Under a high-stakes, simulated cyberattack and mounting pressure, the UCF Collegiate Cybersecurity Competition (C3) team proved it can defend, adapt and outperform — earning first place at the 2026 Southeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC).

The team rose above nine competitors, including Tennessee Tech University, Clemson University, the University of South Florida and the University of Florida. With the win, UCF advances to the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, which will be held virtually next month.

Twelve students make up this year’s C3 team: sophomore information technology (IT) majors Gabriel Edwards and Maksim Shostak; junior IT majors Logan Autry, Anthony Donnelly, Joseph Durand, Adam Raczynski and Jonathan Styles; senior IT major Ardian Peach; sophomore computer science major Tyler Waddell; junior computer science major Benjamin Williams; cyber security and privacy master’s student Andy Pompura ’23; and senior prelaw major Noah Magill, who serves as team captain.

UCF’s Legacy of Cybersecurity Success

Their stellar performance marks UCF’s ninth first-place finish at the Southeast CCDC regional since 2013. UCF earned runner-up finishes in 2017 and 2025, along with first-place titles in special at-large CCDC regionals during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

“UCF has historically maintained high service availability levels while under attack by the red team.” — Tom Nedorost ’02MS, senior instructor and C3 team coach

The team not only clinched the top spot but also swept all three categories, winning Best in Uptime Service, Best in Business and Best in Defense.

“UCF has historically maintained high service availability levels while under attack by the red team,” says Tom Nedorost ’02MS, C3 team coach and senior instructor of computer science and IT. “We lived up to that expectation again this year, which resulted in winning the Best in Uptime Service award.”

Nedorost adds that the team strengthened its ability to complete technical service requests while hardening systems against vulnerabilities to protect their network, key improvements that led to the two additional category wins.

Putting Cyber Defense Skills into Practice

At each competition, teams are tasked with defending a fictional company’s network against cyberattacks launched by red team members attempting to infiltrate it. All the while, competitors must maintain business operations and respond to customer service requests.

Each obstacle mimics real-world scenarios cybersecurity professionals face, allowing competitors to demonstrate their technical skills, business acumen and ability to collaborate.

It’s fun to go up against people [who, collectively,] would be a force to reckon with in the cyber world .” — Noah Magill, prelaw major and C3 team captain

Magill says the Southeast CCDC is among the most competitive, with red team members from leading companies such as Amazon Web Services and Cisco.

“All of them put together make up one of the scariest real-world life adversaries,” Magill says. “It’s fun to go up against people [who, collectively,] would be a force to reckon with in the cyber world — and a lot of [them] are [UCF] alumni.”

Next Up: Nationals

As the team sets its sights on the national competition, the work is far from over. Magill says a few more 100-hour weeks are likely ahead.

“Everyone on the team is incredibly adept at what they do and world-class [in] their specialty,” Magill says. “Leading this team [and relying] on such amazing teammates with such a diverse amount of skills has been really awesome.”

Keeping with this commitment, UCF’s deputy chief of police, David Zambri ’92 ’95MPA has been appointed as associate vice president and chief information security officer.

“The deputy chief’s FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force background, his access to the FBI’s network as a National Academy graduate, and his relationships with agencies like the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange and the U.S. Secret Service will enhance UCF’s ties with these critical law enforcement and national security agencies. I am thrilled he agreed to take on the role,” says Matthew Hall, UCF’s vice president for Information Technology and chief information officer.

Zambri, who holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a master’s degree in public administration from UCF, is already familiar with the university’s information technology deployment. He started his law enforcement career at UCF nearly three decades ago. With 14 years in senior leadership roles, he most recently served as the deputy chief of the UCF Police Department where he oversaw law enforcement information technology and criminal justice information systems.

“When I think of this (new) position, it really is a component of what I’ve done throughout my career,” Zambri says. “It’s keeping the community safe. It’s a shift from traditional crime prevention, law enforcement, and public safety to the cyber landscape. It’s serving the UCF community — keeping it safe from cybercriminals or nation-state actors who can cause immeasurable damage to our institution.

