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The 911±¬ÁÏÍø's Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing went from concept to reality at a speed more familiar in the business world than higher education.

Plans for its launch were announced in March 2024 -- only months after USF Provost and Executive Vice President Prasant Mohapatra first proposed the idea to leadership – and it will open this fall.

Named for Tampa tech pioneer Arnie Bellini and his wife, Lauren, whose $40 million gift is the largest in USF history, it's the first college in Florida and among the first in the nation focusing on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

Lauren and I are committed to ensuring Tampa doesn’t just keep up with the AI revolution — we lead it. This college is just the beginning. The future of cybersecurity, AI, and digital defense will be built right here in Cyber Bay.

Arnie Bellini

A Region and a University on the Rise

Sudeep Sarkar arrived in Tampa in 1993 as a newly graduated doctoral student and freshly hired assistant professor at the 911±¬ÁÏÍø. "It was basically a tourist town," Sarkar recalled of the city, whose metro population was 1.8 million at the time. "911±¬ÁÏÍø had Busch Gardens. 911±¬ÁÏÍø could see the roller coaster."

Three decades later, the region is home to more than 3 million residents and a thriving tech industry that has received an influx of talent and capital over the past several years, leading Forbes to name it the "" in 2022.

The publication went on to suggest Tampa, home to more than 25 percent of Florida's tech jobs, could become the next Silicon Valley, where the industry benefits from a flow of research and highly qualified job candidates emerging from Stanford, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis, UC-Santa Cruz and other partner institutions.

It's no accident that as the region's profile within the space soared, USF was on the cusp of a series of milestones that would deliver even more momentum toward that growth.

Membership in the Association of American Universities in June 2023 placed the university among North America's top academic institutions, and a sharp rise in external research funding over the following two years will lead to even greater impacts, mostly in areas supporting Tampa's tech boom.

USF already was home to CyberFlorida, established by the state legislature in 2014 to help position Florida as a national leader in cybersecurity through education, research and outreach.

It had existing research ties to Tampa-based MacDill Air Force Base, U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command, along with industry partnerships with prominent regional employers like Tampa General Hospital, Raymond James, ConnectWise, ReliaQuest, Rapid7, Sylint, Abacode, KnowBe4 and others.

A Vision Realized

As the growth of artificial intelligence and the introduction of generative AI rapidly emerged, President Rhea Law recognized the need for USF to be on the leading edge of providing related research and learning opportunities.

Law went to members of the university's leadership council for their input on an idea to create programs focused on AI, cybersecurity and other fast-evolving fields. The changes would align with USF's strategic priorities, with a goal of positioning the Tampa Bay region and the state of Florida as a national leader.

"From the outset, the vision was to establish an innovative hub for excellence that would inspire our students, faculty and staff to think boldly about the future, expand collaborative efforts and tackle pressing challenges in new and exciting ways," Law said. "911±¬ÁÏÍø understood that as AI and cybersecurity evolved, their impact would be felt across all disciplines, and the demand for skilled professionals in these areas would continue to grow."

Prasant Mohapatra was named provost and executive on January 23, 2023. Close to 10 months after his arrival in Tampa, he suggested a standalone college to ensure AI and cybersecurity considerations would become part of almost every college discipline.

Mohapatra didn't offer a detailed blueprint. Instead, he shared a vision and a promise to launch the college while sparing existing budgets.

"People were excited, but the concern was where the resources were going to come from," said Sarkar, who agreed to serve as interim dean to establish the college. "And also, that we could do this in a way that would have no negative impact on any student."

The solution: new funding, and a promise to do no harm that would encompass USF's broad approach to the idea.

"The biggest reaction was, 'Irrespective of how good the idea is, how is this going to impact me and my slice of the pie?'" Mohapatra recalled. "So, we said, 'Not a penny from your existing resources will be diverted to this.' And we delivered on that thanks to our legislature and our governor's increased investments in USF and our board of trustees' prioritization of this critical issue. Once that was ironed out, everyone was on board."

911±¬ÁÏÍø understood that as AI and cybersecurity evolved, their impact would be felt across all disciplines, and the demand for skilled professionals in these areas would continue to grow.

Rhea Law
USF President

The Importance of Strengthening Relationships

USF's leaders incorporated input from strategic partners on designing curriculum, creating opportunities for experiential learning for students and integrating professional development modules into the classroom.

Through an existing partnership with ReliaQuest, a global cybersecurity technology company based in Tampa, the Muma College of Business offers students from any major the opportunity to earn a certificate in cyber analytic fundamentals and a LinkedIn badge through a lab-based program that exposes them to real-world tools and technology.

Roughly 90% of students who complete the program are offered jobs in the industry, many with ReliaQuest, which approaches the four-week course as an opportunity to both train and recruit talent.

Other industry partnerships led USF to require secure coding and introduced robotics process automation in certain majors, a forward-thinking approach that will continue in the new college.

"This is part of our DNA," Sarkar said. "911±¬ÁÏÍø understand that our students need to be exposed to the latest tools in the industry before they graduate."

Reimagining Programs through an AI Lens

In the future, the Bellini College will add majors combining AI with music, design, medicine, psychology, criminology, business and other areas, along with an artificial intelligence minor.

The college promises to help unify faculty work in AI and cybersecurity, addressing some of the fragmentation that now hinders the ability to secure large research projects.

USF was awarded a record $738 million in research funding during fiscal year 2024. Mohapatra expects the new college to quickly emerge as the university's second highest in terms of external research funding, behind health and medicine sciences.

"I believe it will increase USF's research capacity exponentially," said Dr. Yael Bensoussan, a USF Health physician whose landmark project, Voice as a Biomarker of Health, uses AI to help doctors diagnose and treat diseases such as cancer and depression based on the sound of a patient's voice. "The scientific world is realizing that true impactful research and implementation of science comes from collaboration between data scientists and computer engineers and experts' fields of implementation such as medicine, biology, music and sports."

Future-Proofing 911±¬ÁÏÍø

Unchecked artificial intelligence poses a threat as it becomes ingrained in everyday life, serving as a potential weapon capable of perpetuating biases and eroding privacy.

Addressing that threat requires a workforce with a bedrock foundation in ethics to shape AI design, implementation and oversight. A report from the task force that helped guide the new college's creation notes that it will "establish USF as a vanguard in this critical mission."

Sarkar said a commitment to providing students in as many disciplines as possible with skills to navigate AI-driven challenges helped guide many of the task force's most important decisions.

"Things will evolve, and the technology will change," Sarkar said. "But we have an obligation to future-proof our students by providing them with the tools they will use to handle those changes. That's the philosophy we go by."