At UMBC, entrepreneurship transcends a traditional business education: It empowers scientists, artists, and technologists to transform their expertise into real-world impact. Through business accelerators, ambassador programs, interdisciplinary courses, and other innovation pathways, the university offers many avenues for ideas to flourish.

Kushani Mendis and her labmates have developed novel nanomaterials that could transform biomedical technology. She wants to translate their discoveries into a business opportunity, but initially, wasn’t sure what steps to take. So, early in her chemistry Ph.D. with Zeev Rosenzweig, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, Mendis told him that she wanted to become an entrepreneur—and he jumped at the chance to creatively support her with internal and external resources.

UMBC has no formal business school. Yet it may be one of the best places in the country to learn entrepreneurial thinking—precisely because the best ideas so often come from those with technical expertise rather than MBAs. Also, many UMBC entrepreneurs are motivated by a desire to drive positive social change rather than profit, which is supported by courses on “socialpreneurship.” Overall, the university’s model rests on a simple but powerful dual thesis: 1) Disciplinary excellence paired with an entrepreneurial mindset produces graduates who create real-world impact, and 2) entrepreneurship is for everyone. 

Employers repeatedly say they need graduates who excel in communication, creative problem-solving, collaboration, and constructive conflict navigation. Traits like resilience and empathy are in high demand—after all, finding effective solutions often requires understanding problems from another’s perspective. UMBC’s courses and programs deliberately train these skills, which can enhance the success of entrepreneurs—and every UMBC graduate.

The results speak for themselves. Students are winning state and national funding, launching ventures, gaining versatile life skills, and contributing to Maryland’s innovation economy. This spring, two UMBC student teams—iBraid and StrikeSense—each received $50,000 Pava LePere Innovation Awards. Others have advanced through the university’s Summer Launchpad accelerator and secured funding totaling more than $300,000 in the past three years.

An entrepreneurial environment

The roots of UMBC’s entrepreneurship emphasis trace back to 2000, with the founding of the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Initially led by Vivian Armour and supported by Constellation Energy Group and the Bearman Foundation, the center took off in 2006 the Kauffman Foundation awarded funds to a small cohort of universities including UMBC, as well as Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Arizona State, and Purdue, to further their entrepreneurship efforts. Armour invited Gib Mason ’95, economics, a serial entrepreneur who had been guest lecturing at UMBC, to help steward UMBC’s $2 million Kauffman award.

“Kauffman’s research had shown that it wasn’t the business school students bringing entrepreneurial ideas to the marketplace,” Mason recalls. “It was the engineers and the tech guys and gals.” The foundation’s premise was that exposing disciplinary experts to entrepreneurial environments could help them develop and commercialize new ideas, he explains.

That initiative led to the creation of UMBC’s minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The 18-credit program combines two core entrepreneurship courses with 12 credits from designated courses across UMBC’s three colleges, where faculty have infused entrepreneurial principles into existing major curricula. Today, more than 70 courses in biology, public health, information systems, art, and engineering count toward the minor, making it broadly accessible. 

The center turned 25 this academic year. Kevin Fulmer, its first full-time director and a lifelong entrepreneur, has spent the past five years expanding its reach and visibility. “Before there were any full-time staff, awareness of the center was fairly minimal,” he says. Under his leadership, Introduction to Entrepreneurship—which fills up quickly every semester—was approved as a General Education Program course. The center also launched a student ambassador program, and now six students promote events, support programming, and serve as peer mentors. Faculty can apply for funding to embed entrepreneurial thinking in their courses, and designated faculty fellows from each college are designing discipline-specific tracks within the minor. “We’re trying to make it as accessible for as many students as possible,” Fulmer explains.

A separate master’s in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Leadership—developed by Mason and offered through UMBC’s Division of Professional Studies—has served working professionals since 2019 and draws on the same philosophy of practical application. Meanwhile, the center’s summer Launchpad accelerator has supported more than 20 student ventures since 2022; participants receive an $8,000 stipend to dedicate 10-weeks to full-time customer discovery and problem validation. iBraid and StrikeSense, the Maryland award winners, emerged from the accelerator’s pipeline. Additional opportunities include the fall Idea and Innovation Challenge (with a popular social-impact category) and the spring Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition for more developed concepts. 

All of this exists without a traditional business school. Instead, UMBC has built an ecosystem that meets students where they are—inside their technical and creative majors—and provides the tools to translate discovery into impact. “Entrepreneurship is for everyone,” the Alex. Brown Center’s website proclaims, regardless of major or career aspirations.

Not-so-risky business

Entrepreneurship at UMBC emphasizes mindset over venture creation alone. “It’s really just about solving problems and using an entrepreneurial mindset to do that,” Fulmer stresses.

Studies suggest that only 30 to 50 percent of graduates nationally are employed in roles directly related to their specific field of study, Fulmer notes. “You may have all the technical skills in the world, but not get these life skills from your major,” he adds. UMBC’s approach prepares students for diverse careers—launching startups, innovating inside a corporation, teaching, or pursuing research—by developing empathy and resilience and building creative problem-solving and communication skills.