“My top priority is to build a network of support between UCF Information security and its law enforcement partners, the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense and others to ensure that we have the best prevention and response to cyberattacks.”

The FBI National Academy admission for Zambri was a life-changing experience. This exclusive program for senior leaders in law enforcement is a coveted professional development experience for both U.S. and international law enforcement participants. The nationally nominated participants have referred to it as “to law enforcement as to what West Point is to the military.”

IT @ UCF would like to thank former chief information security officer Chris Vakhordjian for his 20 years of dedication to the university and to IT. Under his leadership, he led the IT Security division, peers, students, staff and faculty to a greater understanding and appreciation of security. His contributions have left a positive impression on the success of IT @ UCF and the university as a whole.

Glaspie most recently served as the cyber risk and compliance program manager in the UCF Office of Research. He also has been the director of information technology for the UCF College of Medicine and the IT manager for the UCF Foundation.

In making the appointment, Matt Hall, UCF vice president for Information Technology and CIO, says Glaspie’s extensive IT background and more than 25 years of leadership experience at UCF and elsewhere made him a strong choice. Glaspie’s previous roles outside Ů��AV include serving with the College of Central Florida as associate vice president of information technology and CIO; the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida, as director of information technology; and the University of Hawaii as director of information technology.

Glaspie also served for eight years as a U.S. Naval officer in logistics support.

“Dr. Glaspie is critical to planning the future of information technology at UCF,” Hall says. “He’s a veteran of UCF, a Navy veteran, and possesses an amazing personality that brings people together in a consensus-building and collaborative way.”

Glaspie earned a B.S. degree in information engineering technology from the University of Cincinnati and a B.A. in applied mathematics from Hampton University. He has earned three graduate degrees and a graduate certification from UCF: a Ph.D. in modeling and simulation, master’s degrees in modeling and simulation and industrial engineering, and a graduate certificate in computer forensics and digital security.

Glaspie says he looks forward to working cross-departmentally and establishing relationships throughout the university to help improve technology and the customer experience across campus, particularly for students and the faculty and staff.

“UCF has been a shining example across higher education with how we have grown the educational and research missions before and during the pandemic,” Glaspie says. “I am hoping to work with our talented campus community and leverage the achievements in technology to help UCF meet and exceed its goals.”

“I look forward to welcoming Matt to the leadership team and to working with him to help our faculty, staff and students to teach, learn and innovate at their best.”
— President Alexander N. Cartwright

Hall is currently the senior associate vice chancellor for information technology and cyber risk responsible executive at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Previously, he held positions at Koch Industries International, Microsoft, Bank of America and Vanderbilt University, and also served in sworn law enforcement positions at the Williamson County (Tenn.) Sheriff’s Office and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

“We are excited about the experience, leadership and vision that Matt brings to help UCF leverage technology to elevate academic achievement and operational excellence,” says Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Michael Johnson. “His ability to help us find opportunities for digital innovation is a key to our future success.”

During his time at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Hall developed the university’s first IT strategy, developed governance and federated IT structures and consolidated IT operations, including standardizing email and collaboration. He also played a critical role ensuring the success of enterprise-wide projects, including the implementation of a new enterprise resource system.

“Ů��AV is a fantastic opportunity because of its growth, its aspirational goals and the energy of its people,” Hall says. “The mission of the institution — accessibility, affordability and innovation — is something I look forward to being a part of.”

In his role at UCF, Hall will report to the provost and serve as a key member of the senior leadership team to provide executive leadership and strategic vision for the institution’s information technology infrastructure, assets and services. He will also work collaboratively with the university community, including faculty and staff members and university leaders to leverage technological innovations to support research and instruction while also improving administrative systems and business processes.

“Matt has a breadth of experience leading technology upgrades, support and security that aligns well with our vision for the future,” says President Alexander N. Cartwright. “I look forward to welcoming Matt to the leadership team and to working with him to help our faculty, staff and students to teach, learn and innovate at their best.”

