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“Just the whole idea that you can control the behaviour of the machine by a couple of lines of code — that fascinated me,” says the University of Ottawa student.
Today, at the age of 25 and finishing his doctorate in software engineering, he is still fascinated. As for those possibilities he initially foresaw, he has turned many of them into reality, establishing a business six years ago to market software products.
The success of his firm, Runiter Company, has drawn praise from the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI). Nourian is a finalist for this year’s OCRI Student Entrepreneur of the Year award, one of 12 different awards that highlight the achievements of individuals and organizations.
Now in its eleventh year, the OCRI awards will be presented at a gala dinner on April 19, 2006, where some 500 leaders from business, education, and government are expected to attend. Nourian plans to be there, too, and whatever the outcome, he is already more than satisfied.
“When you work on something you like, and you don’t really expect anything, then any outcome is a really good outcome,” he says. Nourian adds that while Runiter’s sales are not large, they have been growing at an exponential rate, raising the prospect that he might be able to work on it full-time after he completes his degree.
For now, his company features three main products, each a software package aimed at a broad range of customers. Two of them are tutoring programs designed to help students hone their skills in calculus and statistics. The third, which he has been refining since high school, is a straightforward but very powerful tool for producing different kinds of graphs.
“It turned out to be quite useful,” he says, noting that he originally developed the program for a science fair competition. “So I started putting it on the Web.”
More recently, he has been exploring a completely different area with professor Nicolas Georganas, of the School of Information Technology and Engineering, whose research focuses on the cutting edge of multimedia software. This work is also giving Nourian ideas for new business opportunities, including the burgeoning computer games industry.
