A new national non-profit aimed at developing university students into budding technology entrepreneurs is establishing a presence in Victoria and Vancouver.
The Alacrity Foundation is being set up by Wesley Clover International Corp., an Ottawa-based investment firm whose chairman Sir Terence Matthews is one of Canada’s richest people as a result of his entrepreneurial successes in the tech space.
The federal and the B.C. governments are providing Alacrity with a total of $2,472,600.
The University of Victoria and MITACS, which is a national program that connects students with industry, are contributing $440,000 to Alacrity. Through Alacrity, B.C.-based teams of post-secondary students and recent graduates will carry out technology development and commercialization projects.
Teams that develop technologies with strong market potential will be incorporated into companies with financing from Wesley Clover. Alacrity’s model is very similar to the model that has worked for Matthews throughout his career.
He frequently scouts for university students and graduates who are working on promising projects. He provides financial support to advance their projects to the point where Wesley Clover helps spin the projects into new firms.
Last time BIV caught up with Matthews, he was mum about Wesley Clover’s involvement with a team of four UVic students.
However Simon Gwatkin, Wesley Clover’s vice-president of strategic marketing, confirmed the firm continues working with the grads. He noted that the UVic team is working on a project for the mobile space but wouldn’t provide further details.
“This is months old,” he said. “So we’re obviously going to do some research, make sure everything’s viable and then we’ll spin a company out of it.”