The 16-member search committee, which included faculty, staff and student representatives, was co-chaired by Jeff Moore, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, and Paige Borden ’95MBA ’00EdD, associate provost and chief analytics officer.

Joel Hartman, who served as vice president for information technologies and resources and chief information officer, retired in July after 25 years at UCF. Michael Sink has been serving in this role in an interim capacity and will report to Hall when he assumes his new role.

Hall earned his B.A. in international affairs from the University of South Florida and a M.S. in the same subject from Florida State University. He and his wife, Lisa, are the parents of three boys: Michael, Jacob and Ayden.

“Each individual competitor needed to possess the knowledge and skills and perform all the work typically spread among a six-member team.”
— Tom Nedorost

Due to the pandemic, this year’s CyberForce competition shifted from an in-person test designed for teams to a virtual challenge designed for individual competitors. More than 450 college students from across the nation were selected to participate in the sixth annual competition, but only 201 students from 36 states earned points in the cybersecurity exercise intended to mimic the energy sector.

This year’s scenario required competitors to secure and report on a fictitious wind energy company in charge of more than 20,000 megawatts of electricity generation that had been experiencing abnormal network activity.

“Each individual competitor needed to possess the knowledge and skills and perform all the work typically spread among a six-member team,” says Associate Lecturer of Computer Science Tom Nedorost, faculty advisor for known as Hack@UCF. “Michael demonstrated both exceptional breadth and depth of skills and knowledge required to configure, secure and defend multiple Linux and Windows servers, networks, firewalls and [industrial control systems] operating turbines of commercial windmills.”

A digital forensics graduate student, Roberts earned a bachelor’s in information technology from Ů��AV in 2019 and is a member of the Hack@UCF team that placed second at last year’s CyberForce competition and first in the 2018 competition. He has also been captain of the teams that placed second in 2018, 2019 and 2020 at the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition as well as the teams that placed first at the Panoply National Competition in 2017 and 2018 and the Leidos Cyber Challenge in 2017.

“I’m just excited to see my hard work pay off and to be recognized by the Department of Energy for getting second place,” says Roberts. “I am glad that there are competitions like this that improve the visibility of the work we do. These competitions are training undergraduate students, so they gain new skills, as well as people like me who are already in the industry, so we can gain additional skills that can be applied on the job.”

In addition to having an active role in Hack@UCF, Roberts has completed internships at Northrop Grumman, IBM and Chick-fil-A, and currently works as an information security engineer at Abbott Laboratories in Orlando.

“I am glad that there are competitions like this that improve the visibility of the work we do.”
— Michael Roberts ’19

“Cybersecurity really has two sides,” Roberts says. “There’s the offensive side where you’re trying to break into a company to test whether they’re secure or not, and then you let them know how they can be improved; and then there’s the defensive side where you secure the company from attacks. I interned at different places to get a variety of experience and to discover what I liked best. For the past year or so, I’ve been working in the healthcare field, and it feels nice to be making some very important healthcare products more secure, especially given this pandemic.”

According to the Center for Cyber Safety and Education, unfilled cybersecurity careers are expected to reach more than 1.8 million by 2022 — a 20% increase in demand since 2015.

The DOE established the CyberForce competition to address this growing need, by raising awareness of energy sector cybersecurity as a career path among budding professionals.

“The American cybersecurity workforce is facing a gap in talent, and this competition is an exciting, engaging part of helping to fill that gap,” says Nick Andersen, principal deputy assistant secretary of the DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response. “Every year, we see incredibly promising students competing in the CyberForce Competition, and this year was no exception.”

The moves include UCF’s national-model DirectConnect to Ů��AV program and UCF Global, which among other responsibilities, manages international student recruitment, English language programs for students and the community, and international partnerships in education, research and business.

Other aspects of the realignment involve units that impact online student services, faculty training and development, and continuing education for working professionals.

“At UCF, we strive for constant improvement,” Johnson says. “These changes allow us to continue our focus on student success and the student experience.”

