Despite failures, project worth funding
Its goals are worthy. Like it or not, the United States can no longer be considered an industrial powerhouse, but it is one of the worldwide leaders in technology. In March, Fortune Magazine surveyed top business executives to find out the most admired companies in the world and four of the top five were American tech companies. The tech industry is a huge part of the world economy, and Columbia needs to tap into that. Investments to that end are well worth it.
Unfortunately, the Innovista project has largely flopped so far. Walk into the Horizon research building, and you will not find a bustling hub of technological and scientific innovation but a silent, mostly empty building and what looks like a two-person bumper car stolen from the state fair, which is presumably an early offspring of the hydrogen fuel cell research the Innovista project originally intended to bring to Columbia.
But Innovista is not a dead end or a hopeless cause. Though it will still take much more funding to finish it, the lack of success has more significantly been from a lack of community awareness and support. While it may indeed have become something of a mess, behind schedule and caught up in red tape, Innovista represents a bold vision for a better Columbia and a better South Carolina.