COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio State University has received the single largest gift in the school’s history.

It’s not the first time Buckeye alum Ratmir Timashev has made a donation to the university, but it is by far the most. The $110 million gift is intended for a new center for software and marketing at Ohio State, the Board of Trustees said during its public meeting Thursday.

Timashev, who has started multiple software and IT companies and received a master’s in chemical physics from Ohio State in 1996, said the idea for a software and marketing center came together in concert with University President Kristina M. Johnson and other administrators.

“A new reputation is cemented for OSU, Columbus and the Midwest,” Timashev said in his address to the board. “Not just as the geographical heartland, but as the heart and brain of the digitized world.”

The center will serve as a start-up “accelerator,” Timashev said, where students and faculty will receive support and guidance in entrepreneurial endeavors. With community partnerships and successful alumni recruitment, Timashev said he hopes the center will attract global start-ups to Columbus — where they will hire Ohio State-educated employees.

Ohio State recently received major donations from a variety of benefactors, including Timashev. He gave $17 million in 2020 to the College of Arts and Sciences to support the construction of the Timashev Family Music Building. A company he founded, Veeam Software, also gave $5 million to support scholarships and research in data analytics and chemical physics at Ohio State.

“Together we will define and build out a new future for our university, community and the region,” Timashev said. “We will harness the creativity, optimism and momentum that is already pouring into Columbus.

In her first address to the board since announcing her intent to resign, Johnson commended Timashev for his vision for the future of Ohio State.

“Ohio State is better and stronger because of alumni like you, and because of you, Buckeyes will have so many more opportunities to shape tomorrow and launch the big ideas that will change the world,” Johnson said.

With his donation, Timashev joins the ranks of other individuals and corporations whose donations to the university top the $100 million mark. Ohio State’s most prolific donor, Les Wexner, gave $100 million to Ohio State in 2011, mostly to its medical center. The medical center was given Wexner’s name the next year.

In 2018, Ohio State Energy Partners, a private company charged with managing the university’s energy assets, donated $105 million to various colleges and departments.

Ohio State has $3.3 billion in construction projects in the works alongside the now pending center for software and marketing. These include:

• Ohio State’s Combined Heat and Power Plant, budgeted for $289.9 million
• Wexner Medical Center’s inpatient hospital, budgeted for $1.819 billion
• A lacrosse stadium budgeted for $24 million
• Wexner Medical Center Outpatient Care west campus facility, budgeted for $349.5 million