The reorganization by the Division of Academic Affairs will unfold throughout September with the following units and offices:

• DirectConnect to UCF and the UCF Connect Centers move to the Division of Student Learning and Academic Success, reporting to Theodorea Regina Berry, vice provost of Student Learning and Academic Success and dean of the College of Undergraduate Studies;
• UCF Global moves to the Office of the Provost, reporting to Tim Letzring, senior associate provost for Academic Affairs;
• UCF Online Connect Center and UCF Continuing Education move to the Division of Digital Learning, reporting to Tom Cavanagh, vice provost for Digital Learning;
• Office of Instructional Resources Classroom Support, Engineering, Programming and Project Management teams move to UCF Information Technology, reporting to Michael Sink, interim vice president and CIO.

The transitions for DirectConnect to UCF, the UCF Connect Centers and UCF Global coincide with the Oct. 1 retirement of Jeff Jones, vice provost for UCF Connect and UCF Global. Johnson praised Jones for his impactful work during his seven years at UCF and for his suggestions and insights regarding the overall realignment.

“The possibilities for this reimagining are exciting,” Johnson said. “As we move forward, success relies on the creativity and collaboration of our staff, faculty and partners.”

In a pre-COVID world, UCF’s main campus is typically flooded during the course of a weekend with thousands of students lugging bedding, appliances, shower caddies and wall décor to their rooms at each of the eight housing communities.

But just like everything else in 2020, the pandemic changed the rules, and move-in for 6,000 students required a complex drive-thru process centralized in parking garages designed to maximize physical distancing.

Chick-fil-A Connection

When April Konvalinka, executive director of housing and residence life at UCF, realized this year’s move-in would need to be especially creative, she looked to a friend — Chick-fil-A franchise owner and operator Jason Barnes — for some guidance. He is a member of the fast food chain’s innovation team, which focuses on operating high-volume drive-thrus efficiently.

His advice helped shape some of the initiatives ��AV implemented. Key among those was identifying the number of stations to help keep traffic moving, ensuring each worker had no more than two responsibilities at each station and a complete dry-run to test the process.

It was a starting point, but Konvalinka knew she was going to need more help in creating the detailed new protocols. So she turned to UCF’s IT project management office, a team that provides management and business analysis services across the university.

Konvalinka’s request for help turned into an ultra-collaborative effort spanning 10 departments and more than 80 people over the course of three weeks to revolutionize move-in at UCF.

Team Effort

Lucrecia Krause, a business analysis manager for UCF IT who served as the project manager for the move-in, started compiling data to get a better understanding of what checking in 6,000 students on the main campus over the span of 16 days would look like.

Her initial projections estimated wait times up to six hours for a single student to complete check in.

“We always strive to provide the best experience for our students, and this wasn’t it,” Krause says.

Additionally, she knew she needed to resolve numerous unanswered questions: How many lanes should receive cars? How many staff were needed? How many PCs and iPads should be on hand to check in residents? What happens if someone arrives in a moving van, which doesn’t fit in a parking garage? What way should traffic flow to prevent backups?

In order to address the issues and find ways to reduce wait times, Krause needed to get her hands on simulation software. After asking around the university, she connected with Assistant Professor Adan Vela, who teaches industrial engineering.

“This is sort of the bread and butter for our major,” Vela says. “As engineers, when we perform a simulation analysis, it’s usually to provide guidance, confirm feasibility and caution for potential pitfalls. Simulation analysis is a tool within the decision-making process, and we knew this was going to be a big endeavor, so we were more than happy to jump on board.”

Engineering Students Pitch In

Vela offered five of his students – doctoral students Valeria Laynes Fiascunari ’16 ’19MS and Jorge Flavio Sarmiento Falla ’16 ’18MS and undergraduate students Miguel Angel Victoria, Sebastian Berdecia-Aparicio and Elsayed Gabara — to help with the project by running simulation scenarios.

Laynes says at first she thought it seemed like a fairly straight forward process to iron out, but once she and the team started learning of the many constraints from the numerous departments involved, it became complicated quickly.

The team used a software called Simio, which industrial engineering students are exposed to in their classes at UCF. Laynes says everything she learned in her simulation courses prepared her for this job.

