Emboldened by a campus culture of exploring “what if?” and the university’s support system of expertise and resources to back them, five Knights who started their companies while they were still students are making undeniable noise in their respective industries — so much so that Forbes just honored them on its annual 30 Under 30 list.

The UCF engineering grads are recognized among peers from the likes of Stanford, UC Berkeley, MIT, Yale, Princeton and Columbia.

Joe Sleppy ’18 serves as CEO of Capacitech Energy, which is making supercapacitor technology practical by delivering plug-and-play, modular systems that eliminate power quality issues in data centers and microgrids responsible for downtime and equipment damage.

“UCF encouraged me to think outside of the box,” he says. “Ů��AV is an innovative university because they’ll ask, ‘Why not?’ I think I share the same philosophy with running Capacitech. Let’s try it. The world is watching. Let’s use innovation and entrepreneurship to make it better.”

Mason Mincey ’23, Derek Saltzman ’23, Matthew Jaeger ’22 and Patrick Michel are co-founders of Soarce, which takes underutilized plant resources like hemp, seaweed and grass and transforms them into nanomaterials eight times stronger than steel.“We’re on pace to build what we feel is going to be the largest global nanocellulose production facility in the world,” Saltzman says. “And we are not afraid to say that and stand behind it. That’s a big dream, but that’s kind of what we’re here to do — make big changes.”

These grads all credit their rise in large part to the immense support and knowledge they gained from UCF’s and . Ů��AV invested $10-20,000 of alumni-funded awards from the annual competition and UpStarts program to support their venture development.

“Capacitech and Soarce illustrate how investments in technology development and entrepreneurship education can work together to increase innovation diffusion and societal impact,” says Cameron Ford, William and Susan Crouse Endowed Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and Blackstone LaunchPad at UCF. “They also illustrate the arduous, fraught, years-long paths that entrepreneurs commonly travel when no one is watching to achieve ‘overnight’ success. We are immensely proud of the example they are setting for current and future Knights by combining their disciplinary expertise with entrepreneurial knowhow to positively impact others.”

To learn more about how these Knights are putting in the work today that is shaping the future around us, check out their stories (with video) on UCF Today:

• Forbes 2026 30 Under 30 Winner: Capacitech
• Forbes 2026 30 Under 30 Winner: Soarce

“From the moment I heard about cities being smart, it has always been on my mind,” Agarwal says. The concept resonates for this engineering visionary because he was raised in a small town in India with unstable transportation, electric, water and drainage systems. “I had a strong feeling that a ‘smart city’ would benefit everyone living in it, for generations.”

Little did Agarwal know at the time that in 2024 he would be in Orlando, The City Beautiful, as founding director of UCF’s Urban Intelligence and Smart City Lab and coordinator of its innovative Smart Cities master’s program. He could have continued his blossoming career in any major city with a reputable university, but he came to Central Florida because he saw something fresh: under the umbrella of the Future City Initiative, researchers and students from a variety of departments who would soon be working with industry and city leaders toward a singular goal.

“Smartness,” says Agarwal, an associate professor in civil environmental and construction engineering.

Let’s just pause for a moment and address a basic question: What exactly is a smart city? The Orlando area has smart people with smart ideas. We have a university with world-renown instructors and a history of groundbreaking tech research in AR, VR, digital twinning, modeling and simulation. Yet with all of these smarts, we still live on a finite piece of land with a finite supply of water, all shared by a rapidly growing population. It doesn’t take long for such a city to become less beautiful.

Unless it’s truly smart.

“The concept of a smart city is broad, but in general it means you integrate technology to remove the negatives of daily life,” says Cameron Ford, founding director of UCF’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and executive director of the Blackstone LaunchPad. “No congestion. No sanitation issues. No excess air pollutants. No problems with reliable power or water. A smart city uses foresight to improve livability, sustainability and resilience so residents can enjoy today while preparing for the uncertainties of tomorrow.”

For an example, Agarwal’s latest research provides a moving picture of what mobility within a smart city might look like: Traffic moving with the harmonious speed and efficiency of a school of fish (as opposed to the stop-and-go crawl of a caterpillar). In this city, autonomous vehicles would use sensors to transmit messages to each other and to the infrastructure. Road travel becomes cooperative and quick. It’s stress-free, and yes, friendly.

“Technology is the connective tissue between every project in a smart city,” Agarwal says, “and it requires a lot of small projects connected together. They become the digital infrastructure. You can’t necessarily see them, but they make the quality of daily life better.”

Carol Ann Logue is director of programs and operations for UCF’s Innovation Districts and Business Incubation Program. She and Ford are involved in smart city initiatives because at some point every tech-centered project, visible or invisible, comes down to business. Without investment even the smartest idea will never see the light of day.

