Technology Portal

An independent technology portal is being developed by OSLI to review and evaluate unsolicited ideas for oil sands technologies from third-party vendors and technology proponents.

The portal will provide OSLI companies with an analysis and snapshot of non-confidential information about each idea and where it is in the development process. OSLI companies will have the opportunity to review this information together and determine if they, alone or in collaboration with other OSLI members, are interested in further developing the idea with the proponent/third party vendor.

Establishing a single portal for evaluating these ideas will reduce the time and work required by individual OSLI companies to review and evaluate unsolicited oil sands technologies. At the same time, the portal may provide a mentoring function to inventors/third party vendors with new ideas, and accelerate the rate of technology introduction and adoption by the oils sands industry. Future objectives may include actively soliciting industries and research centres outside of the energy resource sector for new and innovative ideas that can be applied to the oil sands.

To ensure its independence, the portal is being established as a stand-alone company, with its own executive director and board of governors. Evaluations of new technologies will be conducted with the assistance of subject matter experts from academia, industry, non-government organizations (NGOs) and other research organizations.

Confidentiality is key to the portal, which must protect OSLI companies from potential conflicts regarding proprietary information, and vendors must be assured that details key to their invention remain confidential.