Mason challenges the stereotype that entrepreneurs are reckless risk takers. “Most entrepreneurs are constantly making informed decisions to mitigate risks,” he says. He draws from childhood summers working on his grandfather’s Kansas farm, where he earned money from “his” acres of wheat—until one year a tornado destroyed the crop. The experience taught him that “there’s a lot that you can control and a lot that you can’t.” True entrepreneurs, he says, take calculated risks and then work diligently to reduce them.

Many UMBC students are drawn to “socialpreneurship”—ventures that solve societal problems rather than chase profit. “Students today seem especially geared toward trying to do things for social impact,” Mason says. The center’s social-impact track in competitions reflects this, and courses like Creative Problem Solving and The Socialpreneur have led to tangible outcomes, such as OCA Mocha, a coffee shop connecting UMBC with the Baltimore community.

Braiding the future 

Velma Funebe, a public health major, embodies this orientation. Her venture, iBraid, uses augmented reality to help users part and braid their own hair—transforming protective styling that can become a multi-day ordeal into a more manageable process. Inspired by braiding her own hair since age 11 and running a professional braiding business since ninth grade, Funebe validated demand via TikTok and conversations. “I realized it was a major problem because so many people struggled with it,” she says. “I couldn’t find any solutions out there.”

As an Entrepreneurship Ambassador, she now supports programming and events like 1 Million Cups, another Kauffman Foundation initiative where entrepreneurs pitch ideas and get feedback. The Baltimore edition meets at OCA Mocha twice monthly. “The scariest part is when the idea is not just in your brain, but other people hear it,” Funebe says. “But I think it’s a great space to get feedback and say, ‘Okay, I can live through an application rejection.’” 

Funebe’s faith helps anchor her while she balances classes, leadership in the Public Health Council of Majors, weekend braiding appointments, and venture development. iBraid has gained strong traction: a second-place finish in UMBC’s Idea and Innovation Challenge, the Pava LaPere Innovation Award, a waitlist approaching 4,000, and more than 10,000 TikTok followers. Beta testing is underway, supported in part by two UMBC data science graduate fellows through the Maryland New Venture program at bwtech@UMBC, a business incubator adjacent to campus. iBraid’s momentum continued to build at Maryland New Venture Pitch Night ’26, where Funebe took third place and received the Audience Choice Visionary Award. 

“The Alex. Brown Center has played an essential role in helping me to grow my confidence,” she says. To others considering giving entrepreneurship a try, she says, “Don’t be afraid to fail—at least you get a result out of failing, and can learn a lot from it.”

Striking while it’s hot

Abhinav Patel, Charles Nerad, and Aidan Fleischer, co-founders of StrikeSense, channeled frustration with their Taekwondo training into innovation. In competition, expensive electronic wearables detect hits and record scores, but most athletes lack access to that equipment in practice. “I had the idea for a sparring vest with a health bar like something from a video game,” Nerad says. 

The team developed an affordable sensor attachment that turns any existing sparring vest into a smart vest capable of detecting and scoring hits, with a gamified “health bar” interface. After placing second in the 2025 Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition, they joined the summer Launchpad program. 

“All of the support we have gotten from UMBC has been instrumental, and we wouldn’t be where we are today without it.” Patel notes. Mentors like Donald Miner ’06, Ph.D. 2010, computer science; and Chris Ewing, an “entrepreneur in residence” at bwtech@UMBC, and especially Fulmer provided guidance: “Without him, we would not have had the encouragement to continue, the accountability to work hard, and the guidance to grow,” Nerad adds. 

They are now refining software and preparing a pilot program with local dojos. “There is no better time to take a chance on an idea than right now,” Nerad advises. “You are surrounded by thousands of brilliant minds at UMBC, and have access to dedicated mentors who genuinely want you to succeed.”

And Kushani Mendis is now thriving at the intersection of research and entrepreneurship. She’s participated in the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology, represented UMBC in the regional 3-Minute Thesis competition, and completed training at Brookhaven National Lab through UMBC’s Chemistry and Biology Interface program. To younger scientists, she says: “Being a scientist does not have to mean being confined in a lab. You are a human who has a lot of potential that you can give out to the community.”

As Fulmer puts it, “We’ve always been really great at UMBC at training students’ analytical, left-brain development—but our entrepreneurship programs are promoting right-brain skills as well, which are just as important.”

Extending the ecosystem

Faculty, alumni, and the broader community benefit, too. bwtech@UMBC offers state-of-the-art labs and work spaces, educational programming, mentorship, and industry connections. Many alumni and community members have built businesses there that contribute jobs and innovative products and services to the regional economy.

In addition, the Entrepreneurial Skills Training program for faculty in the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences helps principal investigators apply strategic, startup-style thinking to manage their multi-million-dollar research labs. “They’re running a business, whether they like it or not,” says Mason, who originally designed the program that’s now run by Fulmer. “They’re hiring people, buying resources, creating stuff.” 

