Gaylen Duncan Scholarships

Established 1992, each year the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) Ottawa Section provides student scholarships to outstanding students in a full-time Computer Science/Software Engineering Program. The candidates must be enrolled in programs that are accredited by CIPS National. Those programs are found at both the University of Ottawa and at Carleton University. Each student receives a scholarship in the amount of $1500 from CIPS Ottawa.

In 2008, CIPS Ottawa renamed the section's scholarship to the Gaylen Duncan Scholarship in memory of Dr. Gaylen Arthur Duncan, a former CIPS President (1987-1988); visionary; and mentor and friend to many people in CIPS.

Gaylen Duncan Prior to moving to Toronto, he spent many years in Ottawa and was was very active in the CIPS Ottawa Section serving in many positions including CIPS Ottawa President. For several years, he was the editor of CIPS Review, the association's national magazine. Gaylen also served as a CIPS representative to the South East Asia Regional Computer Confederation (SEARCC) and as a member of the CIPS Advocacy Committee.

Gaylen was CEO and President of ITAC from 1995 to 2003 and he was instrumental in bringing CIPS and ITAC together on a number of initiatives including the relocation of the CIPS national office to ITAC's head office.

Gaylen was a skilled lobbyist with ready access to the top-most levels in government and corporate decision makers. He had over 30 years of experience in both the public and private sector. He sat on numerous boards and committees including: The Broadband Task Force, Advisory Committee to the Minister of National Revenue on Electronic Commerce, Roundtable on E-business Opportunities, the Advisory Board for the NRC Institute for Information Technology, and was Co-Chairman of the Conference Board Advisory Council on Canadian Connectedness. He consulted on IT policy development working with both government and industry in many developing countries including Vietnam and Sri Lanka.

His career was dedicated to education and information technology development in various forms and levels across Canada and internationally. The Gaylen Duncan Scholarships are in appreciation of his commitment and long standing service to CIPS and the broader IT community.

2008-2009 Scholarship Recipients

From left to right: Kris Degiacomo, CIPS Ottawa President, Nikita Shkrob, University of Ottawa, Inaana Abboud, CIPS Ottawa Student Chair, Tim Lethbridge, University of Ottawa Faculty Representative, Alexander Khavich, Carleton University and Professor Dwight Deugo, Carleton University Faculty Representative.

Nikita Shkrob, University of Ottawa

Nikita Shkrob is a fourth year student at the University of Ottawa, taking the Honours in Computer Science program (Information and Management Systems option). He has been volunteering as a beach volleyball games organizer for the past three years. As a co-op student, he has been working at Google for two of the four of his work terms. This allowed him to experience the efficiency and expertize of the engineers in this company, and encouraged him to become a more efficient programmer himself. He is interested in a wide range of areas of information technology, from embedded programming to distributed computing to computer graphics.

Alexander Khavich, Carleton University

Alexander Khavich is a second year Computer Science student in the Game Development stream. He has been interested in computers, gaming and technology since a very young age, and enjoys programming and taking apart devices. He's also interested in graphic design, and before going into computer science, worked at a print shop for a couple years. This summer he hopes to get a co-op position in the computer science field.