Using Simio, they were able to account for numerous details that affected the speed of the experience.

For example, each resident initially was going to be slotted a two-hour check-in window. But research shows when you allow a two-hour time block, people generally arrive within the first 30 minutes, creating surges of traffic. By narrowing the window to 15 minutes for each resident, the team demonstrated how spreading out the appointments would help prevent the surges and backups.

Solving Real World Problems

The team presented regularly to key stakeholders, including members of UCF’s police, parking, student health services and housing departments.

The group left each meeting with feedback to compute in order to present updated projections again the next day. The students, who were also juggling classes or teaching assistant responsibilities, met sometimes until 1 or 2 a.m. to complete the work but everyone felt it was worth the sleep deprivation.

“Having a real client, especially one as big as UCF with a lot of stakeholders in a lot of different departments, is a really rich experience that any industrial engineering needs on their resume,” says Laynes, who worked for IBM for three years in between her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. “This project is as close as it gets to reality because this is a real-world job. We’re really grateful for this experience.”

For Krause, who spent hours collaborating with the team to review, adjust and then re-adjust models, she was confident everything would go according to plan on the first weekend of move-in appointments.

“This whole experience has shown that when we all come to together to achieve a task of this magnitude, amazing things can happen.”

She and members of the planning team observed nearly 900 students arrive over a two-day period in anticipation of the new semester. The time to check in, which included a COVID testing in one garage and Housing check-in another garage, averaged under 30 minutes total, with some families going through the entire process — including travel between the garages — in an impressive 18 minutes.

A post check-in survey after the first weekend conducted by Housing and Residence Life confirmed student and family satisfaction with the new process. Of the 75 Knights who responded to the survey, nearly all (97.3 percent) were satisfied with their move-in experience and, of those who experienced move-in at another campus, 84.6 percent indicated their UCF experience was better.

“We have incredibly talented and dedicated staff at UCF, who are all willing to do their part to support the health and well-being of our staff, students and their families,” Konvalinka says. “This whole experience has shown that when we all come to together to achieve a task of this magnitude, amazing things can happen.”

Hartman joined Ů��AV in 1995, and has played a vital role in shaping the university’s technological, academic and information infrastructure and landscapes, overseeing information security, computing, the library, telecommunications and space administration.

“Joel has spent the past 25 years building UCF’s digital and online teaching and learning platforms into one of the most innovative in the nation,” says Interim President Thad Seymour. “I want to thank Joel for his remarkable leadership and service to UCF and his willingness to stay in the role through the opening of UCF Downtown and the 21st Century Library project.”

The developments made during Hartman’s tenure are vast, spanning connectivity, security and learning. He not only led the effort to connect members of the UCF community across locations and campuses through the campus network but collaborated with State University System institutions to create Florida LambdaRail, which provides reliable, high-capacity connections to the Internet and Internet2. He laid the technological framework for both Medical City and UCF Downtown and developed effective partnerships with major technology companies such as Microsoft. And he also increased information security measures across the board to respond to the ever-evolving cyber landscape.

Under his vision, academic endeavors entered the 21^st century through the development of UCF’s highly successful online learning initiative, the equipping of all classrooms with modern multimedia technology, the expansion of library resources and the launch of the 21^st Century Library project.

Long seen as an expert in his field, Hartman is the only person to have received top leadership recognition awards from both EDUCAUSE and the Online Learning Consortium. He has served as an information technology consultant to both the public and the private sectors, has published numerous articles, delivered many conference presentations, and has been active in the development of statewide education and research networks in Illinois and Florida. He has served and held offices on numerous state, regional and national IT organizations in the fields of public broadcasting, distributed learning as well as research and education networking.

Hartman graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism and communications and earned his doctorate in curriculum and instruction from UCF.

So I now find myself washed up on the webbed shores of information technology (IT) where I rely on much younger students and colleagues to help me navigate new systems and applications. This makes me a pilgrim and in order to survive I need help from digital natives.