Finally, the new Entrepreneurial Learning Lab (ELL) pairs faculty with trained students to evaluate research for commercialization potential—without requiring faculty to become full-time CEOs. The inaugural cohort drew strong interest: 23 faculty applied for 10 spots alongside 54 student applications. “We’re not trying to change what faculty do in terms of research and teaching,” Fulmer explains, “but while they’re doing that, think about potential impact.”

This diverse array of entry points—from minors and master’s programs to accelerators, competitions, and faculty-student collaborations—deliberately creates an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem. Ideas from any discipline or career stage have room to grow.

The bigger picture

UMBC’s entrepreneurial ecosystem does more than launch student ventures; it strengthens Maryland’s innovation economy, particularly in biotech, health tech, and advanced materials. The university’s strengths in these areas—coupled with proximity to federal labs and funding—creates what Fulmer calls a “target-rich environment.” Many Launchpad teams naturally transition into bwtech@UMBC’s incubation programs, forming a clear pathway from classroom concept to scalable company.

Today, Mendis’s schedule is packed with interviews of biomedical technology researchers in government, academia, and industry. Her probing questions are helping determine whether her lab’s novel nanomaterials have commercial potential. Rosenzweig’s encouragement and programs like the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps), which trains scientists to translate research into societal impact, have been key. She is thriving, balancing independent laboratory research, teaching and mentoring undergraduates, and her entrepreneurial work; she even occasionally finds time to engage her artistic side.

Whether or not students like Mendis ultimately launch businesses, at UMBC, they gain versatile skills—problem-solving, communication, empathy, and resilience—that will serve them across diverse careers. Here, entrepreneurial thinking is not an elective add-on but foundational preparation for an unpredictable world. 

“UMBC’s model—technical excellence plus mindset training—prepares graduates to innovate anywhere,” Fulmer says, “making the university a powerful driver of Maryland’s future.”

Major: Engineering Management (M.S.)
Hometown: Gujarat, India
High School: St. Xaviers High School, India

Turning experience into impact

Over his two years of graduate study at UMBC, Yash Bhatt has given back as much as he’s gained, contributing meaningfully to both the university and the greater Baltimore community. As a graduate student, Bhatt arrived at UMBC with an undergraduate degree and professional experience, but he says he was not yet the confident leader he is today. Over his two years as an engineering management graduate student, Bhatt developed his leadership skills through hands-on learning, collaboration, and real-world application.

Learning through experience

Bhatt credits his advanced project management course—which he says every engineering management student should take—as one of the most impactful parts of his academic experience. Through the Maryland New Venture Program at bwtech@UMBC, Bhatt contributed as a project manager for SphereHub, an AI-driven platform designed to help international students navigate housing and logistical challenges while studying in the U.S. Not only did Bhatt gain valuable practical experience and the satisfaction of providing tangible assistance to the project, but the opportunity also led to a meaningful summer internship.

Giving back to the community

Bhatt also served as a graduate assistant for both the Division of Professional Studies (DPS) and the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. He credits his experience with VITA, where he was trained alongside other volunteers to help low-income Marylanders prepare their taxes, with giving him the confidence to talk to anyone and the sense of purpose that comes from making a real difference in people’s lives. The experience also deepened his understanding of life in the United States and in Maryland specifically, as community members welcomed him into their lives and trusted him with their financial situations, sometimes simply appreciating that someone cared enough to listen. Through his work with DPS, Bhatt is also involved in the Baltimore Waterfront Re-Imagining Project, in which UMBC is serving as a coalition partner in creating an Inner Harbor that better serves the needs of Baltimore residents.

Contributing to campus life

Outside of the classroom, Bhatt dedicated himself to enhancing student life. As a member of the Indian Graduate Student Association and the Black and Gold Student Advisory Board, he advocated for international students and contributed to university decision-making. Bhatt also joined two Alternative Spring Break experiences. Starting as a participant and returning as a program leader, Bhatt immersed himself in what he considers a genuine “American student experience,” building local friendships and making connections within local government and community organizations, in addition to the service the participants provided to the community.

A legacy of service

In finishing his two years of graduate studies, Bhatt leaves UMBC not just with a master’s degree in engineering management, but with a supportive local community and a wealth of experience spanning high-level project management, community advocacy, and campus leadership. While Bhatt arrived seeking to grow as a professional, he will graduate as a confident leader who has enriched the community as much as it has enriched him.

“The best part of my UMBC experience has been the people and the sense of community. UMBC has this unique balance—it’s diverse and full of opportunity like a larger university, yet still close-knit enough that you truly feel seen and supported,” he says.

All photos courtesy of Bhatt. Story by Sharon Brown, international recruitment coordinator in the Center for Global Engagement.

Two student-led UMBC start-ups have been selected to receive 2026 Pava LePere Innovation Awards, granting them $50,000 each from the state of Maryland to support their business, as well as access to mentorship, training, and strategic support from the Maryland Student Venture Core Advisory Board and representatives from a network of entrepreneur support organizations across the local tech ecosystem.

The first start-up, called iBraid, was founded by Velma Funebe, a junior studying public health. She is building an augmented reality braiding app to help users part faster, see more clearly, and confidently braid their own hair.

