Business
Entrepreneurship Hub
About the Hub
The mission of the Business Entrepreneurship (B/E) Hub is to inspire and transform the USC academic community into entrepreneurial big data thinkers and problem solvers, and to ensure the sustainability of the BDHSC. The B/E Hub will serve as a core where healthcare industry big-data problems are connected to new ideas, experts, resources, and technologies needed to create new solutions, products and services. Through a three-pronged approach (customer identification, industry discovery, and commercialization), the B/E Hub will engage both the Big Data and healthcare industry/consumers and connect faculty/researchers to industry. The B/E Hub will develop a Carolinas Innovation Corps (CIC) by modeling the NSF I-Corps program and develop a Big Data Health Innovation Strike Force modeled after Michigan’s innovation strike teams concept. The B/E Hub also will host an annual data science bowl competition for the students. The B/E Hub will be co-led by Drs. B Olatosi (ASPH) and D Brown (DMSB) and consists of expertise in entrepreneurism, healthcare delivery and pharmaceuticals. The B/E Hub team also includes Mr. C Hardaway, Director of UofSC Technology Commercialization Office and Ms. J Clenney, a Business Librarian who is knowledgeable in patent, marketing, and industry search.
Faculty
Bankole Olatosi, Ph.D.
MPI and Core Hub-Lead
Dr. Olatosi’s research interests are in the fields of Big Data Health Analytics, HIV/AIDS, COVID-19 and rural health. He has expertise in the field of Data Analytics and Data Mining, and currently has NIH grant funding in this area. He is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE) and serves on the board of the South Carolina ACHE state chapter.
Dirk Brown, Ph.D.
Co-Hub Lead
Dirk Brown is the faculty director of the University of South Carolina’s McNair Institute for Entrepreneurism and Free Enterprise and a clinical assistant professor of management at the Darla Moore School of Business. Brown is a seasoned executive with a strong track record of developing, marketing and licensing disruptive, proprietary technologies.
Chad Hardaway
Hub Member
Chad Hardaway is Deputy Director of the University of South Carolina Office of Economic Engagement and the Director of the Technology Commercialization Office. As Deputy Director of the UofSC Office of Economic Engagement, Chad works to align UofSC assets with outside corporate and government partners. As Managing Director of the UofSC Office of Technology Commercialization, he oversees a portfolio of over 500 university technologies and is responsible for moving those technologies out of the laboratory and into the marketplace.
Janakiraman Ramkumar, Ph.D.
Hub Member
Janakiraman’s teaching interests lie in the intersection of quantitative techniques and marketing applications such as marketing analytics, database marketing, pricing analytics and marketing research. Janakiraman currently teaches graduate level courses of marketing analytics and pricing and data intelligence. Prior to joining UofSC, Janakiraman was on the faculty at the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University.
Kevin Lu, Ph.D.
Hub Member
Lu’s current researches focus on study design and the application of quantitative analysis of big data, including pharmacoeconomics, pharmacoepidemiology, comparative effectiveness study and drug safety evaluation techniques in pharmaceutical and health outcomes research.