1819 Innovation Hub will be 'new front door' to University of Cincinnati

The University of Cincinnati is building a one-stop shop for its students and faculty to solve companies’ problems.

The 1819 Innovation Hub, located in Avondale, will be the new front door to campus for the Greater Cincinnati business community.

“It’s helping faculty and students bring their ideas to life and to market,” said David Adams, UC’s first-ever chief innovation officer, who will be heading the hub. It will also help companies tap into the expertise and research capabilities at UC to solve their business problems and grow talent.

UC does more than $400 million a year in research, Adams said, and it’s possible there’s something going on at UC that could benefit an organization, but they don’t know it exists.

Using Adams as the point of contact, this new space will connect those dots quicker than ever before. That saves organizations time and money when fixing their problems, seeking talent and innovating in their own industry.

How will it work?

Let’s say a nursing student has an idea for a new device that will improve a specific service for patients.

That nursing student can come to the Innovation Hub and team up with an engineering student, a design student and a business student to do something with that idea. The group can design a product, build it in the micro-factory, create a business plan around it, fill out its market viability and offer it to a hospital as a real solution to a health problem. They can also bring in the expertise of a consumer goods company to the team.

All of that can happen in this one building.

“This is where you can get these collisions and collaborations in a meaningful way to be able to do social good,” Adams said. “As a university, we have a responsibility to these students to create that environment.”

The hub provides real-world experience and multidisciplinary-type opportunities, which Adams says will drive future enrollment.

“This is not something you learn out of a textbook,” Adams said. “They’re using the technology and process to solve these problems and working alongside experienced industry clients who can bring expertise to help evolve the thinking of the students.”

Companies can also come to the hub seeking solutions and connect with students or faculty doing research in their industry. Some businesses and organizations will be housed in the building.

The Innovation Hub also allows UC administrators and faculty to sit down with companies and identify the specific skills they’re looking for in employees. Then, UC can better develop graduates that are more closely aligned with what the company or industry needs.

The hub, which is still under construction, will be housed in a former Sears store on Reading Road. Adams said it should open in fall 2018.

Pinto and Adams have done this before

UC President Neville Pinto won an award from the Louisville Chamber of Commerce in 2015 for establishing FirstBuild, a GE Appliances micro-factory that's in a former storage facility on the University of Louisville’s campus. FirstBuild is part of U of L's Institute for Product Realization, a center that promotes research and innovation in advanced manufacturing, logistics, renewable energy and analytics and computing.

Adams led that venture and is now leading a similar one in Cincinnati.

Their working model shows they understand how to get ideas out of the laboratory and into the marketplace. 

“The speed at which people’s ideas can be translated into practices and products and processes that are useful to society is accelerating,” Pinto said. “We have to ensure that students, as they’re being educated, have those experiences that will prepare them for that world.”

The new building is a physical structure that manifests some of the big ideas UC is pursuing in its innovation agenda over the next decade, Pinto said. 

In Pinto's eyes, the hub fills two needs: educating students in an innovative environment and companies changing their culture to be more responsive to consumers.

“Locating here, they break away from their resident culture, start to hire students and interact with other companies,” Pinto said. “That mix creates an open environment where ideas are nurtured and they thrive.”

Adams came to UC in July from U of L, where he served as interim chief administrative officer and CEO of its Institute for Product Realization. He oversaw the $1.2 billion financial and operational aspects of the university and led the university’s interface with industry.  

“We live in a highly competitive environment, and innovation is impacting us,” Adams said. “It’s not a choice. … We have to continue to understand what market changes are occurring and we have to adapt to those things.”

Prior to his roles at Louisville, Adams founded the BVI Group to serve the strategic and operational needs of businesses and private equity firms. He led the operational improvement and merger of Indiana’s $30 billion pension systems at the request of then-Gov. Mitch Daniels. Adams was also a founding member of the executive team that grew i2 Technologies from $4 million to $1.1 billion in seven years, becoming a Nasdaq 50 company in the process.