Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe donates $31M to stoke virtual reality studies at University of Maryland

After selling the virtual reality startup Oculus VR to Facebook for $2 billion, Brendan Iribe has a lot of money. The chief executive of Oculus VR, the maker of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, is using that money to make a $31 million gift to the University of Maryland.

The gift is the largest in history for the university in College Park, Md. Iribe, a UMD alumnus, is giving the money to fund construction of the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Innovation, and the remaining $1 million will establish the Brendan Iribe Endowed Scholarship in Computer Science. The center will encourage the study of virtual reality, which is a 3D computing experience that immerses the participant in a believable virtual world.