I am even keener on the idea of an open source cluster after reading an article in National Capital Scan by Denzil Doyle in his column Loud and Clear entitled “Risk Money for High Tech”. The article is on the second page of the PDF found at this link:

http://www.nationalcapitalscan.ca/news/print_editions/files/060107SCAN.pdf

The gist of the article is that in order to grow the new Clean Tech cluster Angel investors are going to have to pony up plenty of cash, to the tune of $350M for the burgeoning Clean Tech Sector. Don’t get me wrong I think the clean tech cluster is a great idea and very timely, however, coming up with that sum of money based on local experiences in the past two year will take some significant assistance and government incentives to achieve. Therefore there will be some latency in getting the clean tech sector up and running because it is hardware based and will require plenty of cash for the new companies to develop prototypes.

There is also an interesting post “By the Numbers” on Guy Kawasaki’s blog about how he started up a new Web 2.0 company called Truemors on about $12k.

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/06/by_the_numbers_.html  – By the numbers link

Taking a step back and looking at the skill sets and resources available in our great city of Ottawa it seems that open source specifically and software in general may be the low hanging fruit when it comes to starting a cluster and effective economic development. Just think of how many open source start-ups you could create and grow with a minimal amount of cash. Also consider that Ottawa has an excellent source of software engineering programs at our local Universities and College and a new and dynamic Ottawa Software Cluster.

Perhaps the open source cluster could be associated with the Software cluster. In terms of fit, capabilities and value per dollar an open source cluster makes a whole lot of sense.

Cheers,

Ian.thecodefactory@gmail.com

Filed under: The Code Factory by Ian
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