Marc Prensky, a writer and speaker on education, coined the terms “digital native” and “digital immigrant” in his essay On the Horizon (2001). He points out that while digital immigrants can learn IT and become quite proficient at its uses, digital immigrants will think differently and process information in different ways from digital natives who are socialized in highly digitized, information-rich environments. Even with high levels of IT proficiency, digital immigrants will still retain a “footprint” or “accent” from their analog pasts. But no matter how skilled I am at an application such as PowerPoint, my accent gives me away as a digital immigrant. (Another giveaway: gray hair.)

When I was in grade school, we had lessons on using dictionaries and encyclopedias. I’m referring to hardcopy, carbon-based dictionaries and encyclopedias because that was all we had. It would be well after I completed my graduate studies that online dictionaries, Google and Wikipedia would become commonplace.

By the time I was in college, pocket calculators were starting to supplant slide rules. ��However, in the early 1970s, few of us had a pocket calculator because the one with a square root function still cost several thousand dollars. My first “mobile” device was a pocket calculator that I purchased as a graduate student. I remember that it was made by Casio and had a square root function, played musical tunes, and even told time. I thought it was the bee’s knees. (For digital natives unfamiliar with this term, an online dictionary defines bee’s knees as an anachronistic phrase denoting excellence).

In graduate school it became clear to me that despite my digital shortcomings, I needed to embrace information technology or die.

In graduate school it became clear to me that despite my digital shortcomings, I needed to embrace information technology or die. This was because my dissertation required complex statistical analyses that were beyond the scope of pocket calculators, even the ones with a square root function. Because my survival instincts were intact, I loaded all my data onto 80-column IBM punch cards. In those days, it was common to see graduate students carrying shoe boxes on campus. I was one of those students.

This was because large data sets required hundreds of punch cards that could easily be transported in a shoe box. The next step was to compile punch-card data to be analyzed. On our campus this required a card reader that converted punch-card data into an optical tape format. Back then optical tape was made of paper in which holes were machine-punched according to the octal numeral system. That is, a base-8 system (imagine that you learned to count having only eight fingers). As a member of the original geek squad, I actually learned to count in octal because there was a need to visually inspect tape when there was no access to an optical tape reader.

I remember my first portable computer in the mid-1980s. The term “portable” is used advisedly as it weighed a whopping 28 pounds. When secured in its case, it looked and felt like a hefty sewing machine. My Compaq had 128k of RAM, operated at 4.77 MHz, and was MS-DOS based. But it did have its own built-in keyboard and a nine-inch monochromatic green monitor. I thought it was the bee’s knees.

Despite many successes, my transition as an immigrant to the digital nation has been uneven. It was only recently that I gave up my “dumb” phone. You know, the kind that only does voice. When I tell my students that I still don’t text on my new smartphone, I immediately set myself apart generationally and digitally.

So where does this leave me? As a digital immigrant I am grateful for the resources and support that is available in our webbed universe. Much like the colonial pilgrims, I need help in order to survive and the digital natives who are my students and colleagues have always been generous in their support. My students are especially eager to assist me and I appreciate when the student has become the teacher with a great deal of humility on my part. I also appreciate that the digital nation is a highly accessible democracy with permeable borders.

Global communication by multimedia, memes going viral, and the rapid creation of online communities are developments for which there is no turning back. The digital landscape is my adopted home now, but I still have memories of my pre-digital motherland.

Perhaps when I have grandkids sitting on my lap, I’ll begin my story “When I was your age going to school, they made me use a dictionary—yeah, the paper kind!”

Alvin Wang resumed his role as a professor in the Ů��AV’s Department of Psychology this year after serving 11 years as dean of the Burnett Honors College. He can be reached at Alvin.Wang@ucf.edu.

The UCF Forum is a weekly series of opinion columns presented by UCF Communications & Marketing. A new column is posted each Wednesday at /news/ and then broadcast between 7:50 and 8 a.m. Sunday on WUCF-FM (89.9). The columns are the opinions of the writers, who serve on the UCF Forum panel of faculty members, staffers and students for a year.

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.