NobleReach’s internship program spans an intensive 8-week summer session, where participants receive a robust professional development curriculum and dive into real-world hands-on learning experiences. They can fully immerse themselves in public service initiatives while creating valuable professional connections. This year, the program consists of three students eager to contribute to NobleReach’s mission.
Sydney Du
Sydney is a rising sophomore at MIT majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Statistics & Data Science. She is currently working as an Artificial Intelligence Intern at NobleReach.
Additionally, she is a research assistant at MIT App Inventor, a group focused on promoting STEM education. There, she works on the development team and experiments with composing music with AI.
Beyond her technical work, Sydney is especially interested in AI alignment and policy. Through this internship, she’s working to help NobleReach build AI tools to improve efficiency and expand opportunities for emerging talent. She is most excited to learn about various applications of technology in public service.
Mark Wang
Mark is a rising junior at Vanderbilt University studying economics and management. Having been born and raised on the Pacific Island of Guam, he’s interested in exploring the intersections of climate tech and the airline industry to make travel more sustainable.
Previously, he worked as a corporate development intern for an energy services company in Houston. On campus, he chairs the Vanderbilt Green Fund where he is responsible for the annual deployment of $150K to finance projects that reduce the university’s carbon footprint. He also volunteers as a tour guide for the admissions office.
As a Market Research and Analytics intern at NobleReach this summer, Mark is excited to explore nascent industries and learn what it takes to commercialize emerging technologies.
Philip Clark
Philip is a Business Analytics Intern at NobleReach and a graduate student at the University of Florida, where he is pursuing an M.S. in Information Systems and Operations Management with a concentration in Data Science.
With a background in computer science, Philip has developed AI tools for automation, data analysis, and decision support in past internships and projects. This summer, he’s helping design AI-powered workflows to streamline internal processes and support NobleReach’s innovation initiatives.
He’s most excited to learn how AI can be used to surface meaningful insights from public data, support storytelling around innovation, and help the Business Analytics team scale its impact more effectively.
The future of mission-driven innovation just got brighter. Last month, the NobleReach staff had the privilege of attending a remarkable presentation by a team of exceptional Virginia Tech Master’s in Business Analytics students. Their final capstone project delivery included a live demonstration and comprehensive deep dive into a tool that could fundamentally transform how we connect by streaming the matching process through a user-friendly interface.
When Innovation Meets Mission
Aaron Gamarra, Emily Saintsing, Nada Fitian, and Hudson Aikins tackled one of our most pressing operational challenges: developing an automated entrepreneurial talent matching system. Working closely with our Academic Partnerships team throughout their capstone experience, these Master of Science in Business Analytics students demonstrated exactly what’s possible when academic excellence meets mission-driven purpose.
Their solution? A sophisticated tool that leverages advanced data scraping and artificial intelligence to match entrepreneurs with government research projects based on skill compatibility, delivering results that speak for themselves: a 95% reduction in the mentor matching process.
The system they developed integrates seamlessly with our existing infrastructure, using Salesforce to track entrepreneur availability while employing sophisticated algorithms to analyze education, employment, and skill data. This isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about creating more meaningful connections between innovative minds and the challenges that matter most to our nation’s prosperity.
Looking Forward
This successful collaboration with Virginia Tech reinforces our commitment to working with academic institutions that share our vision for the future. These students have shown that the next generation isn’t just ready to tackle complex challenges—they’re already building the tools we need to solve them.
Of the many insightful and timely conversations at last week’s the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) AI+ Expo, one stood out to me in particular. It was with a recent graduate attending NobleReach’s panel on mission-driven tech talent, who asked, “How do I talk to my peers, who want to make a difference and don’t realize that government is a place they can do that?”
Inherent in the question are the hopes and anxieties we see in many of the students and early-career professionals we work with across our programs. Seismic disruptions from the pandemic to global conflict to the advent of generative AI have given young people a deep desire to step up and make a difference. They’ve also underscored how much the working world has evolved.
Today’s graduates also want flexibility – the ability to choose the next chapter in their career without committing to one path for decades. While they do care about prestige, with historically low institutional trust, the name at the top of the job description matters less than the projects they’ll be working on and the impact they can expect to have. They’re facing a difficult job market, especially for entry-level positions, so they’re also concerned with their financial independence.
