They once avoided meeting—now, over a decade later, Avalon and Dean, a husband and wife duo are partners in life, growth, and innovation.

 

Avalon built her career in healthcare, becoming a Registered Pharmacy Technician after training at CTS College and completing the bridging program at Humber College. Dean focused on growing his company, Key Logic Software Solutions, specializing in designing, building, and improving technology.

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Their shared passion for technology and problem-solving naturally drew them toward innovation. They often attended NORCAT workshops—sometimes together, sometimes separately—absorbing everything from entrepreneurship to patents. Still, Avalon wasn’t sure how any of that could apply to her day-to-day work at Health Sciences North.

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Then came the lightbulb moment. Returning from maternity leave with fresh eyes, Avalon noticed a costly and time-consuming problem in the operating room: medications taken from the fridge couldn’t be returned once warmed, and documenting them required large handwritten labels—sometimes taking as long as 40 minutes. It felt outdated, inefficient, and prone to error. “There had to be a better way,” she thought.

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The conversations began—over coffee, dinner and late-night chats. Avalon asked Dean, “Is there a printer that can handle this?” After searching and finding nothing, she posed the question that changed everything: “Can you build it?”Dean knew he could. And together, they did.

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What started as an idea became SmartyPrints—a fast, accurate, resilient labelling solution built to improve medication safety and efficiency in hospitals. The first prototype was created for Health Sciences North, where it quickly became part of everyday workflow. Clear labels, no smudging, no guesswork. Staff loved it.

 

By 2022, SmartyPrints had grown far beyond a prototype. The technology is now certified for North America and positioned to transform how healthcare handles labelling and expiry control. And with future iterations on the horizon—touchscreens, scanning, QR integrations—the possibilities continue to grow.

 

This journey has truly been a meeting of minds. Even their children and niece have been part of the story, helping inspire and shape the SmartyPrints logo. Innovation, it turns out, is a family affair.

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Today, Avalon and Dean continue working together to deliver solutions that support a strained healthcare system and bring “pharmaceutical elegance” to the forefront. What began as a frustration in the OR evolved into a technology that saves time, reduces waste, and improves patient safety. And this is only the beginning.