alumni of the MIS program.

"With a foundational education in commerce, math, computer science, marketing, statistics and economics, and a focus on how enterprises use and manage information technology to achieve their strategic objectives, I owe much of my career success to the excellent education I received in the MIS program at the University of Ottawa", says Paul Vallée, founder and executive chairman of Pythian. "I am proud to volunteer Pythian's financial support in an overall goal of boosting admission and retention of students in this demanding and rewarding program."

"The Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa wishes to thank Pythian and its founder Paul Vallée, a Telfer School alumnus, for their $30,000 donation to create scholarships for our Management Information Systems (MIS) students" said François Julien, Dean.

Pythian is holding an open house at its Ottawa headquarters at 4:30pm today to celebrate the company's success and the many local partners and supporters who have contributed to it. A who's-who of over 100 Ottawa business, technology and community representatives will get a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of life in the nerve centre of a global technology powerhouse. The event will include:

• Special appearances by local leaders and University of Ottawa Telfer School of Management faculty
• Official announcement and cheque presentation of the new $30,000 Pythian scholarship for the Telfer School of Management MIS
• Meet-and-greets with Pythian executives and world-leading database experts—leaders in their fields
• Food, drink and fun giveaways

Named in 2011 to the Profit 200, Pythian serves a diverse client set including internationals Western Union, Forbes.com, Fox Sports and local organizations such as Giant Tiger, Nordion, OC Transpo and the National Capital Commission. Founder Paul Vallee—who started the company from the basement of his Ottawa home—made the 2011 Ottawa Business Journal '40 Under Forty' list and recently appeared on CTV Business News Network's Squeezeplay as a cloud expert. CEO Andrew Waitman is one of Canada's top venture capitalists as well as a sought-after thought leader, public speaker and guest lecturer.

About Pythian

Pythian is a global database and application infrastructure services company for Oracle, MySQL and SQL Server. Since 1997, companies have entrusted Pythian to keep their database infrastructures running efficiently and to help them strategically align their IT and business goals. Pythian's unparalleled DBA skills, mature methodologies, best practices and tools enable clients to do more with fewer resources. Pythian's corporate headquarters is in Ottawa Canada, with offices worldwide. To find out more visit www.pythian.com