Against this backdrop, paradoxically, candidates like the young man from the AI+ Expo are exactly what many government agencies are looking for – and not just government. While young people with skills in critical areas like AI and cyber look for the perfect place to launch their career journeys, organizations across the public and private sector are searching for scalable ways to get the talent they need to compete in an AI-driven world.
Here are a few things all organizations should be doing to position themselves for success in the race for top AI talent.
More than any generation before them, today’s young people have grown up with change. Their adaptability, their resilience and their commitment to contributing to something greater than themselves represent an enormous opportunity to rebuild trust and accelerate AI innovation. Organizations across sectors must be ready to make the most of their potential.
In this interview, Quentin, NobleReach Scholar and data scientist at FDA, sits down with his mentor, Mike, a senior commercialization advisor and venture capitalist with decades of experience in the healthcare startup sector. Quentin took this opportunity to learn more about Mike’s extensive career journey, gathering wisdom that might help others navigate mission-driven careers.
Career Background
Quentin: Hi Mike, let’s set the stage because you’ve had a pretty amazing career in healthcare and innovation. Can you walk us through the highlights?
Mike: I’ve been a venture capitalist at the Inova Health System in Northern Virginia, managing a $150 million fund. We made two dozen investments from pre-seed through Series C level. But most of my career has been as a multi-time CEO for 25 years. I’ve led everything from university spinouts to internationally publicly traded companies, with three successful exits and over $125 million raised. I’ve commercialized companies from zero to $20-30 million multiple times, gaining extensive experience with FDA, Medicare, and reimbursement challenges. Before that, I worked with Big Pharma (Merck and Glaxo), and my degree is in microbiology.
Mission-Driven Work
Quentin: How did you find your way into mission-driven work?
Mike: I’ve been in mission-driven work from day one. Healthcare is inherently mission-driven – you’re trying to reduce suffering, eliminate disease, improve quality of life. You’re making life more meaningful, enjoyable, and saving lives. There’s money to be made creating disappearing apps for teenagers, but healthcare has global impact on the human race, potentially forever, because everyone builds on the discoveries made today.
Career Advice for Students
Quentin: How would you approach getting into this field if you were starting over today?
Mike: I started with Big Pharma right out of college, which taught me structure and discipline, but also showed me what I didn’t like about large organizations. I wanted to get into startups sooner. For those looking to enter entrepreneurship, understand that without experience in large organizations, you may have a blind spot about what scale and structure look like. Actively seek council and education to fill that gap.
If you’re in a large organization but yearn for more or feel smothered by bureaucracy, understand that startups are exhilarating but challenging in different ways. Ensure you have an insatiable appetite for learning, because you’ll need it.
Mentorship
Quentin: Can you share moments where you benefited from mentorship?
Mike: Unfortunately, I wasn’t fortunate enough to have a mentor until my first CEO job at 39, when my chairman became my first professional mentor. Before that, my wife became my coach – I’d bounce ideas off her to see if they passed a sniff test.
Learning from Mistakes
Quentin: Were there mistakes you made early in your career that taught you important lessons?
Mike: In startups when I was young, I was chasing shiny objects, trying to make an impact and build companies. But I lacked good oversight or strategic mentoring to help me step back and get a better 360-degree view. I often got lost in the weeds, focusing tactically on execution without taking a breath to ensure we were going in the right direction. I needed to better measure accomplishments and failures in real time to pivot more quickly. These were newbie mistakes, and without resources to check my thinking, it was trial and error.
What Makes Technologies Successful
Quentin: What separates technologies that make real-world impact from those that don’t?
Mike: Interestingly, it’s not about the science, technology, or innovation – it’s about the people. Great people do great things and can turn mediocre inventions into amazing, life-changing solutions. There’s so much great science and technology out there, but most rot on shelves because there’s not enough talent and teams to make them reality. In healthcare, it’s a Herculean task to get even incremental innovations to market. Until you get a team bought into a singular vision and mission, nothing’s real. Innovations are like ideas – they’re a dime a dozen. The game-changer is talent.
Finding Great Teams
Quentin: How would you find these teams and talent as a student today?