The second start-up, called Strike Sense, is led by Charles Nerad, a sophomore studying media and communications and financial economics, and Aidan Fleischer,and Abhinav Patel, both sophomores studying mechanical engineering. The team is developing cost-effective attachments to transform any existing martial arts chest protector into an electronic, gamified system with sound effects and a “health bar.”

The teams were recognized at the Maryland Student Venture Showcase, held February 18 in Baltimore. 

Aspiring entrepreneurs can tap a wealth of resources at UMBC. The Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, led by director Kevin Fulmer, supports the entrepreneurial mindset with courses, speaker series featuring business leaders, start-up accelerator programs, and assistance with business ideas and networking with experts.

Last spring, Strike Sense competed and won second place in the technology and innovation track at the Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition, established by Greg Cangialosi ’96, English, an entrepreneurial leader in Baltimore. The competition provides UMBC student entrepreneurs with real-world experience, pairing them with mentors and connecting them to the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Winners receive valuable support, including free legal and accounting services, a six-month affiliate membership at the bwtech@UMBC incubator, and guidance for fundraising and pitch development.

This year marks the second in a row that UMBC teams have won Pava LePere Innovation Awards, following the success of Elastic Energy, co-founded by mechanical engineering junior Samuel Bendek, at the inaugural awards in 2025.

“We are excited about the continued exposure and opportunities our student ventures are receiving in the broader Baltimore entrepreneurship community. It is validation that the programs we’ve put in place over the past few years are starting to pay dividends,” says Fulmer. “The ideas students are coming up with continue to be very impactful in creating economic and social impact in addition to being a great learning experience.”

UMBC is continuing its commitment to diversifying Maryland’s biomedical and life sciences ecosystem through its latest collaborative effort with the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) to develop a new life sciences accelerator program focused on faculty development and research commercialization efforts. 

UMBC and UMB were jointly awarded a four-year, $4 million Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs (REACH) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance the biomedical entrepreneurship and innovation economy in the Baltimore region. This grant will be used to build on the work that began when UMBC and the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) received a $13 million NIH Common Fund Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation (FIRST) grant in 2022 to enhance recruitment and training of junior faculty from groups underrepresented in biomedical science.

“We have a long-term commitment to enhance the diversity of the faculty on our two campuses in the biomedical and life sciences,” says Karl V. Steiner, UMBC’s vice president of research and creative achievement and co-principal investigator of the new REACH grant. “We are pleased to further strengthen the close partnership with our colleagues at UMB and beyond with this next initiative.”

Building a life sciences accelerator program

The REACH grant will fund up to 44 early-career faculty and students from UMBC and UMB (11 each year) with up to $100,000 each to develop and test commercially-promising biomedical and life science technologies. Additionally, UMB will use a portion of the grant funding to create the University of Maryland, Baltimore Life Science Discovery (UM-BILD) Accelerator Program’s “proof-of-concept” hub that will be housed at the University of Maryland BioPark and at the bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park. The UM-BILD hub, set to launch next year, is one of only five REACH hubs awarded funding across the nation. 

Aaron Miscenich, executive director of bwtech@UMBC, explains that bwtech@UMBC has done extensive work in developing a strong community centered around entrepreneurship and technology commercialization. 

“UMBC’s partnership with UMB to create this technology commercialization hub will [further] enhance our work and bring additional support to UMBC’s research community,” Miscenich says. “It’s a great opportunity to bring together UMBC faculty and students with resources that can help further develop promising technologies and help them to grow into thriving businesses.”

UMSOM’s Jason Rose, principal investigator of the REACH grant, shared how both institutions plan to support the biotech entrepreneurs who take part in the accelerator program. 

“We recognize that to create our own unique cohort of newly trained biotech entrepreneurs here in Baltimore, our accelerator will need to provide them with both research support and funding, as well as guidance through the process of commercialization and technology development,” Rose said in a UMSOM press release. “We will be providing mentoring and educational programs from a diverse set of successful life science innovators and leaders to help distill their broad experiences—from navigating FDA regulatory pathways to financing new companies—to all of those who interact with the hub.” 

This initiative, Steiner adds, aims to increase the number of Black and Latinx entrepreneurs in the biomedical and life sciences.

“As we look at the makeup of entrepreneurs across our communities, it’s obvious that we are under-serving those underserved communities. This will be yet another building block in our joint commitment to ensure that we focus on and benefit from the breadth of entrepreneurial talent in Maryland,” says Steiner. “We’re looking to bring in more individuals from underrepresented communities into the faculty ranks and actively help them develop a strong network of peers and mentors to allow them to successfully build their careers and their businesses in Maryland, with support from UMBC with bwtech and support from UMB.”

UMBC President Valerie Sheares Ashby shares that “we are excited to work together to create opportunities for everyone to benefit from and contribute to this innovation ecosystem, staying true to our long-held commitment to inclusive excellence.” 

Commercialization efforts at UMBC

Wendy Martin, director of UMBC’s Office of Technology Development, will assist in selecting and managing the projects that will be funded through the REACH grant. Martin has worked closely with faculty in all aspects of intellectual property protection and commercialization, including helping faculty to receive internal and external funding to develop new products. Those funding opportunities have included UMBC’s long-standing partnership with TEDCO’s Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII), which will also be a collaborator of the UM-BILD accelerator along with the University of Maryland, College Park, Morgan State University, and Blackbird Laboratories.

