UCF students don 麻豆精品 S檛 wait until they graduate to begin changing the world.
Emboldened by a campus culture of exploring 麻豆精品 S渨hat if? 麻豆精品 S� and the university 麻豆精品 S檚 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 麻豆精品 S� 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 麻豆精品 S�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.
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Mason Mincey 麻豆精品 S�23, Derek Saltzman 麻豆精品 S�23, Matthew Jaeger 麻豆精品 S�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. 麻豆精品 S淲e 麻豆精品 S檙e on pace to build what we feel is going to be the largest global nanocellulose production facility in the world, 麻豆精品 S� Saltzman says. 麻豆精品 S淎nd we are not afraid to say that and stand behind it. That 麻豆精品 S檚 a big dream, but that 麻豆精品 S檚 kind of what we 麻豆精品 S檙e here to do 麻豆精品 S� make big changes. 麻豆精品 S�
These grads all credit their rise in large part to the immense support and knowledge they gained from UCF 麻豆精品 S檚 and . UCF invested $10-20,000 of alumni-funded awards from the annual competition and UpStarts program to support their venture development.
麻豆精品 S淐apacitech and Soarce illustrate how investments in technology development and entrepreneurship education can work together to increase innovation diffusion and societal impact, 麻豆精品 S� says Cameron Ford, William and Susan Crouse Endowed Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and Blackstone LaunchPad at UCF. 麻豆精品 S淭hey also illustrate the arduous, fraught, years-long paths that entrepreneurs commonly travel when no one is watching to achieve 麻豆精品 S榦vernight 麻豆精品 S� 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. 麻豆精品 S�
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:
