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w at er lo oc hr on ic le .c a W at er lo o C hr on ic le | T hu rs da y, Ju ly 12 ,2 01 8 | 12 EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! CONNECTED TO YOUR COMMUNITYWATERLOOCHRONICLE.CA local news local sports local happenings More than 19 years after Desire2Learn was started, the founder has been ho- noured for his achieve- ments on the national stage. John Allan Baker was honoured by Canada's Gov- ernor General, Julie Payette, for founding the Waterloo company that has grown into a world-leader in education software. Baker received the Mer- itorious Service Cross award, presented by Payette, on Friday, July 6 at the Citadelle of Québec in- Québec City, where the Governor General some- times stays in residence. "It's quite an honour. For me, it came as a sur- prise to get the phone call," said Baker prior to receiv- ing the award. "Then, obvi- ously, I'm very proud to not only represent the work that I've done, but also the work that many of the folks on my team have helped support over the years." Baker was one of 23 re- cipients to receive the ho- nours, which are awarded for excellence, courage, or exceptional dedication. The four different catego- ries include the Order of Merit of the Police Forces, the Sovereign's Medal for Volunteers and, of course, the Meritorious Service- Cross (Civil Division), which Baker received. The 41-year-old gradu- ate of the system designs engineering program at Waterloo founded D2L when he was a third-year student at the school, and has been "working on transforming how the world learns for 19 years now." "I was focused on one challenge, which is, 'What is the most important prob- lem that I can solve that would have the biggest im- pact in the world?' I couldn't think of anything bigger than transforming the way the world learns," said Baker. "Learning has this amazing ripple effect, if you will, not only does it impact the individuals through time, it can impact multiple different genera- tions." D2L is also used in health care, government, the enterprise sector, and has offices across the globe. Their products reach millions across the world. "For me, I still don't think there's a bigger prob- lem to solve. Learning is at the corner of many chal- lenges we faces humanity," said Baker, who was born in Newfoundland. "I'm very proud of the work we're doing to improve the education and corporate learning experiences all over the world for schools, universities and compa- nies globally. "The credit really goes to our team we've built over the years to build relation- ships we have globally, very proud of the folks that work at D2L." The father of two daugh- ters, a two-year-old and eight-month-old, travelled with his family to receive the designation and says the two-year-old was doing some prior reading on Payette. "She's quite impressed. I think she wants to be an as- tronaut/singer, and I guess Julie's both," Baker chuck- led. Desire2Learn founder honoured by Canada's Governor General D2L founder John Allan Baker and Canadian Governor General Julie Payette on Fri. July 6 in Quebec City. Sgt Johanie Maheu John Allan Baker founded D2L in 3rd year at Waterloo NAMISH MODI nmodi@waterloochronicle.ca CITY LIFE Visit waterloochronicle.ca for more coverage