Ten people from the local tech community – including members of The Ottawa Network – will receive a full ride to take the Technology and Innovation Management (TIM) program at Carleton University.

The all-expenses-paid scholarship for full-time students was announced Nov. 6 and will be formally unveiled on Nov. 12 at TheCodeFactory, a local hub for tech professionals.

"The whole purpose of The Ottawa Network is to provide a forum to stimulate new opportunities for the high-tech community to connect for management information, and this directly services our mission," says president Tim Hember. "I think it's a very generous and wonderful offer."

This master's-level course, which has been in place for about a decade, gives business training to professionals more versed in research and development, instilling management skills to ensure their continued professional growth.

What sets the program apart, according to Carleton, is that it looks at engineering management processes at the early stages of the tech life cycle.

"One of the complaints in the Ottawa community has been the lack of business expertise applied to technology, and so it provides additional support for the formation of technology management," Mr. Hember adds.

"(Students will learn) how to properly manage product development and innovation development, and how to commercialize that and take it to the marketplace. The more people capable of doing so, the better for the entire community."

Technologies studied include communications, automatic control, large system optimization, biomedical engineering, electronics and software. Industry representatives routinely help TIM students finish their theses, and often employ these students upon graduation.

Applicants must have an engineering or computer science degree at the undergraduate level with a minimum B+ average and must also be industry-employed for at least two years.