“MyNafize Ishtiaque Hossain was a full-time student and aspiring entrepreneur at UT Tyler.  He participated in the 2021 UT Tyler Big Idea Pitch and was the first-place winner of the 2022 Business Model Canvas.  Nafize was accepted into the inaugural class of the Bridge Venture Fellowship.The interactions and programming Nafize experienced through the LaunchPad ignited a passion to go beyond research.  He realized the role entrepreneurship plays in identifying problems in need of a solution rather than solutions that needed a problem.  This revelation has led Nafize to Tufts University to complete his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering while working with the university's entrepreneurship program. company is Locol, the freelance marketplace connecting small businesses with student freelancers that can complete digital marketing tasks for them. My involvement with the LaunchPad as a founder has just been being able to utilize and take advantage of a space on campus that’s built for people like myself. If you want to start a company, if you want to create a startup, this is definitely the best resource on campus. It’s also one centralized place where all of the different parts of the ecosystem can come together in one place.”