Oculus CEO's $31M Gift to UMD Is Largest in University History

A $31 million gift from a former University of Maryland student and Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe was announced Friday as the largest gift in the College Park university’s history.

Most of the gift, $30 million, will help build the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Innovation, which the university says will be designed for cutting-edge work in virtual reality, augmented reality, computer vision, robotics and future computing platforms.

“The University of Maryland was an inspiration for me, and the relationships I made there have lasted a lifetime,” says Iribe, a Maryland native. “The space is designed for hackers, makers and engineers, which will help give rise to future breakthroughs, products and startups that will transform the way we live and interact with the world around us.”

In addition, Oculus chief software architect and co-founder and 2003 UMD graduate Michael Antonov is making a gift of $4 million to the university.

“I’ve been passionate about computer science my whole life, and my experience at the University of Maryland fed that passion even more,” Antonov says in a release. “My hope is that this gift will give UMD students access to world-class resources and facilities for computer science that enables them to achieve the seemingly impossible.”

Iribe and Antonov started tech companies together while in College Park. This summer, their latest venture, Oculus, was purchased by Facebook for about $2 billion, reports The Baltimore Sun. The company created a virtual reality platform.

A graduate of Atholton High School in Howard County, Iribe attended the University of Maryland in College Park from the fall of 1997 to the spring of 1998, the newspaper reports.

“I was born and raised in Maryland and attended the public school system,” Iribe said in an interview with TechCrunch. “It just felt like the right thing to do to give back to a state school and public school, I’m a really big fan of public education.”

The new facility will be a hub for cutting-edge computer science research and an incubator for technology and innovation. The building’s design encourages collaboration, with an emphasis on hacker/maker spaces and team breakout areas.

Specialized labs will support groundbreaking research in virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, robotics, computer vision and human interaction. Students will have the opportunity to learn in classrooms designed specifically for interactive, collaborative and active learning. Hands-on training will successfully prepare them for the growing technology workforce.

»Brendan Iribe, Maryland native and CEO of Oculus, is donating $31 million to the University of Maryland, College Park. Screenshot from UMD video