We have to look at the oil and gas and mining industries. They're a little bit different. The COSIA model is fairly centrally located. The processes are fairly homogeneous. In the mining business, the hard rock business, it's significantly different. Even tailings in a mine site is different per mine site. So it's a little difficult to focus on technologies in one space.
In terms of a model, as Jean alluded to earlier, when we took a hard look at CMIC about three years ago, we looked at COSIA as a potential model. We looked at COSIA and international organizations. We also looked at innovation organizations outside of the mining industry in micro-electronics and aerospace, and we adopted a combined model. So in some respects our model is similar to COSIA but it's different in the sense that we're more open. We're using open innovation. The intellectual property is not contained within nine or 13 companies. It's open to whoever was participating.
For example, our first project in exploration was the largest geoscience consortium in North America. There are 54 organizations sharing the intellectual property, from universities all the way through to Fortune 500 companies. So the model is a little bit different. We looked at it. We're rolling out something that we think is better for our industry.