As an Ohio State University data science student, Cole Smith received a scholarship named for alum and benefactor Ratmir Timashev.
This week, the 2019 graduate returned for the first Startup Midwest conference by the OSU Center for Software Innovation, which was created with serial entrepreneur Timashev's record $110 million donation.
"Like him, I had a professor who took a chance on me," Smith said. "I have a chance to use that success to build something new."
OSU Associate Professor Arnab Nandi hired Smith as an engineer for his vehicle analytics startup Mobikit, which was acquired in 2021. Now Smith and his brother, Craig Smith – who traveled from Silicon Valley for the conference – are working on a consumer-focused startup the Chicago natives hope to establish in Columbus.
"Great story!" Timashev said in an interview. It's a cycle he wants repeated in Central Ohio, sped up by the center.
The software innovation center's goal is no less than "to make Columbus the epicenter for the global digital economy," Timashev said in a keynote address at this week's conference.
"Maybe we're a little bit crazy thinking Columbus can become a globally prominent high-tech hub," he said. "First, it's already happening. ... But remember, only the crazy people – who think they can change the world – do."
Timashev co-founded an e-commerce company and its more successful software follow-up while an OSU graduate student in the '90s. After Aelita Software was acquired in 2004 for $115 million, he and partner Andrei Baronov started Columbus-based Veeam Software, acquired for $5 billion three years ago.
"Ohio State invested in me, committed to my growth and development, and I will always be grateful to Ohio State and (Emeritus) Prof. (Terry) Miller, my mentor," he said in the speech. Miller recruited Timashev to OSU from a Moscow university.
After his keynote, Timashev spent almost 45 minutes working through a line of attendees wanting face-time. He heard several elevator pitches, and pointed them to Tim Grace, the new managing director for Techstars Columbus.
Since 2016 Timashev's family foundation has donated to the engineering and music schools. The 2022 gift established the center, including a major that combines business and engineering, faculty recruitment, a flagship building in the Carmenton innovation district, and a Techstars Columbus startup accelerator that is accepting applications now.
The center needs to impact more than the three dozen or so students who enter the major in a given year, Timashev said in an interview. The goal is to open the eyes of all 10,000 classmates to the promises of a technology career, even in business roles like HR.
That's the only way for Columbus to catch up to tech strongholds like Silicon Valley and Boston, he said.
"Columbus should not fall behind," Timashev told me. "Columbus should be ahead of those places, and can be because of this software revolution."
Creating the software innovation center at the university is a "huge step forward" for Central Ohio's tech community, said Andy Jenks, partner at Drive Capital who moved to Columbus in 2015 from Silicon Valley.
"It's something we've needed," he said. "It's a mentality shift: Startups are not small businesses. ... Their aspirations are global domination. They require different skillsets and different ways of thinking."
Snowballing success and paying it forward
Unlike when Timashev earned his master's in chemical physics in 1996, Central Ohio today has venture capital and high-paying tech jobs – but needs more. Columbus still doesn't crack top 20 lists for high-tech jobs, and isn't top of mind for global companies looking to expand or relocate.
"We're not creating community; community exists," Timashev said. "We're not creating this movement; the movement exists. Columbus is passionate. We just want to accelerate and support that movement."
In the 1970s, Silicon Valley was filled with orchards. The first giants to emerge, like Hewlett Packard, IBM and Intel, snowballed into more success as employees left to start their own ventures. Columbus has had early successes, but not yet Google-size.
"It's just a matter of time when it will happen – it's just a numbers game," Timashev said. "The more students we have educated in software, the more founders we will have.
"They help the next generation, ... they will pay it back."
But entrepreneurship is only one of the center's four "pillars," he said. Curriculum is the primary mission – so a larger percentage of all OSU graduates pursue software or software-adjacent jobs, even if going to a product company like P&G.
"Not all people need to be founders or entrepreneurs – but all people are meant to be innovators in their jobs," he said. "We want to kids be innovative thinking, out of the box."