“The cities that can pull this off have experts from every important sector intertwined into a singular ecosystem,” Logue says. “For Orlando, it’s healthcare, transportation, hospitality, education, engineering and business. We have a pipeline of young talent, intellectual property, forward-thinking research — everything is here, due in large part to UCF, to be become fully integrated, and smarter.”

Until recently, however, something crucial had been missing.

“For as long as I’ve been in Orlando, there have been frustrations that the rest of the world didn’t know about the tech capabilities here, which made it challenging to attract outside investors,” Logue says. “But that’s changing quickly.”

Logue is referring to the presence of Plug and Play, a global startup accelerator with a deep network of investors and companies able to supercharge emerging tech markets like central Florida. Plug and Play opened an Orlando office earlier in 2024 as part of a partnership with UCF, the city, Orange County, Duke Energy and Tavistock, with the goal of advancing Orlando as a smart city.

“This region’s identity as a tech market is unique,” Ford says. “We don’t have major corporate headquarters spinning out talent, like they have in Silicon Valley. However, we do have talented, ambitious students and researchers coming up with new ideas to improve urban life. They’re developing expertise learning how to turn that expertise into viable business. Plug and Play fills a critical gap by attracting corporate partners and risk capital so those tech startups can flourish.”

Logue says she’d been aware of Plug and Play for years because she’s in the world of business incubation. “They don’t just go anywhere. There has to be a culture of innovative technology for them to nurture into a smart-city ecosystem. That’s exactly what we have here.”

Plug and Play developed its first smart city cohort for Orlando in April. They invited more than two dozen companies to pitch the innovation they would bring to the smart city initiative. Of the 14 companies chosen for the cohort — some local and some from outside the area — four were founded by students, graduates and researchers from UCF: CapaciTech, which builds flexible and high-energy storage solutions; the smart mobility company ConnectedWise; Precision Periodic, which uses nanobeads for water treatment; and Fluix, an energy-saving AI-based autopilot.

“Many of the companies from outside the area that pitched said, ‘We’ve been interested in moving to Florida, but didn’t know about the tech capabilities here until Plug and Play came along,’” Logue says. “It’s been a ‘wow’ for a lot of people.”

They’ve been wowed to find out about UCF’s aforementioned Smart Cities master’s program, the only such program that fuses technology with disciplines focused on water and air quality, transportation and land development and public policy. They’ve been wowed to discover UCF working on a $26 million NSF-funded Engineering Research Center for Smart Streetscapes (CS3), and a transportation science and tech program ranked among the world’s best.

“They’re also impressed with the collaboration between experts in different fields,” Logue says, “because everyone knows collaboration is the best way to make real progress.”

Less than 10 years ago, Agarwal heard “smart city” for the first time. Today he’s helping one come together. Many students in the Smart Cities master’s program are professionals who are reskilling themselves. One is developing a smart parking system. Another is coming up with a method to ensure healthy water quality in pools. Yet another is researching a way to locate lead pipes underground so they can be removed without tearing up the landscape.

“These people have always had ideas,” Agarwal says, “and now their ideas have the potential to be grown into start-ups, then incubated, and perhaps supported through Plug and Play’s network. It’s still early, but that’s what makes this an exciting time. We’re just getting started.”

To further tap into the hidden gems of research produced by faculty, graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, ��AV is initiating a new program backed by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) with mentoring from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The $6 million, NSF-funded interdisciplinary project, led by Ivan Garibay, an associate professor in the will create a UCF Venture Lab that supports budding entrepreneurs through the commercialization process and establishes a newly organized research umbrella at the university.

The funding for the UCF Venture Lab is provided through NSF’s Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program, housed in the NSF Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships. Ů��AV is one of 18 U.S. universities to receive funding through this newly established program.

“NSF endeavors to empower academic institutions to build the pathways and structures needed to speed and scale their research into products and services that benefit the nation,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan in a release. “The Accelerating Research Translation program in NSF’s new Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate identifies, and champions institutions positioned to expand their research translation capacity by investing in activities essential to move results to practice.”

The UCF Venture Lab will train and enable faculty, graduate students and postdocs to identify and launch viable businesses based on their novel research. It will provide guidelines on business development, match UCF researchers with relevant industry partners and, for a select few, provide funding through the NSF ART grant. The entity will be modeled after the business startup program at Georgia Tech, which will provide mentorship during the development phase.

“UCF’s world-class faculty are preparing students to work and lead in the industries of tomorrow, and we are grateful to the NSF for their support in enabling us to speed up research, discovery, and entrepreneurship,” says UCF President Alexander N. Cartwright. “Working with Georgia Institute of Technology, which will serve as a mentoring institution, we look forward to expanding pathways for ideas, products, and programs that make positive impacts on society and keep pace with the speed of innovation.”