Since launching in 2012, MII has supported 39 UMBC faculty in their commercialization pursuits, including the development of bendable zinc-based batteries and vibration-powered sensor technology for wind turbines. 

“I’m excited that we can bring everyone to the table. UMBC provides a continuum of support for these commercialization projects,” says Martin. “We’re building on enhancing things that we’re already doing. It’s great that we will have these additional resources to keep it going and to do it better.”

Today, bwtech@UMBC, UMBC, and the University System of Maryland (USM) announced receiving a major grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration to create the Maryland New Venture Fellowship for Cybersecurity. The grant totals more than $1.3 million, with nearly $600,000 in federal funding, which will be used over a three-year period. 

The Fellowship will support the development of cybersecurity companies in Maryland, and will increase connections among technologists, mentors, and faculty at institutions across the state.

This new program will enable cybersecurity entrepreneurs to work together to create technologies and other cyber solutions that impact society, including utilities, infrastructure, and critical information systems. These entrepreneurs will include teams composed of graduate students interested in entrepreneurship, experienced entrepreneurs serving as mentors, and faculty from Maryland universities. 

Bringing new talent into a thriving sector

Maryland is home to major U.S. innovation centers in cyber and data science including the National Security Agency, Defense Information Systems Agency, and U.S. Cyber Command. This program will capitalize on cyber research and development that is already happening in Maryland. It will also work to identify and address gaps, including the need for well-trained entrepreneurs with an innovative mindset and fresh perspectives, essential to Maryland maintaining its position as a leader in cybersecurity.

With these needs in mind, bwtech and USM have designed the program to empower and support diverse entrepreneurs and researchers who will create new technologies and ideas to secure the nation’s interests, and create economic opportunities and jobs. 

“Cybersecurity is one of Maryland’s most important industry sectors and a great source of economic strength for our state,” said Maryland Commerce Secretary Kelly M. Schulz. “This new initiative will support entrepreneurship and provide more incredible talent to the state’s cybersecurity workforce.” 

Immersive entrepreneurial experience 

During the first year of the grant, the Fellowship will focus on commercializing technologies at several universities within USM, including UMBC. 

“The Fellowship provides a much needed entrepreneurial resource to the faculty and technologists developing cybersecurity tools, while providing an immersive entrepreneurial experience for graduate students at UMBC and across the University System of Maryland,” says Megan Wahler, director of entrepreneurial services at bwtech@UMBC.

“Across our region, there are incredible technologies being developed in our universities to protect our infrastructure, supply chains, and our national security and we must do all we can ensure they succeed,” says Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, Ph.D. ‘17, public policy.

The Fellowship program will then expand to include other Maryland institutions in the second year. In the third year, it will begin connecting with people who work at federal agencies.

“Maryland is home to some of the world’s greatest minds in cybersecurity,” says J. Thomas Sadowski ‘89, political science, USM vice chancellor for economic development. He notes, “this program will help leverage this talent, foster collaboration, facilitate new venture creation and get our ideas to market.”

Banner image: the entrance to bwtech@UMBC. Photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

Wind turbines are massive, with a single turbine blade measuring up to 350 feet (about 110 meters), longer than the wingspan of some commercial airplanes. At its highest point, a blade can be 850 feet (260 meters) off the ground, almost reaching the height of Eiffel Tower. When UMBC engineer Soobum Lee looks up at these turbines, generating energy in fields and even offshore, he thinks about their size as an enormous opportunity, and also a challenge.

Lee, associate professor of mechanical engineering, studies energy harvesting, but not in a way that most casual observers would connect with wind turbines. He researches how vibrations can power portable devices on a very small scale, and he develops devices that convert those subtle vibrations into energy.

A few years ago, Lee began exploring how to harvest energy from the rotation of vehicle tires. This led him to begin looking at the spinning motion of wind turbines, and the additional small vibrations that turbines make as they spin continuously. He came up with a novel idea: using these small vibrations—not previously harnessed for energy—to power transmitters that could send sensor data to a wind turbine’s operation and maintenance systems.

Lee explains that wind turbines have sensors on their blades to alert their operators if the blade gets damaged, such as by birds or lightning, or if there is a malfunction or maintenance issue. For example, icicles can form on turbine blades, changing their aerodynamics. Or, the blade could be vibrating abnormally, indicating a more serious mechanical or structural issue in the blade.

Until now, these sensors have been powered by batteries that need to be changed every two years or so. Changing the batteries is time-consuming and can be dangerous for people maintaining the turbines, as they need to climb up the turbines, hundreds of feet in the air, to access multiple sensors on one blade.

“The sensors are to help with maintenance,” says Lee. “If they also create a maintenance need, it’s a problem.” He wondered, what if you could design a sensor that wouldn’t require new batteries?

