Jeff Cummins was introduced Wednesday at a meeting of the advisory board of Nucleus: Kentucky’s Innovation Center. Nucleus is an arm of the University of Louisville Foundation Inc.
Cummins officially joined GLI’s EnterpriseCorp. in November. He will work closely with Nucleus tenants on the J.D. Nichols Campus for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and with UofL’s College of Business, J.B. Speed School of Engineering and School of Medicine.
He also will partner with UofL’s tech transfer and research and innovation operations.
In addition, Cummins will work with the EnterpriseCorp team to attract new technology companies to Louisville using the state’s SBIR/STTR Matching Funds incentive program. EnterpriseCorp is GLI’s entrepreneurial arm.
Nucleus president and CEO Vickie Yates Brown said that Cummins’ position creates “a great synergy” between Nucleus and GLI.
Also at today’s meeting, the Nucleus advisory board heard an update on a $13 million project to provide more “connectivity” along the East Market Street corridor downtown.
Rebecca Matheny, executive director of the Louisville Downtown Partnership, said the project’s objectives include improving streetscapes, identifying areas of opportunity for development, enhancing gateways and connections, and integrating open spaces while improving sustainability.
The construction phase of the project is set to be bid out in the spring, Matheny said, with the project completed at roughly the same time as the Ohio River Bridges Project – late 2016.
The connectivity project will “change the face of Market Street,” Brown said.
The Nucleus meeting also featured a status report on Code Louisville, a software coding training program that is a partnership among the city of Louisville, KentuckianaWorks and Nucleus.
Rider Rodriguez, director of sector strategies for KentuckianaWorks, said Code Louisville, which launched in late 2013, has a goal to train and place 850 people by 2019.
Classes are being held in the Nucleus iHub, Rodriguez said, but the program is running out of space there and looking for a permanent home, likely on the J.D. Nichols Campus.
Brown said space could be available for Code Louisville in one of two recently acquired buildings at the park. One of those buildings formerly housed Dulworth Office Furniture; the other, several restaurants and nightclubs.
“We’re trying to figure out the highest and best use” of the properties, Brown said.
