Ohio University President Roderick McDavis and Ohio Board of Regents officials gathered at The Ridges on Tuesday to discuss their plans to enhance entrepreneurship and industry in Southeast Ohio.
McDavis and Board of Regents member Vinny Gupta gave presentations to Board of Regents Chancellor Jim Petro and entrepreneurial initiative company leaders of TechGROWTH Ohio and Edison Biotechnical Institute.
McDavis said that OU has been focused on facilitating the technological transition in Southeast Ohio for the past thirty years.
“We understand that in order to get product, you have to go through a sequence of steps,” McDavis said. “It’s a slow process, but it’s a sure process in the terms of the things that have been created in this region.”
McDavis and Gupta argued that Southeast Ohio has an advantage in the technological market because of the area’s resources, such as OU and the Ohio Third Frontier program, which supports developing Ohio technology companies.
Gupta stressed creating more internships and multi-term, full-paid educational positions for students to start in entrepreneurial positions in the workforce to create a greater amount of innovation throughout industries that need inspiration, he said.
“What we’re trying to do in Southeast Ohio is to deal with the reality of how that job market has changed and what are the kinds of businesses that need to be spawned to help us keep continue moving forward,” McDavis said.
McDavis and Gupta believe that OU and Southeast Ohio must turn to technological and entrepreneurial development to continue competing.
“You don’t improve the economy by creating McDonald’s jobs. You improve the economy by creating what we call technological high-paying jobs,” Gupta said.
To facilitate technological advancement, Gupta and McDavis are looking for ways to fund the collaboration of OU and local industries, which is expected to cost a lot of time and money.
“If we’re going to be entrepreneurs, we need to find creative ways to bring money from our universities, bring money from our retirement plans, bring money from our corporations, and bring money from outside of the state into our state so they can invest in Ohio technology,” Gupta said.
dk123111@ohiou.edu
