Computer Science student at UTEP, NSF S-STEM Scholar, and builder moving across software, startup ecosystems, digital work, and community leadership.
3.86
GPA / 4.0
2×
Hackathon 1st
100+
Issues resolved
Builder, mentor, officer — turning ideas into execution in public.
On Stage
Pitching ideas in front of rooms that matter.
$1,000
Microsoft Prize
Tacos & Tech-ila pitch competition — STAR
1st Place
Tacos & Tech-ila · $1,000
1st Place
Borderland AI Hackathon
Innovator Award
STTE Foundation
NSF S-STEM Scholar
Federal scholarship
3rd Place
Miner Tank — Black Box
3rd Place
Steele Consulting Hackathon
Bloomberg Tech Lab
'25 & '26 participant
Break Through Tech AI
2026–2027 cohort
The strongest signal across every week is consistency — workshops, pitches, founder programs, outreach, and technical work keep stacking up.
Working through strengths, growth mindset, creative problem solving, prototyping, and communicating the value behind an idea. It reflects how seriously I take entrepreneurship as both a discipline and a way of thinking.
Deep build mode
Screens full, whiteboard active, deadline in 4 hours.
Currently active
4 parallel builds
ColorStack at UTEP
Presented on supervised and unsupervised learning with Monet Nevarez, turning machine learning concepts into examples that other students could actually connect with and use.
GDG on Campus: UTEP
Pitched Black Box as a digital performance studio for structured AI and community-driven acting feedback, then earned 3rd place in a strong, multilingual competitive room.
Recent competition
Built a JavaScript game in Phaser under pressure, learning the library fast, debugging constantly, and shipping a working experience before presentation. Our team placed 3rd.
SCRSEF · Science on Screen · DinoTracks
Supporting outreach, event operations, digital content, and web-facing work at Insights Science Discovery while staying active in programs that connect STEAM to real students and families.
UTEP computer science student, NSF S-STEM Scholar, and builder shaped by code, startup ecosystems, mentorship, service, and long-range ambition.
What ties it together
Software is one part. Leadership, pitching, mentorship, and showing up in harder rooms complete the picture.
Teaching supervised & unsupervised learning.
01
I build at the intersection of software engineering, artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship, and human-centered technology, but the deeper pattern is simpler: I move early, learn fast, and keep building in public.
02
A lot of my growth has come from taking on visible responsibility early, whether that means pitching ideas, leading workshops, serving in officer roles, mentoring students, or stepping into rooms that force me to grow.
03
I care about technology that helps people learn, build confidence, discover opportunities, and move forward with more clarity, especially students and early builders still figuring out what they are capable of.
Based in El Paso, TX. Building technology that travels beyond borders.
From pitch-winning AI products to systems labs and current ventures — each project marks a deliberate step.
An AI-powered platform designed to help college students navigate academic life with more structure, clarity, and direction.
Built as founder and technical lead, STAR combines AI-generated lesson planning, task scheduling, opportunity discovery, and personalized study support into one student-centered product. It grew through pitch competitions, founder programs, and repeated iteration instead of staying as a classroom idea.
Stack
React · Vite · JavaScript · OpenAI API · CSS · Context API · localStorage
Impact
Won 1st place and a $1000 prize at the Tacos & Tech-ila audience pitch competition sponsored by Microsoft and Nusenda, and helped define my direction as a student founder.
An AI-powered platform designed to help college students navigate academic life with more structure, clarity, and direction.
A digital acting studio built to help performers rehearse, reflect, and improve when practicing alone.
Black Box is the current build focus: an AI-powered platform for scene analysis, script breakdown, guided rehearsal, performance recording, AI feedback, and measurable progress tracking. It brings together my interests in software, AI, storytelling, and performance around a clear human problem.
Stack
React · Vite · Tailwind · OpenAI APIs · MediaPipe · OpenCV · Supabase or PostgreSQL
Impact
Transforms solo acting practice into a structured feedback loop with room for computer vision, performance analysis, and long-term creative technology potential.
Project note
A digital acting studio built to help performers rehearse, reflect, and improve when practicing alone.
AI Acting Practice Platform · Founder, product direction, full-stack and AI planning
An AI tool that generates curated K-5 book collections and lesson plans for immersive learning environments.
