Posted Dec. 29/03

By Marlene Orton

The image of molten metal pouring into a mould (or die) was the perfect logo for Luc Lalande’s entrepreneurial program.

Zhi Yuan (Wayne) Wang wayne_wang@carleton.ca

Lalande runs the Foundry Program at Carleton, and his job is to hunt down the most promising opportunities around campus to commercialize laboratory research. The University provides enough money to kick-start viable projects into the early entrepreneurial business stage. Last year, Carleton provided a one-time $100,000 pot to spread around the leading prospects. Five have spun off into high technology companies, with at least one ready to go to market by late summer.

“Often the first $10,000 to $15,000 catalyzes a core team of researchers to further develop a technology opportunity,” says Lalande, Director of the Technology and Research Development Office.

Many of the new companies have already acquired next-stage financing from sources beyond the University. Among them is Zeligsoft, whose president is Computer Science Professor Francis Bordeleau. He is adding another executive to his two-person staff as Zeligsoft prepares to launch a software radio application in August.

The Foundry was instrumental, says Bordeleau, in finding connections outside the University. “The fact that we got the money from the Foundry Program gave us some credibility as well because our technology application was reviewed by external people. It was worth much more than the initial $25,000 we got.”

TWLinks is one of the Foundry’s first success stories. The company got off the ground in 2001 with $25,000 to develop a technology originally for the optical telecommunications sector. With the downturn in the telecom industry, TWLinks founder Zhi Yuan (Wayne) Wang displayed his business acumen by adapting the technology for alternative markets.

Wang, a chemistry professor, was also appointed in 2001 as the Canada Research Chair in Emerging Organic Materials and Carleton’s first Canada Research Chair. His acclaimed work on organic materials – including inorganic chemical complexes or polymers – originally focused on smoothing out light waves, which are zapped through optical fibre. Now his company is using the light-absorbing properties of specific polymers for night vision imaging.

“Polymers can be cheaper to produce than semi-conductors or computer chips, which are used in more sophisticated night vision ware by the U.S. military,” says Wang. His target markets are paramilitary security companies and manufacturers of home security devices.

Soon Wang will be looking to license or preferably sell the technology, possibly to a large chemical company that could merge the photosensitive imaging materials with an existing product.