urbanSTL

Another local university has established a presence in the Cortex innovation district.

Maryville University has opened a new technology center at Cortex’s 4220 building. The facility, which is Maryville’s first academic center at Cortex, is called the Fusion Center and will be used by the college’s cybersecurity and management information systems programs. The Cortex facility will be an extension of Maryville’s Cyber Fusion Center at its Town & County campus. That facility, according to the university, has offered free cybersecurity services to more than 150 companies and organizations. Maryville plans to offer the same services at no charge to startups in the Cortex district.  “We want to integrate ourselves into that community, (and) not just that we’re another company there. But that we are part of their support system there,” said Stacy Hollins, assistant dean of Maryville’s Simon School of Business and associate professor of information systems.  Maryville has launched at Cortex through funding from a $435,000 grant from the PNC Foundation. The university’s expansion comes as it seeks to be a “convener” on the topic of technology talent in St. Louis, Hollins said. As part of its facility at Cortex, Maryville plans to release an annual report that examines St. Louis’ cybersecurity and technology needs.

As Maryville builds out the priorities and programming for its new Fusion Center, Hollins said the university will take a nimble approach, similar to other startups that call Cortex home.  “It’s not a prescriptive programming plan that we have for this space. We want to be agile. We want to be responsible to whatever the need is,” she said.  Maryville University is the latest local university to set up shop in Cortex. Saint Louis University and Washington University in 2019 bolstered their footprint in Cortex with the opening of the COLLAB, a joint venture innovation center.