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.

Successful 2nd High-Tech Round Table in the South Okanagan

On Thursday March 18th we had over 30 visitors at ORIC Penticton Innovation Centre for our second High-Tech Round Table. A very divers attendancy: start-up CEO's, consultants, media, education (Okanagan College and UBC-O), service providers and support organisations (Community Futures, NRC-IRAP, BDC). There was an energetic discussion on the needs for the South Okanagan and how ORIC could support creating a stronger high-tech community.

We celebrated our first sponsor: SOS LINK. The Penticton high-tech start-up delivers security solutions for people, placs and things ~ on the move. CEO Raymond Sobol and I named the SOS-LINK Innovation Plaza. This is a drop in place for entrepreneurs, angel investors and supporters. We will also have events and presentations at the Plaza.

We are still actively looking for start-ups and anchor tenants to become clients of ORIC Penticton Innovation Centre. Drop me an email if you like to know more.

We received furniture for ORIC Penticton

This week we received furniture for all the offices in our downtown incubator in Penticton. We have one, two and three person offices.

We are still looking for a bigger board room table, but this will do for the moment. Watch the big hole in the middle of the table. 

We also got our reception desk

Please contact us if you want to know more about technology business incubation and find out if you qualify for the (pre-) incubation program.

Local company brings carbon reduction innovator to town

The latest event in the ORIC "Innovation Plaza" series last Wednesday, Feb 24 played host to one of the world’s foremost scientific minds, Kent Knaebel, PhD.

Dr. Knaebel visited the Okanagan as a guest of local companies, WearAir Oxygen Inc. and WearAir Industrial Inc. (http://www.wearair.com/ ), and kindly agreed to share his insights and perspectives with members of the ORIC community on the topic: “Carbon Capture Techniques via Adsorption”.

WearAir generously sponsored this "Innovation Plaza" event in order to provide the opportunity for our local community to share in the very latest thinking on this key global issue.
Photo courtesy Kelowna Capital News

ORIC Kelowna receives $150,000 from SIDIT

Peter Haubrich, President, Mayor Sharon Sheperd and 

Martin Yuill Director

Photo from Kelowna Capital News

ORIC Kelowna Innovation Centre received a cheque for $150,000 to expand the downtown Kelowna facility to 15,000 sq.ft. This extra space was needed because of the explosive growth of our tenants Vericorder Technology and Vineyard Networks. This freed up some offices so we can accept new startups to join our incubator/accelerator.

The grant came from the Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust or SIDIT an organization seeded $50 million from the Provincial Government to support economic development in the Southern Interior of BC.

Please read the news article in the Kelowna Capital News

Small steps, a door sign and furniture for Penticton

We are making small progress with our Penticton Innovation Centre.

A sign was put on the door, so visitors will be able to find us. Hopefully by the end of next week we will see some furniture being delivered. We are also in discussion about sponsorship and anchor tenants. An announcement will be made soon.