Carmanah Technologies Corp. profile in the April 2004 TSX Venture Exchange newsletter TSXTRA, Volumn Two, Issue Two:
From page 3.
David Green had what seemed to be a simple problem.
He wanted to power the anchor lights on his sailboat without draining its battery. That’s how he began experimenting with a solar-powered light-emitting diode (LED).
Green discovered that LEDs last 20 times longer than the best incandescent bulb and that they only use one tenth the energy.
Carmanah Technologies was incorporated in 1998 and has been selling LEDs since then. Solar-powered LEDs made by Carmanah can be found in airports, ships, bus shelters, highways, U.S. Coast Guard vessels and lighthouses in 110 countries.
Green had built several other successful companies earlier but Carmanah was the first that he took public. “I’d spent years building private companies using debt,” he says. “But you can end up on the hook personally for a lot of money. That’s okay if the company stops expanding, but Carmanah never seems to stop.”
One of the benefits of going public, he says, is that “you don’t have to go around with your hat in your hand and feel like you’re begging when you’re talking to shell companies.” The Victoria-based company, which now trades on TSX Venture Exchange, as well as the Berlin and Frankfurt stock exchanges, is working towards the day when LED technology can be used in whitelight applications in offices and on streets.