Garibay says after comparing notes with Georgia Tech, the project team realized they would benefit from a Venture Lab dedicated to the commercialization of UCF research.

“We plan to create that infrastructure here at UCF and hope to accelerate the growth of these businesses,” Garibay says.

Community and Societal Impact

Georgia Tech will serve as a mentoring partner for UCF’s Venture Lab development. Keith McGregor, the founder of the Georgia Tech VentureLab, will serve as one of the mentors to the UCF team, which includes co-principal investigators Carolina Cruz-Neira, a professor in the ; Cameron Ford, an associate professor in the , Svetlana Shtrom, the director of the ; and Winston Schoenfeld, interim vice president for research and innovation. The University of Florida will also collaborate on the project, providing input that will help UCF adapt Georgia Tech’s model to the Florida ecosystem.

Locally, the program is expected to have a positive impact on the Orlando area.

“Central Florida is mostly a service-based economy,” Garibay says. “Our median salary is below the nationwide average. The UCF Venture Lab will foster creation of technology companies, which will generate high-paying jobs and will attract a lot of growth to this area.”

The program will also provide pathways for local industry to partner with UCF researchers. Organizations such as DeepWork Capital, the Entrepreneurs Alliance of Orlando and the National Security Innovation Network have already agreed to mentor the UCF entrepreneurs and to participate in the ART project advisory board.

ART Seed Translational Research Projects

Multiple seed translational research projects will be selected for funding through the ART program. The first project, led by Professor Guifang Li of the College of Optics and Photonics (CREOL), will establish a prototype receiver capable of high-speed space-to-ground laser communication that resists atmospheric turbulence. Once the prototype is developed, Li and his team plan to test the project at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. Potential clients for the receiver include Blue Origin, OneWeb Technologies and SpaceX.

The second project is led by Center for Research in Computer Vision Assistant Professor Yogesh Rawat. He plans to develop a prototype software that can detect human activities shown in live video streams while ensuring that private information isn’t exposed. The software would be used in surveillance systems to identify emergency situations or potential threats to public safety so that law enforcement or first responders could act quickly to prevent harm.

Other seed translational research projects will be selected through a university competition that will commence next August. UCF researchers from all disciplines will be encouraged to apply.

Education Through Action

UCF graduates like Wolfe, Drake and countless others were able to launch their businesses with the aid of the skills they developed at UCF as well as the encouragement they received from UCF researchers and business development programs. To keep the pipeline of Knight-trepreneurs flowing, the NSF ART grant will enhance UCF’s educational offerings in entrepreneurship.

The College of Engineering and Computer Science and the College of Business Administration courses already offered in this topic would expand to allow graduate students and postdocs to take the courses, allowing for a greater diversity of knowledge, skill and perspective in the classroom.

The goal is to instill an entrepreneurial skillset in the next generation so they can better qualify for jobs in changing industries or launch and grow their own business ventures, says Ford, who is also the executive director of the Blackstone LaunchPad and the director for the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

“The careers that our students are going into are dynamic,” Ford says. “We’re seeing a lot of changes and disruptions to the industries they work in, so our students need to be adaptable and resilient. They can add value to the companies they work for if they can learn to solve novel problems and execute initiatives. It’s not enough to innovate solutions – the goal is to deliver innovations to those who need them, improving social and economic wellbeing in the process.”

Garibay says that, for engineering students in particular, learning about entrepreneurship can change their whole mindset.

“I think it’s life-changing,” Garibay says. “Entrepreneurship is something we’ve done for a long time and the feedback that I get back from students is that it’s transformative.”

UCF Innovate

The NSF ART program doesn’t just allow UCF to create a business hub and enhance graduate education – it also establishes a new research umbrella for the university called UCF Innovate. This enhanced infrastructure will bring together the Office of Technology Transfer, the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and the Business Incubation Program along with the developing Venture Lab. UCF Innovate will be overseen by Schoenfeld, who leads the Office of Research.

“UCF has been consistently ranked as a leading technology-generating institution with a strong entrepreneurial spirit among faculty and students,” Schoenfeld says. “The NSF ART program leverages this to drive new levels of technology translation that ensures strong societal benefit from the innovation across UCF.”

Shtrom says that through the ART program, the Office of Technology Transfer will strengthen and enhance the university’s commercialization infrastructure to transform promising research results into products that solve pressing problems and improve people’s lives.

“The NSF funding will allow us to dedicate resources toward cultivating the entrepreneurial mindset and culture at UCF, increasing the number of startup companies launched to commercialize university technologies, and growing funding and licensing revenue to support and expand the research enterprise,” Shtrom says. “Ů��AV is committed to nurturing and sustaining this virtuous cycle of research and innovation to maximize impact for UCF, Central Florida, and the nation.”