Bringing research to consumers

Over the past 7 years, UMBC faculty from engineering and the sciences to the arts have worked to commercialize their research, to bring innovative technologies to companies and consumers. Knowing that this can be a challenging transition, UMBC and the State of Maryland have created a range of initiatives to help faculty pursue entrepreneurship opportunities. One core opportunity is the Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII), established by the state and five research institutions, including UMBC, to promote research commercialization.

A unique feature of the MII program is the introduction of university “site miners” to facilitate the application process for faculty inventors. These commercialization experts support faculty with preparing proposals and advocate for projects in the review process. UMBC site miner David Fink, entrepreneur in residence, says, “The MII program is the most significant factor in the increased commercialization of UMBC-owned intellectual property.” Sixteen companies have been formed by UMBC faculty since the start of MII.

Since 2013, Lee has applied for three MII grants. His first two attempts were not successful but helped him grow his proposal. On his third try, he received a phase one grant to develop his vibration-powered sensor technology.

Through bwtech@UMBC, UMBC’s research and technology park, Lee connected with Pranay Kohli, an energy sector executive with experience working with companies and clients around the world. In 2018, Lee and Kohli founded ACTIVEcharge, LLC, a startup that develops solutions to autonomously monitor wind turbines.

“Soobum and I have benefited tremendously from the MII program. Although we had the technology and the business skills, what MII and bwtech provided us was the ecosystem of professionals who have guided us along the way,” says Kohli, CEO of ACTIVEcharge. “That has opened up so many doors for us as we move forward to commercializing the solution.”

Technology with an impact

Lee’s work has continued to move forward since he received the MII grant. In the lab, he and his students have developed a power management circuit and have integrated it with a power source, sensor, and data transmitter that is about six inches tall and weighs about two pounds.

The sensor provides the signal to the transmitter, and the transmitter sends the data to a receiver. This process uses the energy produced by the attached mechanical generator, powered by vibrations from turbine blades. No external source of energy is needed. It is also designed to sit inside the blades, so it is completely protected from the elements and does not interfere with the blade aerodynamics.

Lee and Kohli hope that, in the next two to four years, their integrated solution will be installed on turbine blades across the country and internationally. Their goal is to provide turbine maintenance crews with near-real-time data that can support their work in a way that doesn’t create additional labor or physical risk and prevents potential catastrophic events.

Sustainable energy projects are growing in the U.S., and now is an important moment to make technology improvements that will boost that growth further, Lee notes. He shares, “I want to make things even better than they are now.”

Banner image: Wind turbines. Photo by Kam Abbott, used under CC BY 2.0.

At a hackathon last year, two UMBC students took a stand against online harassment through tech innovation, forming a partnership that would become MindStand Technologies. Founders Michael Ogunsanya ‘20, M28, economics, and Eric Solender ‘20, computer science, believe there is such tremendous potential to make headway on this problem that, as Ogunsanya explains, “We want people to connect with the idea before they connect with the company.”

Together, they’ve developed a tool that can detect troubling online behaviors, like cyberbullying. It provides an interactive dashboard and real-time alerts based on a powerful algorithm that is already gaining attention.

To get to this point, they’ve taken advantage of support from UMBC’s entrepreneurship programs. Last fall, MindStand Technologies earned second place in UMBC’s 2018 Idea Competition, hosted by the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, confirming for the team that their idea could really take off and have a positive impact. Now, they’ve won second place at UMBC’s sixth annual Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition (CBIC).

Connecting student entrepreneurs with mentors

The Shark Tank-style CBIC is an annual opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students who are serious about starting a business, and have already begun realizing their ideas, to present to a panel of judges before an audience of community members, including faculty, staff, alumni, and corporate partners. Ahead of the event, each team is paired with an industry mentor who provides guidance and professional advice.

The structure of the event and its focus on mentorship are inspired by the vision of entrepreneur Greg Cangialosi ‘96, English. Throughout the process, the teams have access to support from Cangialosi and Vivian Armor ‘73, American studies, director of UMBC’s Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship.

Using technology to address challenges across industries

First prize in the competition went to Dan Lee ‘19, computer science, for Dentuit Imaging, which he hopes will help dentists diagnose patients with challenging conditions. The technology will identify and annotate possible problems on patients’ dental images.

Lee is working with collaborators, including Joe Weissman, a Virginia Tech Ph.D. student focusing on machine learning, to develop a prototype that he hopes will be available in the summer. One key part of the work will be training the system to identify potential dental issues. “The more labeled images there are, the better,” Lee explains.

Akshay Peshave, M.S. ‘14, Ph.D. ‘19, computer science, earned third place for Karotene, which works to connect researchers in fields from medicine and physics to computing with information and data needed to do their work. The technology, explains Peshave, allows researchers to more easily address pain points as they are conducting research, including challenges related to collaborating with people across the country and around the world.

Peshave will use the funding that he earned through CBIC to finalize the legal paperwork needed to officially launch the company. He is also working to build Karotene’s advisory board, while refining the product for market release.

Utilizing networking opportunities at UMBC

MindStand Technologies, the second place winner, has already begun moving forward in significant ways. Ogunsanya and Solender have secured office space in bwtech@UMBC’s North campus. There, they spend time each week working to advance their technology and grow their business.