Mike: Become adept at understanding people and talent. Improve your EQ and understand how people act in team environments, under stress, and when facing adversity. Focus on behavioral questions in interviews. Understand yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, but also try to understand what makes potential teammates tick. When a team gels, amazing things happen. With today’s tools – social media, internet, AI – you can learn faster and get up to speed in a fraction of the time it took people like me.
Advice as a Mentor
Quentin: Is there advice you always give to those you mentor?
Mike: It varies case by case, but there are common themes. For those entering startups, understand the grit and resilience required. Work-life balance doesn’t really exist in startups, but you can effect change on a global scale. In healthcare specifically, I explain to teams that you have to wake up every day committed to excellence. Someone on this planet is waiting for your innovation to save their life or improve quality of life. Feel that urgency and greater calling, and rise above the adversity of the day, week, month, and year.
What Success Feels Like
Quentin: What does it feel like when you succeed and bring that potentially global impact?
Mike: Most people who succeed at saving and changing lives remain unknown – they live and die with only loved ones, friends, and coworkers knowing their impact. There are so many unsung heroes in healthcare making daily differences. It feels great to know you’ve made an impact, even if you’re in the shadows. As a venture capitalist, I see people who made fortunes in tech ultimately turning to healthcare, seeking meaningful impact beyond software that made them wealthy. Healthcare is incredibly complex and challenging, sometimes soul-crushing, but the satisfaction is profound.
What Makes Someone Worth Mentoring
Quentin: What qualities make you think someone is worth investing in as a mentor?
Mike: Stay humble and modest – it enables better clarity in accepting counsel. Be coachable. Absorb advice, understand it, and apply critical thinking. Show grit and resilience – don’t give up when things get tough. Hard work matters; we pick hard work and grit over traditional intelligence in startups. Have an insatiable desire for learning – you never stop learning, and the pace of change accelerates daily. Finally, be well-rounded. Don’t just focus on your field – understand other things, whether it’s ancient Roman history, food science, or philosophy. Being well-read makes you interesting and improves pattern recognition, helping you connect dots across disparate situations.
Final Thoughts
Mike: Seek counsel and mentors if you can. Many people want to pay it forward as life becomes more complex and change accelerates. Read widely, listen to diverse opinions, and don’t be close-minded. Also, seek out ground truth—with AI hallucinating and other challenges, it’s becoming harder to find your North Star and understand what’s actually true.
We need to make it easier for mission-driven young people to explore public service. I’m often asked how to talk to young people to get them interested. But in my experience, the problem isn’t a lack of interest. Today’s students are looking for purpose-driven work ... What’s missing is the lack of a clear, easy pathway. This is the goal of the NobleReach Scholars Program.
In his first 100 days, President Donald Trump has pushed to remake the federal workforce in profound ways that have provoked strong reactions. He and many of his supporters say big change is necessary to build a government powered by entrepreneurial, patriotic, highly skilled Americans. Opponents, on the other hand, feel like the White House is undermining essential government functions and creating uncertainty and instability.
In this polarized environment, it can be tempting to fall into false binaries – right or left, public or private, profit or purpose. The reality is far more complex.
In truth, the private and public sectors have a lot to teach each other. A spoonful of the public sector’s focus on supporting the national interest could allow leaders in industry to better manage risk and to see opportunities for growth that traditional thinking might miss. And government leaders with commercial sensibilities who are mindful of how the private sector operates can make for a better balance of the national interest and prosperity.
But the two don’t always see eye to eye. A fundamental lack of trust between them can sometimes make it nearly impossible to collaborate in a way that taps into each side’s unique strengths.
Here’s where the right talent can build bridges. Spanning the divide between the public and private sectors requires individuals who feel at home in both, allowing them to use transferable skills and translate between mutually incomprehensible languages. In two decades in the venture capital and investing world, the most important lesson I learned was that without the right people, even the strongest technology or idea stood little chance of success.
That’s why we need to make it an urgent national priority to develop the next generation of what I like to call “dual citizens” of the private and public sectors. Dual citizens possess a unique blend of skills and perspectives that enable them to succeed in both public service and private enterprise. They understand the value of innovation and efficiency, and they know how to communicate effectively across barriers and build enduring trust.