The first-of-its kind��certificate lets��students work hand-in-hand with industry professionals, such as Fat Joe, DJ Khaled, Jordan Brand’s��Reggie Saunders and Def Jam founding Director��of Publicity Bill Adler.��Assignments include everything from writing educational raps to analyzing music videos with theory and data. This semester��MC Serch��will join a��class to break down��the music video for the 1989 3rd Bass single “The Gas Face,” a provocative take on the business crossover of hip-hop.

C. Keith “Doc” Harrison, who is the founding director of the certificate program and one of its professors, designed its four courses to bridge topics ranging from the innovation and evolution of hip-hop to sport business management and entrepreneurship. His goal is to generate an elite group of business-savvy students who think differently, think globally and hustle forward.��

While the courses focus on hip-hop, the goal of the certificate isn’t necessarily to provide students with a path to working in the music, entertainment or sports industries. It aims to challenge the way they think and approach situations and encourage thinking on a global scale. The certificate flips the script of hip-hop’s typical use in academia as a vehicle for religious, sociological, humanities or liberal arts learning by complementing these academic disciplines. The certificate program focuses on the business side of an industry that has been around since the 1970s and the impact it has had across music, entertainment and sports.

“Our goal is to make the certificate completion very, very selective,”��says Harrison, who serves as a Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellow at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research. “The four courses are quite rigorous, so our approach since the launch is to keep the finish line for only an elite group. We want it to be like becoming a pro athlete or artist (e.g. ballers) — top 1% to 5%.”

The Ballers

By this end of the Spring 2023 semester, four students will have finished the certificate program. Since its inception, the certificate’s marquee course, SPB4023 – Business of HipHop Innovation and Entrepreneurship, has filled up each semester as students continue to show a growing interest in the certificate’s offerings.

One of the first to complete the certificate is Denis Perez, who says the program has made him appreciate music even more and gives him an advantage for the future.

“The certificate has opened my perspective on how the business of hip-hop came to be,” Perez says. “Getting to learn about the beginnings of hip-hop and the major impacts it made have made me appreciate it even more. This is such a unique opportunity. It is a great opportunity to diversify your portfolio and make you stand out to employers when looking for post-graduate opportunities.”

Harrison incorporates industry professionals to show students how hip-hop and business connect.

Last semester,��Grandmaster Caz, who has influenced artists such as��Jay-Z,��LL Cool J��and��Will Smith, spoke to UCF students for the third time. Most recently, his visit focused on the role of innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity in his career, as well as a rap tutorial for those in attendance.

This August hip-hop celebrates its 50^th��anniversary. In preparation, Harrison��is planning a number of special guests and moments for students to celebrate the last half-century at the intersection of music and business. Grandmaster Caz, Fat Joe, DJ Khaled, MC Serch, Adler and Saunders have all been invited back to��speak. Photographer��Johnny Nunezwill��talk with��students about his career shooting some of the industry’s biggest names, including Jay-Z,��NAS,��Queen Latifah,��MC Lyte,��Beyonce,��Drake,��Justin Bieber��and��LeBron James.

The Faculty

UCF faculty members��Scott Bukstein, associate lecturer in the undergraduate sport business management program, and��Cameron Ford, associate professor of management and founding director of UCF’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, lend their talents to the curriculum as well as lecturers from African and African American Studies, who contribute to a course on the evolution of hip-hop. Harrison has also enlisted help from outside the university from Adler,��Brandon Martin,��Tuma Basa��and Saunders, who all work in and around the entertainment industry. Martin serves as the athletic director of University of Missouri-Kansas City; Basa is the director of Black Music & Culture at YouTube. Basa was also the certificate’s first guest lecturer back in 2019.

UCF’s Center for Research and Education in Arts, Technology and Entertainment (CREATE)��also has been��an integral part of the certificate, providing both students and faculty.��CREATE director��Stella Sung and adjunct research animation instructor��Ronald Hargrove��helped Harrison create visual content for the certificate.

‘The Napkin’

This summer��Harrison will release��The Napkin: An Annual Report on HipHop Academic Programs��online on Aug. 11. Started by Harrison,��The Napkin��will focus on content that highlights positive world news��in hip-hop��and higher education curriculum related to the genre. Contributors to��The Napkin��include recent UCF grad and ESPN+ sideline reporter��Hannah Jo Groves ’22, current radio/television student��Joshua Hammer��and Adler. Groves graduated from Ů��AV in 2022 with a journalism major and sport business management minor.

Thanks to the forward-thinking professors, guest lecturers and students, UCF’s Business of HipHop and Creative Industries certificate is primed to stick around as long as hip-hop has with the culture’s tradition of innovation and reinvention. As Caz said, “Hip-hop didn’t invent anything, it reinvented everything.”

