SUDBURY -- The Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario has announced new funding for Laurentian University.

Sudbury MP Paul Lefebvre and Nickel Belt MP Marc Serré announced that $150,000 will be made available to purchase new equipment for the Foundry, located in the Jim Fielding Innovation and Commercialization Space.

"This is putting Sudbury on an international map, giving them access to all the tools that they would need to be able to start up these concepts that they have," says Lefebvre.

"So being able to attract students who say ‘hey, I’m a creator, I like to invent stuff; I want to have an opportunity to expand my knowledge and my horizon’ and Laurentian will have it right now because of this federal investment."

The Foundry is a facility located in the Jim Fielding Innovation and Commercialization Space, with the goal of fostering the entrepreneurial spirit of those on campus.

"Our goal with this is really to introduce the skills and the mentality of innovation, creativity, tech skills and get them built up," said Daryl Dominique, innovation co-ordinator at Laurentian University.

"So if someone comes to me saying ‘hey I want to make this,’ my response is never ‘I’ll build it for you’ it’s ‘okay, sit down, let me show you the whole process of how to do it’ so that now you are enabled now to do it yourself and hopefully come back a few weeks later with a new idea, or something new and exciting."

Also on hand for Thursday’s announcement was Nickel Belt MP Marc Serre, who is excited by the investment.

"Every career, if you look at channeling the entrepreneurial spirit to get those other products going, product to market. When we look at this week, we’ve been doing announcements and research and looking at how best can we support students' link to employers and this is a good investment at Laurentian to show that."

FedNor's new funding will go towards purchasing equipment such as 3D printers, laser cutters and more. Dominique says their most unique offering is a PCB printer.

"So for say products that require circuitry, like most products nowadays, we can actually print two layer circuit boards on demand so instead of having to send those off for overseas manufacturing in batch," sais Dominique.

"We can do those experimentations and tests here so that we know it will work when we actually go for large scale manufacturing."

Open to all members of the Laurentian community, including alumni, Dominique says he's hopeful for the continued expansion of offerings available at the Foundry.

"As we continue to grow we want to put in more programs, more support for those students who have already been working with us, learning the skills and how do we coach them along during the next step of their entrepreneurial journey."