What makes USC Stevens different from other university-sponsored innovation initiatives?
One of the unique things is that we’re under the Office of the Provost, and we have a huge commitment from the provost to be a university-wide resource. We have 16 staff now, and we’re growing to more than 25 over the next year. USC has 17 professional schools and many different research programs. So we’re not just working with our engineering school and with the School of Medicine, but also with a top-notch cinematic arts school and music school, and a school for communications. We are able to leverage all of these and really redefine what it means to do innovation. We’re not just focusing on technological innovations, although clearly those will continue to be a very strong resource. So what kind of commercial innovations will you get from, say, the school for communications or music or cinematic arts? We have a lot of video gaming and a lot of digital media—and we also have students who are very eager to learn about how to get ideas out into the market.