The collaboration involves , a direct support organization at UCF, UCF’s (MVS2) and UCF’s (CEL). Together, they will focus on increasing access to internship opportunities located at UCF’s main campus, providing better access to training opportunities for advanced manufacturing equipment, and augmenting support for the entrepreneurial aspirations for students with a veteran status.

At UCF, the student-veteran and military-affiliated student population is estimated to be 1,900 strong on campus. Additionally, UCF received a military friendly silver award for the 2022-23 school year, recognizing the university’s ability to help veterans succeed in the classroom and the real world.

“Advanced manufacturing continues to grow at a rapid pace throughout Central Florida,” says MVS2 Director Michael Kepner ’19MA. “This collaboration is the perfect next step in developing a talent-pipeline of student veterans to meet the workforce needs of our partners. This partnership with Limbitless provides our student veterans with the technical skills they need to unleash their potential and fill this critical requirement.”

Kepner is an U.S. Army retiree and joined ��AV in July 2022.

Limbitless Solutions has partnerships with key industry partners for advanced manufacturing — including Autodesk (design software) and Stratasys (3D printer manufacturing) and Tormach (CNC machinery manufacturer).

Last year, Limbitless Solutions opened a new research facility dedicated to bionics research, advanced manufacturing and undergraduate student research development in Research Park. The facility has more than 5,000-square-feet of space near UCF’s main campus, making it accessible for students by the Pegasus Express campus shuttle.

The machinery at the advanced manufacturing facilities includes computer numerical control (CNC) milling and lathe machines, large 3D printers, laser cutters, vacuum thermoforming, and a full range of automotive painting equipment.

“Limbitless Solutions is excited to announce this new collaborative effort with MVS2 and CEL to provide opportunities for advanced manufacturing and entrepreneurship for student veterans,” says Limbitless Solutions Executive Director Albert Manero ’12 ’14MS ’16PhD. “Not only will this support advancing our work for pediatric and adult focused bionic arms, but it will also provide opportunities that can unleash the potential of our students.”

UCF’s Blackstone LaunchPad program, an initiative offered by UCF’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, is transforming students from all backgrounds and majors into entrepreneurial leaders who understand how to create and deliver new solutions to important problems.

Students who are interested in pursuing any venture — social or otherwise — are encouraged to visit the Blackstone LaunchPad on the first floor of the Student Union to get free, confidential, one-on-one coaching from an expert startup mentor.

“We support students from all majors who are freelancers, side-hustlers, innovators or future founders, and we are excited about supporting student veterans who are interested in creating their own economic opportunities,” says Cameron Ford, founding director of UCF’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

An estimated 500 to 600 students have met with startup mentors in the Blackstone LaunchPad annually since it opened in 2013. Volunteers from the business community help students learn how to create opportunities, design solutions, develop business models, and launch startup ventures.

For more information on how to access these resources, visit and .

The organic worm tea fertilizer is made by soaking worm-accelerated compost in fresh water to absorb valuable nutrients.

“Containing all the vital nutrients for your garden, the resulting leachate is highly effective at encouraging plant growth,” Baker said during his proposal. “Using Wriggle Brew in your garden will guarantee that your plants are endowed with all the necessary macro and micronutrients that may have depleted from your soil. Just a capful of undiluted Wiggle Brew added per plant can rapidly speed plant growth and boost the young immune system.”

What makes this fertilizer so unique? It also doubles as a pesticide.

Baker led Wriggle Brew to the top prize at the Joust New Venture Competition, UCF’s version of Shark Tank. Wriggle Brew beat out three other student businesses April 7 to take home a $15,000 check and over $50,000 in essential business services.

“The struggle that went into getting here is years’ worth,” shared Baker, just moments after his win. “This means everything to me right now.”

In a similar fashion to NBC’s hit show Shark Tank, Baker pitched Wriggle Brew to a panel of judges representing companies such as Echelon Fitness Multimedia, Addition Financial, Voloridge Investment Management, VMD Ventures and VMD Global Health, and ICI Homes.

Baker advanced Wriggle Brew to first place out of 16 semifinalists. His team plans to use the competition winnings to get in front of as many businesses as they can to develop their product further.

“Next steps for me from here will be, first and foremost, a little bit of rest. Then my teammates and I are going to hit the ground running,” Baker says. “My goal is to try to get into as many business opportunities as I can with this win, and hopefully do well with the expectations that have been placed on me.”

The Joust is UCF’s premier startup showcase event, hosted by the UCF College of Business’ Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, and features students of all majors. Competitors present their models for a viable business venture and compete to win money and other resources to pursue their venture. This event celebrates student entrepreneurs, introduces them to community leaders and provides key resources to help launch their ventures.

