As a child, I was taught to take risks and color outside the lines. Later, I discovered a love of organizations, particularly visionary companies, and what makes them successful. Creativity, innovation and bringing products to market are not linear processes. It’s messy, complex, exhilarating, frustrating—and it can be done successfully when everything falls into place.
Laura B. Cardinal, Ph.D., SmartState® Endowed Chair + Director, Center for Innovation + Commercialization
Our Focus Is Providing South Carolina with a Strategic Innovation Toolkit So Growing and Established Organizations Flourish.
These are the organizations and people that inspire and motivate us.
We are the strategists, the innovators, the doers who make things happen.
Lots of Strategy and A Whole Lot of Harmony: MGMT 776 Hits All the Right Notes
If graduate school cohorts had personality profiles, the students of the University of South Carolina’s Strategic Innovation Planning and Processes (SIPP) course might require an entirely new category: “professionally caffeinated… (continued)
SC Innovates: Odd Ducks at the AIAA Conference
April 17, 2026 Walking into the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Southeastern Student Conference at Russell House on USC’s campus, on March 26, 2026, it was immediately clear… (continued)
Innovation Interrupted: A Semester of Surprises in SMTI
Fall 2025 Cohort Experiences a Wild Ride from R&D to O.M.G.! If you thought the Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation (SMTI) course, which is a part of the SC Innovates® SmartState®… (continued)