Project Olympus is at the starting gate, Carnegie Mellon University’s new incubator lab, an initiative aimed at keeping the best and brightest young entrepreneurs in Pittsburgh by creating career opportunities and helping to pave the way for local start-ups.
The initiative will kick-off a two-hour inaugural event on Thursday, June 7th, 3:30 p.m., at the Intel Lab of CMU’s Collaborative Innovation Center. A “show and tell” will highlight the initiative and present several PROBEs in progress: reCAPTCHA, Medical Applications of Image Segmentation Algorithms, and Eivod.
“We produce the best tech students on the planet and we are developing the best cutting-edge technology in the world that is going to drive science and technology for the next 20 years,” explains an exuberant Lenore Blum, CMU professor of computer science, the driving force behind the initiative. “In order to benefit, we need to create an environment where it will be very favorable for graduates to stay.”
Blum hopes to convene researchers, companies and investors who will play a key role in helping to create a community network and safety net to encourage growth and opportunity in the region. “I need the support of an innovative investment community so people will have the money to stay here. In Silicon Valley, if a project doesn’t work, they can go across the street. It’s viewed as a learning experience, not a failure. We need the help of the Pittsburgh community to do this.”
RSVP to hoda@cs.cmu.edu to attend. To read about the funding of Project Olympus by the Heinz Foundation, click here.
Writer: Debra Diamond Smit
Source: Lenore Blum, CMU
Image courtesy of Project Olympus