The Ohio State University has received its biggest single gift: $110 million from Ratmir Timashev and his family to establish the Center for Software Innovation.
The Timashev Family Foundation donation will create endowed professorships, cutting-edge academic offerings and hands-on industry experience for students. The Center for Software Innovation will catalyze efforts across the region to create a hub for innovation, entrepreneurship and product development activity.
This will "further put Columbus on the entrepreneurial map, and that's exciting," said Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson.
The idea was simple, Timashev said during the Thursday Board of Trustees meeting at which the gift was announced: "Make Ohio State, Columbus and the Midwest the new high-tech mecca."
Timashev earned his master's degree in chemical physics from Ohio State in 1996 and is a software and computer business entrepreneur.
The board also approved the naming of the new interdisciplinary research facility located in the university's Carmenton innovation district as the Pelotonia Research Center. The naming recognizes Pelotonia's partnership and philanthropic support for cancer research: Since 2008, the Pelotonia ride community has raised more than $258 million, with every dollar earmarked for The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.
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