Wright State Research Institute integrates daytaOhio

(Contributed by Tim Gaffney)

The Wright State Research Institute is integrating daytaOhio to enhance the Institute’s reach and capabilities in providing advanced data analytics and visualization solutions for customers and partners within government, industry and universities, Research Institute officials announced today.

The Research Institute is assuming management of the Wright State Applied Research Corp., a new, not-for-profit Ohio corporation that replaces the former Wright Center of Innovation for Advanced Data Management and Analysis Inc., officials said. DaytaOhio was the Wright Center’s brand name.

The four-year-old Research Institute is the applied research arm of Wright State University. Wright State also led a team of universities and corporations to create daytaOhio in 2003 as a Wright Center of Innovation under Ohio’s Third Frontier program.

Ryan Fendley, director of the Research Institute, said the restructuring furthers its goals by bringing daytaOhio’s technology capabilities and contracting mechanisms to emerging research opportunities across the Research Institute’s four focus areas.

DaytaOhio’s mission continues under the Research Institute’s name. Advanced data management and analysis “underlies everything we’re doing” in the areas of health care, sensors and intelligent systems, and human performance, Fendley said. He noted the Research Institute’s fourth focus area, data management and analysis, is an exact match with daytaOhio. This is clearly aligned with daytaOhio’s mission and areas of interest.

More importantly, the nonprofit entity gives the Research Institute a more effective vehicle for Wright State to engage with businesses. “Everything can be done the way the university normally conducts its business, and the engagement with our community partners can be structured in a way that they’re used to engaging their partners,” Fendley said.

Terry Rapoch, who was daytaOhio’s president, serves as the new nonprofit’s president while Fendley serves as its chief executive officer. They report to a Board that includes representatives from local businesses and Wright State University.

With the restructuring, Rapoch also becomes the Research Institute’s chief technologist. “He brings a mountain of expertise and global perspective that’s broader than what our current staff had,” Fendley said. From a personal perspective, Rapoch observed, “I’m really jazzed about what the Research Institute and daytaOhio can do and that I will now be able to see not just the state of the art, but the state of the possible. It’s very exciting.”

S. Narayanan, Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Wright State, continues to serve as the Research Institute’s executive director.

The new corporate name was filed with the State on April 15 and the management team completed the implementation plan July 1, the start of the fiscal year. Rapoch said the plan is pragmatically grounded. “It establishes capabilities both organizations were striving to have, but couldn’t do independently,” he said.

The integration is allowing the Research Institute to consolidate activities that had been scattered through four campus buildings into Wright State’s Krishan and Vicky Joshi Research Center, where daytaOhio was located.

For more information visit: http://www.ws-arc.org