Before the winner was announced, John Santo `’01, co-founder and CPO of Echelon Fitness Multimedia shared a message with all four contestants.

“If you believe in your product and what you’re doing, don’t let ‘no’ stop you,” Santo says. “Be relentless in what you do. No matter what happens today or tomorrow, that doesn’t determine the success of your business.”

All four finalists in this year’s competition included elements of a social venture — a business idea that aims to incorporate business skills and techniques to solve societal problems. Cameron Ford, director of the UCF Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, called this year’s Joust an incredibly close competition.

“I’m very excited by the strength of each of our competitors’ presentations,” Ford says. “I have never been as proud of a group of students as I am for this year’s Joust competitors.”

The Joust runners-up were Daniel Trimble, Michael Troisi and Ryan Carnovsly with Trosk, a company that aims to provide a range of education on cybersecurity and related topics. They took home $7,500.

Shelsee Joseph earned third place and $5,000 for her company, Curethco, a wellness tea company that aims to inspire consumers to take care of their health with accessible and effective teas.

ToolCharm and the team of Mark Rbuckert and Owen Burns earned $2,500 for their fourth-place finish and their idea to empower support teams to accomplish daily administrative tasks without software development teams.

The students’ venture proposals were assessed by a panel of business executives representing a wide range of corporate partners, local businesses and alumni.

This year’s judges were Linh Dang ’93, chief development officer at Addition Financial, Sean Hayes ’95, Chief Marketing Officer at Voloridge Investment Management, Forough Hosseni ’98, EVP of Information Systems at ICI Homes, Harold Mills ’98, CEO of VMD Ventures and VMD Global Health and Santo, co-founder and CPO of Echelon Fitness Multimedia.

The 2022 Joust New Venture Competition was presented by Echelon Fitness Multimedia. Supporting sponsors included 321 The Agency, BDO, Blezoo, Legal Shield, Insurance Office of America (IOA) and Nperspective LLC.

“What we’re doing in here is what you’d find Ph.D.s doing in expensive labs,” Mincey says about his three business partners and himself. “We’ve learned to work with whatever resources we have available.”

Mincey, who’s on track to graduate from Ů��AV in 2023, studies plant-based fibers at the nanoscale on one side of the garage. On the other side, the fibers are used for the research and development of high-performance athletic clothing. That’s the differentiator for Mincey and his co-founders of Soarce USA: Their shirts, socks, underwear, and headbands will be derived from plant materials.

“With our research,” he says, “we can make high-quality performance-wear and feel good about protecting the environment.”

Mincey enrolled at UCF as an aspiring aerospace engineer. During his freshman year, he discovered the university’s Blackstone LaunchPad program and a path to entrepreneurship.

“Mason exemplifies the kind of student who comes into the program,” says Cameron Ford, founding director of UCF’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership. “Blackstone is the investment company behind our LaunchPad. They share my belief that people who develop an entrepreneurial mindset will be better prepared to take risks and adapt, no matter what they do for a career.

“Think about it. One student takes classes, graduates, and interviews for a job. Another student takes the same classes, but also had an idea for lip balm, developed a prototype and a website, and tried to market the product. If I’m an employer, that second candidate has me spellbound, whether they succeeded or not.”

Ford has seen 500-600 students in the LaunchPad center every year since it opened in 2013. Volunteers from the business community mentor students in skills like accounting, marketing, and how to apply for patents.

“This is real-world business development,” says Ford, “but it isn’t just for business students. You can see that from the alumni who have used the LaunchPad.”

Chemistry alum David Nash ’11 ’14MS ’17PhD helped launch IDem Systems in 2015 to help law enforcement agencies quickly detect the presence of illegal drugs. Health sciences grad Victoria Weiss ’16 co-founded Rope Lace Supply in her dorm room with industrial engineering grad Eric Delgado ’16 and sold $250,000 of shoelaces online in their first year. Managementalum Jesse Wolfe ’15 created O’dang Hummus, received mentoring in the LaunchPad, pitched his product on Shark Tank, and is one of UCF’s most recognized entrepreneurs.

“And now,” says Ford, “he comes into the LaunchPad to mentor other students.”

Like Mason Mincey.

Mason Mincey, co-founder Soarce

Soarce is the fourth idea that Mincey and his partners hatched. They learned valuable lessons from each swing and miss. As freshmen, they developed a drone to help farmers locate patches of dying crops in massive fields, and even took it into the semifinals of UCF’s Joust competition.

“Our pitch didn’t go well,” says Mincey. “We went back to LaunchPad and began to understand that creativity and drive aren’t enough to build an actual business.”

Next, they built a 13-foot rocket as vehicle for organizations without NASA-size budgets to collect scientific data. At a demonstration in Alabama, the rocket blew up at takeoff. Small portions of their own carbon fiber stayed intact, however, and would inspire number-three: a racing drone.

