source: Greenville Business Magazine
The University of South Carolina’s new president wants to create a way for South Carolina businesses to come to the university with their problems and for the university to provide solutions.
Michael Amiridis, Ph.D., wants to establish “a satellite system of innovation centers that will address specific problems, practical problems” for business. Amiridis, who became USC president on July 1, is borrowing the innovation center model from the University of Illinois Chicago, where he was chancellor until his appointment as USC president.
“We called it an innovation network – small satellite groups across the state – and we have the capacity to do this in South Carolina, with the Upstate, Beaufort, Aiken,” as well as in Columbia at the main campus.
The Illinois Innovation Network, run though the University of Illinois System, is a collaborative effort of public university, community, and industry-based hubs focused on driving innovation and economic and workforce development across Illinois. The University of Illinois Chicago hub focused on computing, drug discovery, and entrepreneurship.
Each USC center could have an area or areas of expertise endemic to that region.
“I expect for example that the emphasis of Beaufort will be on tourism. And there are many questions about tourism that you can ask that are interesting and that may inform policy,” Amiridis said.
Amiridis has been discussing the centers of innovation idea with business leaders throughout the state. In the Midlands, he’s presented to both the Columbia and Lexington chambers of commerce and the Midlands Business Leadership Group. “I had these discussions with a group of business leaders in Aiken as well, and the response has been very positive,” he said.