November 09, 2007
How OK became OK
About three years ago, in Australia, NICTA decided it was time to commercialize the results of their R and D. In conjunction with a group of Australian venture capital investors, NICTA created an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) program and began searching for an individual with the right experience and previous successes who could help them identify which projects were ready for commercialization.
After putting about sixty applicants through the rigors of what is now jokingly compared to the American Idol contest, Steve Subar was selected as NICTA’s first EIR. At the time, Open Kernel Labs was not even a glimmer in now president and CEO Steve Subar’s eyes.
Initially, Steve was charged with sifting through 100 sanctioned and another 100 skunk-work projects to determine which were ready for commercialization. He had only 90 days to complete this task and report back to the board with meaningful and intelligent information.
With his extensive background in technology, Steve was quickly able to narrow his focus to twelve promising projects. Along the way, he met Dr. Gernot Heiser, NICTA’s program director for the embedded real-time operating systems (ERTOS) program. Steve was immediately attracted to this project by the pedigree of people involved (forty-five researchers and seventeen PhD’s), their worldwide-unmatched reputation, and the incredible technology they had been working on for fourteen years. Further, it was an obvious choice because the technology provided an answer to a marketplace that was crying out for a solution.
Although Steve was not responsible for starting a company, he was attracted to the project by the huge market opportunity, unique group of extraordinarily talented individuals, and the rich treasure trove of IP. Steve recommended that research agenda be refocused by spinning out a company that could concentrate properly on the aspects that would be required to commercialize products and support customers.
With most of the startup risk baked out by the investment in R and D, Steve started Open Kernel Labs with real products, real customers, and real revenues.
Posted by Team OK on November 09 at 09:49 PM
About Team OK:
Team OK, a group of extremely talented, edgy, and spirited people, came together in August of 2006. Many of us started with NICTA even before calling OK Labs our home. With offices in Sydney and Chicago, we have established our own culture, and we look forward to sharing this with you.