“We had fun and sold some drones, but there wasn’t a big market,” Mincey says. “Plus, it was a toy. I didn’t see it as a business that would make a positive impact.”

In the LaunchPad, Wolfe shared some entrepreneurial wisdom from his trials and errors during the early days of O’dang. For example, you can’t build a business on passion alone.

“He said, ‘You need to think from the customer perspective, a product perspective, and a business perspective. That’s the three-legged stool. And you need to be willing to adjust your original idea,” Mincey says.

Mincey says without those lessons, and without pro bono help from attorneys, designers, and marketing specialists, Soarce wouldn’t have made it past three months, and he wouldn’t be wearing booties in his garage or using plants to perfect textile fibers a million times smaller than a human hair.

Ů��AVPad got us on the right track,” he says, “and now we’re onto something cool.”

Brandon Naids ’14 ’16MS , co-founder Talon Simulations

It’s been said that the Blackstone LaunchPad is a great program for UCF students who have always dreamed of starting a business or those who never could have imagined it.

Brandon Naids ’14 ’16MS is among the latter group.

“I was just a naïve engineering student trying to come up with something interesting for my senior project,” he says of the virtual reality flight simulator he and four other UCF students created. “And I thought it would look good on my resume.”

At the Senior Design Showcase in April 2014, local industry leaders and UCF faculty saw the compact nature of the simulator and heard about the lower cost to make it. Their feedback sparked a fire that changed Naids’ career path before he’d taken his first step on it.

“Every person at the showcase told us to check out the LaunchPad,” Naids says. “I planned to look for an engineering job, but once we met with an advisor at LaunchPad and heard about the help available to turn our project into a product, we thought, ‘Wow, we’re really doing this.’”

Instead of pursuing job interviews, Naids pursued his master’s degree while shifting from an engineering mindset to an entrepreneurial ethos.

“We learned that as business owners you can’t just submit plans and wait for results,” Naids says. “You have to set goals and then be accountable to meet each one of them. A mentor also told us that passion alone isn’t enough to build a business, but it will help you through the tough times — because those time will come.”

During those times, Naids would nervously sit in parking lots for up to an hour before meeting with prospective clients of Talon Simulations. Now, with a real business sitting firmly on a three-legged stool, he sees his team’s simulators used in arcades, malls, 150 Dave and Busters locations, and for U.S. Army recruiting events.

“I never imagined this until we went to UCF’s LaunchPad,” Naids says. “Until then, I thought I’d be doing 3-D modeling behind someone else’s desk. I’m grateful everything turned out this way instead.”

Senior photonic science and engineering major Rafaela Frota beat out six other finalist companies with her concept for Wawwe (We Are What We Eat.) The mobile app uses data and algorithms to help people decide whether they should eat something based on their personal dietary needs.

The competition rewards students who develop solutions intended to impact society’s biggest problems.

In under seven minutes, finalists had to present the problem they intended to solve, the solution they planned to offer, and a sustainable and scalable business model that could deliver the solution. Then they had up to three minutes to answer questions from a panel of three judges, who selected winners based on criterion such as concept, social impact, context, performance measures and presentation.

“The inspiration for Wawwe came from my desire to help give confidence and support to people diagnosed with a diet restrictive illness and were feeling lost and overwhelmed,” says Frota, who came up with the idea at 14 after watching food documentaries such as Food Inc. “My dream is to work with hospitals across the nation to bring Wawwe to as many patients as possible and increase their health through easy access, easy to understand personalized nutrition.”

Frota was awarded a $2,500 scholarship from State Farm Insurance, which sponsors the contest. Second-place finishers took home $1,250 and third-placed earned $500 in scholarship funding.

About the Competition

UCF’s Social Venture Competition differs from other business contests because at the core of each business is a greater purpose to serve individuals or a community. Cameron Ford, director of UCF’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and Blackstone LaunchPad, created the competition in 2015 to provide a platform for students to learn how to utilize entrepreneurship to address complex, social problems.

“One of the challenges with social ventures or enterprises is evaluating their success,” Ford says. “It’s a little bit different from a standard corporate [measurement,] like sales, revenue, number of customers and stuff like that. Here you’re looking at things a little more broadly, like impact, which can be pretty difficult to measure.”

“UCF has really paved the way for us to have access to so many more opportunities … and we’re incredibly grateful for that.” –��David Thomas Moran ’14MFA

Last year, texts and technology doctoral student��David Thomas Moran ’14MFA��and��art major��Nathan Selikoff ’04,��a Burnett Honors Scholar,��were able to overcome this challenge. They won the competition with their transportation tech startup Omnimodal. The platform merges real-time public transportation information with already existing navigation apps so users can use their phones to get around easier. Their win at UCF led them to even greater success in the local community as they went on to win Central Florida’s Rally Social Enterprise Accelerator.

