Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine have already teamed up for Beats headphones, which have become wildly popular since their introduction. Now, the music moguls are teaming up again to create a new arts academy at the University of Southern California.
The two made a $70 million donation to start the program, USC said. It will be used to establish the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation, which aims to help undergraduates prepare to become the innovators of tomorrow. The academy will be aimed to undergraduates who, like Iovine and Dr. Dre, are interested in business, marketing, science and engineering, visual and audio design and the arts.
“If the next start-up that becomes Facebook happens to be one of our kids, that’s what we are looking for,” Iovine told The New York Times on Monday at USC.
Dr. Dre added, “I feel like this is the biggest, most exciting and probably the most important thing that I’ve done in my career.”
“The vision and generosity of Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young will profoundly influence the way all of us perceive and experience artistic media,” said USC President C. L. Max Nikias in a statement. “USC provides an extraordinarily rich academic, research and artistic environment. We are committed to encouraging our students to use their intellectual and creative resources to effect change in all segments of society. Our goal is to ensure that the academy is the most collaborative educational program in the world.”
Iovine and Dr. Dre first teamed up for Beats in 2006. The company now makes up an incredible 40 percent of the headphones market. Beats is also planning to launch a music streaming service with Trent Reznor as chief creative officer.
The first class of 25 students will enter the Iovine and Young Academy in fall 2014.