Ogunsanya and Solender are particularly focused on connecting with experts beyond tech fields who can provide insights essential to making their tool effective and ensuring it is used in thoughtful, ethical ways. Project collaborator Pamela Rakhshan Rouhakhtar Ph.D. ‘22, psychology, describes MindStand Technologies as a “true multidisciplinary team.”

Jason Schiffman, professor of psychology, provides valuable mentorship to help the group keep their mission, ethics, and philosophy at top of mind at all times — asking if each decision is both correct and good. Rouhakhtar and Solendar met while working in Schiffman’s psychology lab. They share that he often talks about the importance of working at the intersection of what you love and what you are good at, and that this is what MindStand Technologies is all about.

Taking advantage of the networking and skills-building opportunities at UMBC has been key to his company’s success, Ogunsanya says. He encourages future student-entrepreneurs to not shy away from “using all of UMBC’s channels” to turn their ideas into a reality.

Banner image: The MindStand Technologies team. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC’s Idea Competition offers students from all fields an opportunity to present business ideas to a panel of expert judges and receive immediate feedback on moving from vision to reality.

The university’s Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship hosts this competition each fall. This year’s event featured ten project finalists. Student teams had just three minutes each to sell the judges and the crowd on their innovative product and business ideas.

Vivian Armor, director of the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, notes that the popular event now receives submissions from nearly every major across campus. Armor, herself an alumna of UMBC (‘73, American studies), shares, “I love seeing how creative our students are.”

While the Idea Competition can be intense, the organizers also focus on providing support for the emerging student entrepreneurs who participate. Local entrepreneurs on the judging panel don’t just evaluate the finalists’ ideas; they also provide advice on next steps.

The ideas presented this year ranged from technology to make schools safer from physical threats to wearable technologies that can help people in their daily activities. One team presented materials that can help clean up contaminant spills in the environment, while another shared homes built from 3D-printed materials.

Top prize: ReActive

Jood Ali ‘20, mechanical engineering, submitted an idea called ReActive, along with her project partner Nila Lahijan ‘19, biological sciences. ReActive combines electronic muscle stimulator technology with compression clothing. Ali shared how her personal experience with physical therapy inspired her to look closer at these two technologies, which aided her recovery from an injury. She wondered if they could be made more portable and wearable.

Ali described how electronic muscle stimulators deliver electrical current to the body through electrodes that are placed on the skin. Both these devices and compression clothing are commercially available, but, Ali noted, the technology has not been combined in this innovative way to help people receive the benefits of their physical therapy while on the go.

ReActive won both the first place prize ($750) and a special award for best presentation ($250). “I was confident of my presentation, but by no means was I expecting to win first place,” said Ali. “Sometimes, you have to have a little faith in yourself, and when that doesn’t work you just have to be okay with letting yourself be scared for a little while…because that’s the only way you’ll grow.”

Supporting healthy online communities

Michael Ogunsanya ‘21, mechanical engineering, and Eric Solender ‘21, information systems, presented MindStand Technologies, which works to foster healthy online communities by identifying and preventing harassment. Ogunsanya, Solender, and their team are using artificial intelligence informed by clinical psychology to determine the intent and content of messages, and flag concerning material. Their project earned the second place prize ($500) in the competition.

The students shared that a key distinction between MindStand and its competitors is the ability to process full-length conversations, rather than relying on keyword searches to flag cyberbullying and harassment. They explained that the technology they are developing can also get professionals and administrators involved, through interactive dashboards and email notifications, to address bullying behaviors. Solender and Ogunsanya are working with UMBC’s Division of Information Technology to explore implementing the MindStand Technology on the myUMBC platform.

“Participating in the Idea Competition gave me the confidence and drive to apply the lessons I’ve learned in entrepreneurship classes,” said Ogunsanya. “It’s amazing seeing so many innovators gather together to support one another and help turn our dreams into careers. Seeing faces in the crowd light up as I explain the months of work I’ve put into my venture created a drive in me to finish what I’ve started and truly disrupt the tech industry.”

Affordable housing through new technology 

Jen Spiker ‘21, information systems, presented her business idea, 3D Printed Home, which won the third place prize ($250) in the competition. Inspired by how the military is using 3D printing technologies to construct barracks, she developed a proposal for printing homes in as little as 24 hours and for the price of a car. Spiker hopes her work can help reduce homelessness and expand affordable housing options in the United States.

The business pitches were judged by Sean Booker ‘04, computer engineering, president and CEO of Booker DiMaio; Eli Senter ‘01, political science, president and CEO of 4S-Solutions, LLC; and Paula Kipperman, president of United World Technologies, LLC, located in bwtech.

To other student entrepreneurs considering this type of competition, “I would say go for it,” Solender shares. “You’ll get great feedback on presenting, find out if your idea is viable, and get to see all of the other cool things students at UMBC are doing.”

