Very successful Open House and 50st Anniversary at DRAO

With blue skies and temperatures up to 23 C, the Open House at DRAO was a big success.

The 50th anniversary was celebrated with speeches John McDougal (President NRC) , Ron Cannan (MP Kelowna - Lake Country) representing the Federal Government and Hon. Stockwell Day, John Slater (MLA Similkameen - Boundary) representing the Provincial Government, Tom Chapman (RDOS) and Dr. Om Malik (President IEEE Canada). On the left John Galt, the former Director of DRAO.


At the ceremony, the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) bronze plaque was revealed.

ORIC had a booth and showed the time line since 2005.

Join the Open House birthday celebration at DRAO on September 25th

Join the Open House birthday celebration of 50 years of radio astronomy at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (NRC-DRAO) located south of Penticton on Saturday, September 25th from 10:00 - 17:00.


Free admission. 


Visit the ORIC booth on the second floor. 


For more info click here

Interesting advice for founders from Adeo Ressi

Watch Adeo Ressi of the Founders Institute



Adeo Ressi on Company Vision: 6/8/2010 from Adeo Ressi on Vimeo.

We are recruiting an Acceleration Program Manager

The Acceleration Program Manager will act as the point of entry and coordinator for all of ORIC’s business and entrepreneur acceleration programs. The current programs include business incubation, mentorship and entrepreneurial training; and are planned to expand once the planned merger with OSTEC is completed. This position is part of the joint initiative between ORIC and OSTEC.

The Acceleration Program Manager will undertake the initial needs assessment with each company and entrepreneur, matching them with the available resources and acting as their “champion” as they continue their growth and development.

The Acceleration Program Manager will also create and implement process and procedures to manage the program activities and work closely with the marketing team to help design and promote future programs to help grow and develop technology companies in the Okanagan.

More about this job can be found at ORIC

ORIC celebrates its 5th anniversary

ORIC (at that time Okanagan Valley Research & Innovation Centre) was born on August 15, 2005.

Jack, Kathleen, Tom, Bob, Peter and Diana.
Andrew is missing in this picture.

The founding Board members were: Dr. Tom Landecker (NRC-DRAO), Kathleen Wallace (SkyTrac), Bob Bissell (Industry Canada), Andrew Hay (Okanagan College), Jack Van Der Star (WaveTeq) and Diana Groffen (OSTEC).

We celebrated with the current Board and staff members, spouses and a cake with 5 candles.

ORIC's current staff: Peter, Anna, Martin, Kathryn and Wilfred.

The birth of an incubator

The Okanagan College Centre of Excellence building in Penticton is progressing rapidly.

On the picture the 3,000 square feet ORIC Cleantech incubator (on the 2nd floor) is taking shape. Hopefully we can move in around April 2011.

Here is the link to a webcam (on the other site of the campus) that shows the progress.

ORIC received a $200,000 grant to support technology SME's

On Friday June 25th, 2010 Hon. Ron Cannan announced a $200,000 grant from NRC-IRAP for ORIC to support technology SME in the Okanagan Valley. 

Dr. Tony Rahilly (right in the picture), Director General of NRC-IRAP from Ottawa joined the annoucement. The grant will enable us to support the mentorship program, help start-ups with access to capital, improve training support for entrepreneurs and install benchmarking software.