• Bridging the Gap between Cutting-Edge University Research/Innovation and Economy-Promoting Commercialization For the Benefit of our Communities

• Creating a Climate, Culture & Community to Enable Talent and Ideas to Grow in the Region

Project Olympus Handout
Project Olympus By-the-Numbers
Project Olympus Brochure
Project Olympus Presentation (April 6, 2009)
Project Olympus in the News
Friends of Olympus Fund

Olympus provides start-up advice, micro-grants, incubator space and connections for faculty and students across campus and with the regional, national and global communities. A key goal is to augment and accelerate the process of moving ground-breaking basic research and great ideas to development and business stages, with licensing, spin-offs, start-ups and corporate collaboration and partnering.

Olympus aims to build an infrastructure and foster a culture, climate, and community that will enable talent and ideas to grow in the region by:

• Injecting an entrepreneurial culture into the earliest stages of the value-creation chain of the university’s technology commercialization initiatives;
• Assisting students and faculty to explore the commercial potential of their research and ideas by providing essential resources, education, advice and connections; and
• Developing collaborations that exploit the expertise and resources of academia and the innovation development sector.

Project Olympus is a front door for facilitating university and industry partnerships, and a hub for connecting students and faculty from multiple disciplines with each other and with the broader innovation community.

At its core is a prestigious “proof-of-concept” Innovation Lab where students, graduates and Innovation Fellows team with faculty, Olympus Executive Board and Advisory Cabinet members, and a network of partners to explore commercial potential of the university’s world-class research through focused PROBEs (PROBlem-oriented Explorations). Guidance is provided at every stage by the Olympus Business Advisor, and Embedded Entrepreneur working together with teams of MBA students.

Olympus CONNECTS events provide an environment for entrepreneurially-minded students to meet, dream, and do. The popular Show and Tells provide a window into the many exciting developments on campus, further creating new and vital connections and collaborations with the broader community. Resulting collaborations help accelerate the process of transforming ground-breaking research and great ideas to viable commercialization; in turn, ideas and resources flow back to the university research enterprise to stimulate further innovation, thus creating a virtuous cycle.

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Olympus emanates from Carnegie Mellon "can-do"culture that promotes collaborative, interdisciplinary research and building on the considerable experience and success of the NSF seeded ALADDIN Center (for ALgorithm ADaptation, Dissemination and INtegration), Olympus promotes synergy between theory and practice.

Housed within the School of Computer Science, Olympus works closely with all departments and units across campus - including the university’s Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation and the Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship - and collaborates with the regional Tech-Based Economic Development agencies, business, industry and civic communities.

With seed funding from the Heinz Endowments Innovation Economy Program, and a mixture of funds from government, corporate, and university sources, Olympus began operation in January 2007 and has demonstrated considerable concept viability since, supporting numerous PROBEs, holding frequent standing-room only Show and Tells and events that connect diverse communities, and being featured in numerous news articles and TV business programs. Indeed, in a very short time Olympus has created a certain buzz, presence and excitement, and has captured the attention of the broader community.

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Core funds for Olympus have come from:

• The Heinz Endowments Innovation Economy Program (Primary core funds)
• The Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance (PITA), administered by the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems (ICES)
• The MSR-CMU Center for Computational Thinking
• Intel ® Higher Education Program
• Idea Foundry
• CSD/SCS/CMU infrastructure

Olympus PROBEs have received additional funds from:

• The Technology Collaborative
• Innovation Works' AlphaLab
• The Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation
• The Don Jones Center for Entrepreneurship
• The Quality of life Technology Center
• Individual grants and university support

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