Two companies have signed form leases at Technology Park, a 25,000 square-foot building that will serve as a home for technology-based businesses to engage in applied research in development and further collaboration between industries and Cal Poly students and faculty.
Couto Solutions, Inc. is a custom software company founded by Cal Poly business graduate Justin Couto in 2004 after his other company, Somnio World Web Solutions, was bought out. His company’s approximately 3,500 square foot space at Technology Park, located off Mt. Bishop Road, will be the custom software company’s primary headquarters and house both its core software and development team. The company will occupy the space beginning in November.
Couto Solutions, Inc. helps businesses build social networks by creating add-on products for pre-existing platforms, such as Telligent Community. Telligent Community provides all of the basics for interaction between companies and their customers.
“In order to stay successful in business, it’s really important to listen to what your customers want and providing a community around your services gives you the opportunity to really interact with your customers regularly and document it and … have analytics on that so you can kind of see what the most important thing to your customer is and how you can best satisfy their needs which will keep you more successful,” Couto said.
Couto said he hopes the lease will help his company expand; its current office only has space for eight people but nine are employed.
“We hope to grow (at the Technology Park). We hope to establish a close relationship with students and faculty,” Couto said.
Couto said he chose to become a part of the Technology Park because it is hard to find software engineers in the area. Couto also sees potential for a lot of synergy between the company and Cal Poly.
“We think it could help us and help Cal Poly with the collaboration we’ll be able to do with our organizations,” Couto said.
The company wants to work with the computer science and business departments for the development of internship programs, he said.
Jim Dunning, project manager of the Central Coast Research Partnership (C3RP), said Couto will bring opportunities to software engineering students in order to develop next generation software platforms.
The C3RP provides opportunities for university-business collaboration, including managing the Technology Park. According to C3RP’s website, C3RP helps businesses solve business and technology problems, develop and commercialize new technologies, reduce the time to market and enhance global competitiveness.
“The main goal of the Technology Park is to facilitate collaboration between industry and faculty for research and development,” Dunning said.
Creating relationships between faculty and students on research projects will give Cal Poly students the opportunity to join research teams, take on internships and become part-time and full-time employees of companies that are located in the Technology Park, Dunning said.
“We think there’s a big advantage to being so close to campus – about less than half a mile away – so students can walk, ride their bikes, work a couple hours and come back and have classes when it’s tough to do that far off campus,” Dunning said.
The park is a potential “home base” for all students.
“There are a lot of opportunities for students to interface with the companies that are out there,” Dunning said. “The best benefit (for Cal Poly) will be exposing the faculty and students to real-world problems in industries.”
The first established tenant, Applied Technology Associates Inc. (ATA), a company that designs, builds and manufactures technology products for the oil industry, became a part of the Technology Park in order to foster a relationship with the university for joint projects between faculty, students and the company, said Tim Price, senior vice president of engineering at ATA.
ATA hopes to “infuse new technology and get the benefit of the enthusiasm and energy of the university,” Price said. “We need a feedstock of good people coming to the company who are innovative and high quality.”
Price said he hopes future, energetic Cal Poly graduates who will have worked with ATA will consider staying in the area and becoming full-time employees for the company.
ATA is also interested in hiring part-time students for its 3,000 sq. ft. space at the park.
Currently, 11,000 sq. feet is available for lease at Technology Park.