The University of South Florida announced the largest donation in the school’s history: a $40 million gift from Arnie and Lauren Bellini to create the Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing. The gift, university leaders said, will help transform the region into a cybersecurity leader amid a workforce shortage.
Arnie Bellini founded the Tampa Bay based IT support firm ConnectWise, which sold for $1.5 billion in 2019. He donated $10.6 million to USF in 2022 to create a talent and career services center on campus that he said would close the skills gap between academia and employers. He has also donated $15 million to Tampa Catholic High School for an arts center.
His latest gift, he said, is something he hopes will better secure the country’s geopolitical power.
“If we get AI right, it will unlock unprecedented innovation, efficiency and economic growth,” he said. “It will drive the next wave of high tech jobs.”
Bellini praised the U.S. government for focusing on securing its physical borders, but said it had a long way to go in securing digital borders, pointing to threats from China and Russia.
He said for years Tampa has been rising as a “cybersecurity powerhouse,” with nearby MacDill Air Force Base and a growing number of private cybersecurity companies planting their headquarters in the city.
USF, he said, will provide the missing educational backbone. He hopes to see the relationship as symbiotic as Stanford’s is with Silicon Valley. Bellini said he hopes to help elevate USF’s academic standing to the top tier.
The funds will go toward scholarships, hiring faculty and a new space.
The university announced its intentions last year to create the state’s first college focused on AI and cybersecurity to launch this fall.
USF Foundation chair Jay Stroman joked that he warned the university provost not to get involved with Bellini if he didn’t want to work with someone who was “super involved.”
“He’s not a silent investor,” he said. “He certainly is somebody who has a passion for this.”
University Provost Prasant Mohapatra said the college, which will overlap with some existing departments, plans to open with 3,000 students and 45 faculty.
By its third year, he said, he hopes to reach 5,000 students and 100 faculty.
Bellini will also match additional donations up to $5 million toward the college, for a total of $10 million more. He said he’s considering a tuition guarantee program for students to secure job placement upon graduation. “We’re thinking about innovative ways to really, really draw the best and the brightest,” he said. “So we’re going after MIT professors. We’re going after Stanford professors. We’re offering signing bonuses. We are going to get the best and the brightest to come to this university and help us build this college.”
Divya Kumar covers higher education for the Tampa Bay Times, in partnership with Open Campus.