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Ratmir Timashev wants Ohio State to make Columbus the innovation 'epicenter'
Ratmir Timashev

By Carrie Ghose - Staff reporter October 29, 2023, 06:00am EDT

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 his first company and its more successful 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."