“The [Social Venture Competition] reminded Nathan and I that it’s so important to break out of our innovation silos and actively engage with all the incredible opportunity spaces across the Central Florida startup community here at UCF and beyond,” says Moran.��“UCF has really paved the way for us to have access to so many more opportunities since we won last year and we’re incredibly grateful for that.”

This Year’s Winners

About thirty minutes before this year’s competition, two finalists realized they had similar ideas for their long-distance ride sharing app – down to the same statistics used in their presentation.�� Rather than compete against each other, senior information technology major Eliecer Vera and junior computer science major Breezy Baldwin recognized an opportunity to be more successful through partnership

“It was really bizarre how identical they were. We both realized that neither of us would be likely to win the competition if we had the exact same pitch, but that it applied to our companies as well. We both can’t go head-to-head in the exact same market,” says Baldwin.

“We both realized that neither of us would be likely to win the competition if we had the exact same pitch.” –��Breezy Baldwin, UCF student

Within minutes Baldwin, who has been working on her idea for 18 months and Vera, who developed his four months ago, managed to successful merge their presentations and companies under the name Hchhkr (pronounced “hitchhiker”.) So much so that they earned second place. They plan to continue working together.

Third place was awarded to Connected Wise, a smart onboard device that aims to improve safety in rural areas by allowing drivers to communicate with one another about road conditions. The company’s founders, Enes Karaaslan and Burak Sen, developed the idea from the areas of focus in their civil engineering doctoral studies.

The Food Exchange, developed by junior finance major Aurora Pavlish-Carpenter and first-year environmental engineering major Talia Gratz, earned an honorable mention and received $250. The app focuses on reducing food waste by allowing users to trade their unwanted food with other users nearby.

Other Finalists

Three more companies qualified to present at the competition:

Students who are interested in pursuing any venture, social or otherwise, are encouraged to visit the Blackstone LaunchPad on the first floor of the Student Union to get one-on-one coaching from someone with experience or expertise.

White’s company, Mainland Tow, won with a new piece of beach gear called the “Skimvest.” It allows the wearer to run along shallow water while towing a person behind on a skimboard. The electrical engineering major modeled the device after a baby carrier he found at a garage sale.

“At first, my friends and I tried to tow someone on a skimboard with a bunch of T-shirts tied together, but that didn’t really work,” White said. “One day, I was at a garage sale and came across a baby-carrying harness, bought it for $2 and thought I could definitely use this to tow someone down the beach.”

The full-time student plans to use the winnings from the competition to cover manufacturing costs for the first 100 units. After creating several product revisions and patenting the Skimvest in the United States, White set up a distribution deal with Ron Jon Surf Shop following a chance encounter with the company’s general merchandise manager at a beach in 2015.

“I met him while putting on sunscreen during an event on Cocoa Beach,” White said. “After months of phone calls, he agreed to meet with me and was really excited about the Skimvest.”

The competition, which was organized by the Roundtable of Entrepreneurship Educators of Florida, featured outstanding student venture proposals and gave competitors the chance to pitch their ideas to a panel of qualified professionals. Cameron Ford, director of the UCF Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, described the competition as a showcase for the best collegiate startup proposals in the state.

“Matthew worked extraordinarily hard on multiple startup venture ideas over the past few years with our staff at the Blackstone LaunchPad and Upstarts Student Venture Accelerator,” Ford said. “We chose him to compete to reward his hard work and achievement.”

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Through this partnership, the UCF Blackstone LaunchPad will gain access to Techstars’ network of more than 10,000 mentors, worldwide entrepreneurial events, and content and startup services. UCF Blackstone LaunchPad director Cameron Ford called the partnership a game-changing opportunity for UCF.

“Techstars has built a global community of innovators, entrepreneurs and investors that has achieved remarkable success launching companies and enriching communities,” Ford said. “Our partnerships with Blackstone and Techstars will offer UCF students unrivaled access to expert advising, startup resources, and experiential learning opportunities to support their personal development and the development of their new venture ideas.”

The UCF Blackstone LaunchPad welcomes hundreds of students from across campus each year, accepting more than 3,000 appointments and launching dozens of start-ups annually. UCF student and Capacitech Energy CEO Joe Sleppy advises other students at the Blackstone LaunchPad and used its resources to launch his business.

“This partnership with Techstars is a major added value to UCF’s ecosystem and the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership,” said Sleppy, who won UCF’s version of Shark Tank – the Joust New Venture Competition with his business idea in 2016. “The resources that will be shared are internationally desired, will give UCF students a major advantage, and will help them execute their visions.”