So, how do we make more of them?
We start with spotlighting the leaders and role models already serving in government who have notable private sector backgrounds and skills they use every day to make a difference.
I’m talking about people like Nand Mulchandani, who spent more than 25 years in Silicon Valley. Mulchandani founded a string of startups bought by tech titans like Oracle and Cisco before becoming the first-ever chief technology officer of the CIA in 2022, where he found that public service and mission-driven entrepreneurship were more alike than different.
There’s also Brynt Parmeter, who might not have known at the time that his stint leading workforce development for Walmart from 2019 to 2023 was essential training for his role as the inaugural chief talent manager for the Department of Defense.
And Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, used his time in the venture capital ecosystem to build smart policies around emerging technologies, spearheading efforts like the American AI Initiative to position the United States to lead the artificial intelligence race.
All of these individuals share three key attributes: a clear lane to and from government, an openness to a nonlinear career and a willingness to be entrepreneurial in addressing big societal problems. For the class of 2025 and beyond to benefit from the dual-citizen approach, we must replicate these factors in our national talent infrastructure.
To start, we need to make it easier for mission-driven young people to explore public service. I’m often asked how to talk to young people to get them interested. But in my experience, the problem isn’t a lack of interest. Today’s students are looking for purpose-driven work, with more than 80% of millennials and members of Gen Z reporting that having a sense of purpose is important in their careers, according to a 2024 Deloitte study. What’s missing is the lack of a clear, easy pathway.
This is the goal of the NobleReach Scholars Program. Launched in 2024, the inaugural cohort of 19 college graduates from across the country was placed in innovation-focused roles in eight federal agencies and three mission-driven ventures focused on defense systems, biotech, and materials and manufacturing. These incredible young people range from a computational linguist and a business and computer science major redesigning business processes at the IRS to a 3D-printing enthusiast engineering materials to perform reliably in extreme conditions.
Through the program, the scholars grow their skills alongside a community of peers, industry partners and dual-citizen mentors and gain exposure to private sector leaders they wouldn’t encounter in a traditional government role. More than 1,200 candidates from 100-plus universities applied for our latest cohort, with this year’s finalists interviewing now for placements at the state, local and federal level and in the private sector.
These recent grads, most of whom have studied technology, science and business, are committed individuals – living proof that an untapped wealth of entrepreneurial talent is ready to rise to some of the biggest challenges our nation faces.
But how do we get there?
We must prepare our students for a world in which having multiple careers is the rule, not the exception. In the classrooms where I’ve taught at Stanford and Georgetown, I’ve seen my students face enormous pressure to pick one career, usually focused on either purpose or profit, with the default assumption that they will stay in that career for several decades.
In reality, they’re much more likely to have four or five careers spanning disciplines and sectors. Our universities equip them with the tools they need to thrive throughout their career journeys, such as training in entrepreneurial methods and the safe and effective use of AI. But today’s students also need role models who have succeeded because of their nonlinear career path, not in spite of it.
Finally, today’s leaders must listen to and engage with this new generation of change-makers, who are entrepreneurial thinkers with skills in technology that barely existed when the previous generation started their careers. This will require investing in an ecosystem of collaboration based on shared goals for innovation. Just as students shouldn’t have to choose between a successful career and a meaningful one, the private sector can drive prosperity while working in tandem with government to take on the challenges that threaten our collective security.
To realize this vision, we need the infrastructure to support talent who can understand, communicate, and navigate the complexities of both public and private sectors. Implementing and supporting programs that allow experienced professionals to transition between government and the private sector can foster more effective cross-sector understanding and innovation for everyone involved. Spotlighting leaders like Mulchandani, Parmeter, and Kratsios can show our young people what’s possible when they explore pathways that allow them to use their skills to contribute to a larger mission.
And they’re just the tip of the iceberg. The next generation of dual citizens is out there. We just need to set them on the journey.
Recently, NobleReach hosted a remarkable group of undergraduate engineering students from Purdue University. These students are participating in the Engineering Careers in Public Service Seminar—a key part of our growing partnership with Purdue’s College of Engineering, aimed at increasing the number of engineers who pursue careers in public service.
We had the opportunity to sit down with two of these exceptional students to hear about what drew them to public service and what they are learning from NobleReach’s curriculum.
