About the Foundry Program

A Community Making Innovation Happen

The Foundry Program represented an innovative yet complementary model to traditional university technology transfer based on a philosophy focused on building and nurturing an innovation and entrepreneurship culture on campus and community engagement.  The Foundry approach extended beyond the practice of university technology transfer offices in primarily selecting "investment-grade" patentable intellectual property. Past and current university research commercialization priorities are inordinately skewed towards assessing such opportunities with the objective of picking potential "winners". In the end, university technology transfer offices often limit their support to a small number of scientific discoveries and technologies that might represent the biggest potential revenue payoff to the university. Instead, the approach adopted in the Foundry was more aligned with both the academic goals of the university (education/teaching, research and innovation, and community service) and technology-driven regional economic development.

The Foundry Program approach is compared to university technology transfer models in this slide presentation.

The Foundry Program has received numerous endorsements from the Ottawa technology industry, government leaders and students.

Foundry Program Components

Grant-based innovation awards:   Grant-based awards ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 to accelerate innovation (i.e., proof-of-concept, prototyping, etc) resulting from academic research. Though the level of funding appears inconsequential the reality is that such funding can be particularly useful for concept-level projects of relatively short duration (under 12 months). In other words, funding serves not only as a catalyst but fuels critical momentum at the earliest stage of innovation development.

Student Internships:   The Foundry Program is committed to talent development by training students in the field of innovation, technology-based entrepreneurship and research commercialization. Foundry Program Student Interns are drawn from science, engineering, business, journalism and mass communications programs, work as teams on selected projects and provide very useful services (e.g., market and competitive analysis, patent search and technology due diligence, etc), to Foundry Program applicants. 

Community Engagement:   Ottawa is blessed with a deep and experienced pool of talent familiar with the challenges of commercializing new technology. The Foundry Program believes that this is a resource which should be leveraged in a productive and intelligent way. Some 60 external volunteers are now involved with the Foundry Program. These volunteers not only review and comment on proposals submitted to the Foundry Program, they also offer unparalleled access to networks of other professionals and advisors. In addition to individual volunteers, the Foundry Program relies extensively on external programs and community infrastructure (i.e., incubators, angel networks, and pre-commercialization support programs by the federal and provincial governments) to move projects in the right direction.

Project Criteria and Gate Review Process

The Foundry Program responds to projects with:

1. potential for new entrepreneurial ventures
2. technology that may fit external company needs and can be transferred to a local small or medium-size business
3. potential for stimulating new research partnerships with private or public sector
4. innovations that benefit the non-for-profit sector and their constituents

Carleton University faculty and students with innovative ideas are "invited" to apply for Foundry Program support. Proposals are reviewed against the Foundry IPO Criteria and refined throughout subsequent "gates" before evaluated for funding support: Foundry Gating Process

Companies and Innovations Associated with Foundry Program

Akeru Industrial Design; Ankora Technologies; Artenga Inc; Bioneer-GloRiel; Blindside Networks; Carleton University Simulator Project (CUSP) - patent application; Citadel Rock Online Communities Inc; ContestMob Inc.; Country Indicators for Foreign Policy, Professor David Carment; Ellistar Sensor Systems; Inforall Inc; Invotrax; Magic Sound Steps; Membrane Lattice Construction System; Mobilab Technologies; Multimedia Enhanced Physical Therapy System - Anthony Whitehead; Okulus Networks Inc; Quanty - Jim Davies; Roca Engineering; SMART - A open source Semantic Web query tool (PDF); Select Start Studios; Social Analysis System2; Sombra Labs; Sourithm; TWLinks Inc; U-P2P; VSM Technologies; and Zeligsoft

Foundry Social Media Platform

Foundry Social Media is a platform of Web 2.0 tools available to the Foundry Community. Those interested in the various projects of the Foundry Program can now participate directly in contributing and collaborating with others to help make innovation happen.

Foundry Program Supported Initiatives

• TEDxCarletonU (2010), an independently organized event held in March 2010 under license from TED.
• Foundry Global, a distributed, globally-connected community of innovation linking universities in emerging economies and Least Developed Countries.
• Foundry EIRs, adds experienced executives and entrepreneurs to advise and mentor innovators associated with the Foundry Program
• OCRI Talent Bridge
• Ottawa Community Challenge social innovation competition 2008-09
  
• Ottawa Innovation Challenge  2008-09
• Carleton Digital Map of Tech Companies, an update of a 2002 poster that listed technology companies founded or co-founded by Carleton University alumni, faculty and staff.
• Talent First Network Student Internships (supported numerous student placements in small tech companies and faculty-led research projects involving open source software)
• Students and Start-ups (events designed to promote networking between students and local start-ups);

The Foundry Program was also a key partner in other innovation initiatives at Carleton University such as:

• the Technology Venture Challenge, a competition that promotes technological entrepreneurship to students in Ottawa post-secondary institutions;
• the Social Innovation Challenge, a competition that encourages Carleton University students to act on ideas to solve pressing community social issues; and
• the Environmental Innovation Challenge, a new competition for students to propose innovative ideas to help resolve environmental problems.

Foundry Program Student Interns

Since 2002, over 60 Carleton University students have been awarded internships in the Foundry Program. Student Interns have gone on to rewarding careers following graduation from Carleton University and we are thankful to them for having provided so much value to the Foundry Program.

Foundry Program Educational Resources

The Foundry Program Educational Resources (under development) offers access to an extensive library of learning and Open Educational Resources to all members of its community (e.g., student interns, applicants, volunteers, mentors and advisors).

People

Luc Lalande 

Manu Sharma