I had a call from my web weekend buddy and podcaster extraordinaire Mark Blevis. Mark kindly offered some lessons and thoughts for which I am truly grateful. Mark has inspired this post.

On Friday Carleton University issued a release regarding the arrangement we have reached. This post is dedicated to my thoughts on our arrangement and what it means to our budding relationship.

I meet quite a few start-ups in Ottawa and my rule of thumb is that I meet a new start-up every business day. One observation that I have had is there are a lot of really great start-ups coming out of Carleton University. Here are just a few examples of some of the excellent people and start-ups I have had the opportunity to meet (all Carleton U alumni); Mike Milinkovich of The Eclipse Foundation, Kareem Sultan of RaceDV, Nikhil Adnani of thinkRF, Ben Houston of Exocortex, Nelson Ko of CitadelRock Online Communities, Steve O’Halloran of Asset Labs, Matt Roberts of JohnnyVoIP, Rob Villeneuve of DeletedTheory and the list goes on. These are excellent people with very cool ideas and companies. I am proud and honoured to be associated with any organization that has such an excellent track record of producing quality start-ups. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well at Carleton University.

Luc and Tony have been strong supporters of theCodeFactory exercise in “Lean Innovation” and I am grateful for the opportunity that they have provided. Luc and Tony are two guys who “get it”. They live innovation everyday and to them it is a way of life rather than a word you put in a funding proposal. The two of them have had a significant influence in the success of the Ottawa start-up scene and the companies mentioned of are just a small subset of the Carleton University Start-up Alumni. Thank you to Luc and Tony for providing this opportunity.

I am committed to producing tangible and measureable results that will add value to Carleton University students theCodeFactory experience. The first tangible evidence of this commitment will be our “Students and Start-ups” event to be announced soon. The premise of the event is simple enough students and recent grads want relevant and meaningful work experience and start-ups want capable, motivated team members. Building on that theme theCodeFactory will be hosting a fun, interactive and results oriented team building session to act as catalyst for the students and start-ups. Jason Kealy of LavaBlast introduced me to another very exciting Ottawa area start-up that will be providing some innovative technology to help facilitate the event, expect an announcement soon. 

I look forward to building on the Carleton University and theCodeFactory arrangement to produce value for students, start-ups and community.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Camp Culture, Commercialization, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Open Source, The Code Factory by Ian
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