At NobleReach, we believe that securing our nation’s future depends on the strength of our talent and our ability to push the boundaries on innovation. Since launching the NobleReach Scholars Program in 2024, we’ve seen firsthand how emerging technologists—driven by purpose and equipped with cutting-edge skills—can make an immediate impact in federal agencies. Today, I’m proud to share that we are taking a bold next step: expanding the program to include placements in state and local governments across the country.
This expansion reflects our belief that innovation and service shouldn’t be confined to the federal level. Our Scholars have already been instrumental in shaping initiatives in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and business process innovation. Future scholars can now go where policy meets practice where communities are shaped, where public services are delivered, and where the most pressing challenges are often felt most acutely.
Meeting Urgent Needs Across America
State and local governments are the frontlines of public service. These institutions are responsible for the infrastructure we rely on, the health systems we depend on, and the economic development efforts that lift up entire regions. Yet many of these agencies face constraints in both resources and access to technical expertise. By embedding Scholars in these environments, we are answering that need—introducing fresh energy, critical skills, and entrepreneurial thinking into places that will benefit from these partnerships.
Our Scholars will continue to experience the strong foundation that defines this program. They will participate in our immersive two-week professional development bootcamp in Washington, D.C., before beginning their placements across the country. They will join a mission-aligned cohort that supports and challenges one another throughout the fellowship. And they will be matched with mentors who help guide them as they navigate the complexities of public service
Our Unchanging Mission
While the scope of the program is expanding, our purpose remains the same: to help emerging leaders find meaningful, impactful pathways to serve. For recent graduates in technical fields, this new opportunity offers a chance to work on real problems, in real communities, with real stakes. It also offers something rare—an up-close look at how decisions get made and policies get implemented outside the halls of Washington.
We are currently finalizing placements for our next cohort of Scholars, and we welcome interest from state and local officials eager to host this exceptional talent.
The Road Ahead
I couldn’t be more excited about what’s next. By expanding to all levels of government, we’re not just scaling—we’re deepening our impact. We’re building a nationwide network of changemakers committed to innovation, service, and the communities they represent. For recent graduates in technical fields, this is an opportunity to work on problems that matter in communities where the stakes are real and the impact is visible. We are currently finalizing placements for the next cohort of NobleReach Scholars and welcome interest from state and local leaders who are ready to bring this capacity into their institutions.
State and local agencies interested in hosting a Scholar can visit our website to learn more and connect with us.
The Axiom Business Book Awards are the largest and most respected guidepost for business books. Each year, they honor influential business titles and their creators across more than 25 categories. revious medalists include renowned figures such as Nobel laureate Robert Shiller, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kearns Goodwin, and philanthropist and investor Ray Dalio, among many other influential business and thought leaders.
This year in the General Business category, Axiom awarded Venture Meets Mission a gold medal, its highest honor. Read more about this award and the others books honored
Last week, NobleReach CEO Arun Gupta was honored to receive awards for his contributions to public service: the Fed100 award and the Industry Eagle award. Presented by a leading federal news outlet, GovExec, these awards speak to the central ethos that has guided not only Arun’s career but NobleReach as a whole.
Read more about the story behind the awards here.
Talent is and forever will be the cornerstone of a successful venture. Even the most groundbreaking technology can’t succeed without the right team behind it. I recently had the pleasure of putting together a panel in this spirt at the AUTM Annual Conference which focused on strategies for identifying talent for university startups along with Bruce Burgess, Nakia Melecio, and Alla McCoy.
One insight I shared was the importance of identifying “brokers” within our networks. These individuals won’t join your startup but are excited by your mission and have vast, reliable networks of talent they can unlock for you. For example, we work closely with a CEO of a synthetic biology startup who happily provides introductions to friends and colleagues entirely because they trust that we give our ventures the resources needed to succeed and that we’ll always have something interesting in the pipeline. Credit to Dr. Aven for emphasizing the crucial role these brokers play in startup ecosystems!
But having brokers isn’t enough, how you organize, activate, and even deactivate them matters just as much. At NobleReach, we leverage Salesforce to catalog brokers and entrepreneurs, using tags to categorize them by technology expertise, application area, and business knowledge to make the fastest matches possible. Similarly, Nakia shared Georgia Tech’s approach using a Google form at Georgia Tech to gather comprehensive information on his MBA intern applicants enabling strategic matching.