Banner image: Jood Ali (left), Jennifer Spiker, Eric Solender, and Michael Ogunsanya  after the Idea Competition. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

The artificial intelligence startup RedShred—cofounded by two UMBC alumni and housed in the bwtech@UMBC incubator—has received a rare Phase II Small Business Innovation Research Award from the National Science Foundation to expand in a new direction, in collaboration with UMBC faculty and graduate students.

Jeehye Yun ‘97, computer science, and Jim Kukla ‘97, M.S ‘00, computer science, launched RedShred in 2014, with the support of a Phase I Small Business Technology Transfer Award from NSF. For the past four years, RedShred has created software to help universities and other institutions sort through complex government listings in search of opportunities (requests for proposals, or RFPs) that meet their needs and expertise. The new Phase II award will support RedShred as they make their products available to companies in the commercial sector.

“At RedShred our mission is to help people read less and win more,” says Yun. “We’re excited about this Phase II grant, which allows us to commercialize our Phase I research and development, and develop new mechanisms to help people understand increasingly complicated documents.”

UMBC faculty and students have collaborated with RedShred to advance the technologies behind their products. Tim Finin, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, and several graduate students have worked with RedShred to better understand how large documents, such as RFPs, tend to be structured, even when each one is formatted differently and doesn’t follow a template. They describe this process as identifying the document’s semantic DNA.

By defining and identifying the core elements of each RFP, UMBC student researchers have been able to create “at-a-glance” summaries of these highly complex documents that provide all the necessary information and save the client the time of wading through levels of detail.

“Our collaboration with RedShred has given UMBC students great opportunities to participate in both basic and applied research focused on developing an innovative commercial product,” explains Finin. “This has involved both undergraduate and graduate students majoring in computing as well as the arts and humanities. For example, computer science graduate student Muhammad Rahman Ph.D. ‘18, computer science, developed a problem he encountered when working with RedShed into his Ph.D. dissertation, which he completed his summer.”

Each year, Maryland Incubator Company of the Year (ICOY) Awards recognize the achievements of current and past incubator companies in the state. In 2017, three bwtech@UMBCincubator companies at won their respective award categories, bringing bwtech@UMBC’s total ICOY winners to two twenty since the award program begin in 2002. The honorees, as well as several award nominees from bwtech@UMBC, were recognized at a special awards ceremony held at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.

“We are thrilled that three of our bwtech@UMBC companies were recognized for their outstanding efforts by winning Incubator Company of the Year awards in their respective industry categories,” says Jennifer Reynolds, director of venture creation at bwtech@UMBC. “These awards represent the incredible effort and drive that our entrepreneurs have, and we are honored and humbled to play a part in their success.”

Fearless Solutions, a software company that primarily develops applications to presents content visually, won the award for best service/consulting company category. Delali Dzirasa ‘04, computer engineering, president and CEO of Fearless Solutions, headquartered in the Spark Coworking Space in Baltimore with additional office space in bwtech, reflected on how meaningful the award was for him, noting:

“We work hard to build software that has an impact on our community, partly because our community has helped so much in getting us to where we are today. It’s incredibly humbling to be recognized alongside so many other outstanding companies, and we’re really grateful for all of the support that we’ve received from both bwtech@UMBC and Spark—we wouldn’t be here without them!”

FZata, a company that develops therapeutic and preventive medicines using antibody technology, won the best life sciences company category. The company is currently developing a compound to fight against Clostridium difficile, a bacteria that disrupts normal, healthy colons and can be very challenging to treat, even in highly advanced medical care facilities. In the U.S., C. diff causes more than half a million infections, and nearly 30,000 deaths, each year.

Zhiyong Yang, co-founder and CEO of FZata, reflects, “Ever since the launch in bwtech@UMBC in November 2015, FZata has earned quite a few significant government grants, including a very recent $5.8M RO1 grant, which represents the recognition from our scientific peers. Now being selected as Best Life Sciences Company reflects the recognition from our business peers,” says Yang. “It is a great honor to us.”

Leverage, a software company that specializes in developing new technologies that can impact society, won the best software company category. Eric Conn ‘85, computer science, co-founder and CEO of Leverage, says that the support from bwtech@UMBC has played a large part in the success of the company, and he calls the ICOY award “validation of the hard work that our entire team has put in for nearly three years now.”

“Our Internet of Things (IoT) software platform and companion educational website ‘IoT For All’ are quickly becoming the preferred tools for IoT projects large and small,” says Conn. “Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are already having a large impact on people’s lives and we hope to strike the right balance between the efficiencies that technology can bring and the preservation of satisfying, high-paying jobs for future generations.”

Since 2002, more than a dozen incubator companies at bwtech@UMBC had won awards at the Maryland Incubator Company of the Year Awards.

In June, Mike Wagner ‘97, information systems management, ‘98, computer science, vice president of WaveStrike, was recently recognized by Ernst & Young at the annual Entrepreneur of the Year Maryland Awards. He was recognized as an entrepreneur in the technology services category for WaveStrike, a software engineering company that develops systems that protect national security.

Read “These startups won Maryland Incubator Company of the Year Awards” in Technical.ly Baltimore, and “EY honors Entrepreneur of the Year Maryland winners” in Baltimore Business Journal.