As an entrepreneur, Smart Walls Construction founder and Chief Technology Officer Jorge Cueto understands the inclination to hire experts when possible.
He also recognizes the potential disadvantage that abundant experience can spawn: bias. So when he was ready to advance his telescopic structural wall concept, he placed significance on recruiting energetic individuals willing to survey an issue from all angles.The answer was three undergraduate engineering students from UB, his alma mater. The spark they bring — underpinned by problem-solving theory — is fueling momentum for his startup housed at Baird Research Park, UB’s technology incubator.
Cueto affords them with the help of Strategic Partnership for Industrial Resurgence (SPIR) funds, a grant administered by UB’s Center for Industrial Effectiveness (TCIE) that supplements the cost of technical services from the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He also leverages Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II monies from the National Science Foundation.
“It’s quite an opportunity, that’s for sure,” says Christopher Borders, a mechanical and aerospace engineering (MAE) senior.Borders works alongside two fellow seniors, MAE student Albert Shaw and industrial and systems engineering student Derek Roback. The three are transitioning Cueto’s idea for flood protection into reality. They touch all areas of product development, from assessing a dilemma and brainstorming solutions to designing, manufacturing and testing a prototype.
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