Beyond matching, a clean database enables timely intervention when relationships falter, a concern raised by several attendees during the panel. Whether due to deteriorating researcher-entrepreneur relationships or ventures pivoting, we’ve occasionally needed to discontinue talent engagements. Implementing systematic flags and quarterly reviews, conducted independently by research teams, entrepreneurs, and mentors/tech transfer offices, allows us to anticipate these issues and intervene before it is too late.
Our conversation reinforced that successful university spinouts need both systematic talent identification approaches and the flexibility to deploy that talent based on stage-specific needs. The foundation of our success continues to be building these meaningful relationships and structured activation processes.
While working to bring a solar array back online in the American southwest, Noel Myers witnessed firsthand how an engineering company’s project estimate of 17 million over 6 months could balloon to nearly 25 million over 18 months. This experience left him with both frustration toward the traditional insurance industry and a conviction that access to superior data and technical resources could solve these costly project overruns.
Noel believed new technology might offer a solution. However, his position as a serial energy entrepreneur with limited resources to put towards in-depth stakeholder research and market validation stalled full exploration of a market gap hunch —until he discovered NobleReach’s Innovation for Impact course.
NobleReach’s Innovation for Impact course was built to enable students to innovate and deploy solutions to urgent civil, security, social, and technological challenges at the speed of a start-up. Using the Innovation for Impact methodology, students at Rollins College began to work with Noel as a problem mentor to address this pressing issue.
Their focus was on the residential solar market, but they ran into immediate roadblocks. Homeowners knew little about their solar installations, and insurance companies kept their risk and pricing models proprietary. What seemed like a dead end soon transformed through persistence. Through weekly meetings with Noel and interviewing over 68 stakeholders, the students discovered the real problem: businesses struggled to shop for complex solar-asset coverage. They pivoted to developing an app that would simplify finding appropriate insurance.
This discovery process proved invaluable for Noel. The students’ thorough research and dedication inspired him to build new parametric risk models based on their research. Ultimately, he realized the solution wasn’t becoming a data broker—it was overcoming resentment toward the insurance industry and becoming an insurer himself, thus addressing a critical challenge to America’s energy independence.
Based on the work done during the Innovation for Impact course and follow-on work with his risk engineering firm Edge Creek Power, Noel launched Sunereum Labs: a clean energy insurance company that is building a novel clean energy risk engine to push down premiums, speed up claims processing and payouts, and support repowering. While the company is still young, it is already gaining traction. Sunereum Labs was recently announced as one of the winners of the Insurance Innovation Prize via the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and InnSure, an organization dedicated to reinvigorating the insurance industry.
Noel credits the students at Rollins for this early catalyst: “Working with the Rollins College students through the Innovation for Impact course was refreshing and fun – I was exposed to new ideas and approaches, and it was rewarding to share some of my solar journey and perspectives with the next generation of builders and innovators”. In large part due to this experience, he has become a problem mentor again for two teams in this spring’s Innovation for Impact course, crediting the students’ ability to pivot his thinking as a key factor in this regard, as well as his broader desire to pass on advice to the next generation. In trying to replicate this experience for others, Noel has also joined NobleReach as a partner in attracting new problem mentors.
Ready to help shape the next generation of mission-driven innovators? Join our community of problem mentors and work alongside talented students to solve real-world challenges.
During the MBX Conference, which included our Case Competition, former Commerce Department Senior Advisor and NobleReach Chief Innovation Officer Sree Ramaswamy shared critical insights on America’s industrial policy challenges and the urgent need for business expertise in government. Drawing from his experience helping shape and implement the CHIPS Act, he explains why even trillion-dollar companies struggle to address supply chain vulnerabilities, how government incentives transformed semiconductor investments from $20 billion to $75+ billion, and why MBAs possess the exact financial modeling and strategic skills needed to bridge the dangerous gap between Wall Street and Washington. For business students and professionals seeking impact, this candid talk offers a rare insider perspective on how corporate finance knowledge can strengthen national security and economic competitiveness.