Just one year after launching,
Carnegie Mellon’s Project Olympus has opened a new project team space at 4620 Henry St. in Oakland. Designed to create and sustain western Pennsylvania's next generation of computing innovation, Project Olympus is spearheaded by Carnegie Mellon computer science professor,
Lenore Blum.
After wanting to provide her students with a creative space to collaborate, experiment and innovate, Blum decided to rent a 1,300-square-foot space off of Oakland's Craig St. corridor. “Craig is ideal because it’s close to the university, and in between CMU and
Pitt. I see it as the up-and-coming area. The students love going there,” says Blum. “It’s a wonderful start-up space. We commandeered furniture from every office on campus, and it looks brand new." The open layout features exposed brick and wood, barn doors, 18-foot ceilings, and a loft.
The space currently houses twenty students, and Blum expects to add two new teams soon. “The goal is to create a culture, climate and community that will enable our talent and ideas to grow in the region,” says Blum. “We produce the best technological resources on the planet, and then we export them. Pittsburgh tends to be risk adverse—we’re trying to show that there’s a lot of talent here and you can invest early on. We’ve made such great contacts with the community—people have been so enthusiastic.”
To celebrate its new digs, Project Olympus is hosting an open house on March 5 at 5:30 p.m. For information, contact
Cleah Schlueter.
Writer:
Jennifer BaronSource: Lenore Blum, Carnegie Mellon University/Project Olympus
Image courtesy Project Olympus