Infinera President and CEO Jagdeep Singh has received the 2008 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award for networking and communications in the Northern California program.  According to Ernst & Young, the award recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who are building and leading dynamic, growing businesses in Northern California .  Mr. Singh was selected by an independent panel of judges, and the award was presented at a gala event at San Francisco 's Fairmont Hotel on June 21, 2008.  In his acceptance speech, Mr. Singh told the audience of more than 450 guests that he was honored to receive the award and recalled Infinera's beginnings, "Our goal was to develop a disruptive technology, photonic integration, and use that to change the fundamental economics of optical communications for our customers.  When we started the company, the experts told us it couldn't be done. We didn't know if we could do it. But we knew that if we could do it, we could change this industry forever." Mr. Singh attributed Infinera's success to the quality of the employee team, which he described as "world-class", and which has grown to 800 worldwide. He thanked his fellow co-founders, Drew Perkins and David Welch, and added:  "Every one of our employees plays a key role every day in helping us achieve the success we have had so far."

The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year program is one of the most comprehensive, thorough, and respected programs of its type in the world, involving several months of study of hundreds of companies and entrepreneurs by a team of Ernst & Young professionals, independent consultants and independent judges. According to Ernst & Young, the program honors entrepreneurs who have demonstrated exceptionality in such areas as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities.  The team of judges includes previous winners of the award. This year, Patrick Lo, who won the award in 2006 for his achievements as CEO of leading networking solutions provider NETGEAR®, served as a judge.

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