Management

The winners of this year’s Innovate to Grow competition have been announced.

The event includes three components: The Mobile App Challenge, the Capstone competition for senior Innovation and Design Clinic teams and the Engineering Service Learning competition for undergraduate teams.

Two prizes are given for Capstone teams. The winners receive $1,000 each — up to $5,000 or $6,000 per team, depending on the number of students on the winning teams.  

The winning Engineering Service Learning team shares $3,000, while Mobile App winners share $5,000.

When students walk across the stage at this weekend’s commencement ceremonies at the University of California, Merced, they will join the nearly 4,000 scholars who have earned degrees from the university, while marking yet another campus milestone as the campus’s 10th graduating class.

Even when we don’t notice it, service is a huge part of everyday life, from the people who make our morning cups of coffee to the doctors who save our lives, said Professor Paul Maglio, the founding director of UC Merced’s new California Center for Service Science.

Jefferson Kuoch-Seng is now the official voice for the University of California’s roughly 240,000 students — the first UC Merced student ever to serve in that role.

Shy in high school, Rachel Fang didn’t want to follow the same pattern as a UC Merced student.

“I decided that I was going to change,” Fang said. “I wanted to be more outspoken.”

Southern California Edison has been selected as this year’s recipient of the UC Merced School of Engineering Vanguard Margin of Excellence Award.

“Southern California Energy’s partnership with UC Merced has created countless opportunities for engineering students to positively impact their communities,” School of Engineering Dean Dan Hirleman wrote to the company, calling it a model partner for the university.

The Vanguard Award was created to honor corporate partners that have had a transformational effect on the educational experience of School of Engineering students.

Students Jamie Sweet and Vanessa Estavillo have much more in common than a love of UC Merced, a legacy of leadership and being members of the Class of 2014.

UC Merced senior Alexandra Hamilton is spending five months at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, studying global markets and business.