Built during the Borderland AI Hackathon, the platform uses retrieval, embeddings, and generative AI to help educators quickly create relevant reading collections and companion learning materials. The project was designed for practical classroom use, not just technical novelty.
Stack
Streamlit · LangChain · FAISS · MiniLM embeddings · OpenAI API
Impact
Won 1st place in the Immersive Learning Track and the Innovator Award, earning recognition from Microsoft, Scholastic, and the STTE Foundation.
Project note
An AI tool that generates curated K-5 book collections and lesson plans for immersive learning environments.
Hackathon Project · Hackathon builder
Hands-on engineering work spanning full-stack application flow and distributed messaging systems.
Worked with Bloomberg engineers across two technical lab experiences, contributing to a full-stack news feed system in 2025 and a RabbitMQ-based producer-consumer lab in 2026 focused on routing, acknowledgements, debugging, and containerized execution. These experiences pushed my understanding beyond application code and into systems behavior.
Stack
React · Flask · Redis · Docker · Python · RabbitMQ
Impact
Deepened real-world understanding of scalable systems, backend optimization, messaging infrastructure, and debugging across distributed environments.
Project note
Hands-on engineering work spanning full-stack application flow and distributed messaging systems.
Systems and Infrastructure Experience · Participant and systems builder
Case-based strategy work focused on logistics, resilience, and operational decision making under pressure.
Selected to participate in Dell Tech Academy across two competitive experiences, working on real-world manufacturing and supply chain challenges. The work involved logistics planning, demand forecasting, risk analysis, business continuity, delivery constraints, and presenting strategic recommendations to Dell representatives and mentors.
Stack
Supply chain analysis · Operations strategy · Risk assessment · Team presentation · Business continuity
Impact
Expanded my thinking beyond software into systems, logistics, and execution, while reinforcing how leadership and analytical decision making work together in high-stakes environments.
Project note
Case-based strategy work focused on logistics, resilience, and operational decision making under pressure.
Operations and Supply Chain Strategy · Case competition participant
Build, support, test, show up, learn, repeat. The pattern has been consistent for two years.
Actively developing an AI acting practice platform with a direction that combines OpenAI APIs, feedback systems, and computer vision layers like MediaPipe and OpenCV.
Continuing to evolve the original student AI concept into something more product-minded, with stronger user thinking, startup framing, and iteration beyond the first pitch win.
Supporting ongoing web design, digital content, analytics, and outreach systems that connect programs, events, and students to real community-facing experiences.
Continuing to pitch Black Box, lead student-facing technical workshops through ColorStack, and keep building visibility through founder and campus programs.
Currently learning
Traction signals
How I build
Serving as a STEAM Intern at Insights Science Discovery, a mentor with GDG on Campus: UTEP, a Technical Officer and professional development leader in ColorStack at UTEP, and a UTEP Undergraduate Fellow. This stage is defined by repeated weekly involvement: workshops, outreach events, digital content, mentoring, program support, and staying visible in the communities I want to help build.
INSIGHTS, GDG on Campus, ColorStack, UTEP Undergraduate Fellows
Expanded from software into operations and systems thinking through Bloomberg Tech Lab, Dell Tech Academy, and the Disney College Program. These experiences sharpened how I think about reliability, logistics, service, storytelling, and what it means to design an experience that people can actually feel.
Bloomberg, Dell Technologies, Walt Disney World
Worked inside Pioneers 21 Business Incubator while participating in Studio G, Tech Frontier, Mike Loya entrepreneurship programming, Dell case challenges, and local founder events. This is where entrepreneurship stopped feeling motivational and started becoming practical: market research, pitch prep, founder resources, pricing, sales thinking, validation, and repeated exposure to people actually building.
Pioneers 21, Studio G, Tech Frontier, Mike Loya Center
Built traction around student-focused AI ideas through STAR, Borderland AI Hackathon, the P21 VMS Pitch Challenge, and Tacos & Tech-ila. Building under deadlines, competing under pressure, and pitching in front of real audiences taught me that ideas get stronger when they are tested in public, under constraints, and with real feedback.
STAR, AI Book Boss, STTE, P21 Pitch Challenge
Built trust by solving real problems for students, faculty, and community programs through UTEP technology support, MiniTec coordination, STTE volunteering, FOSS logistics leadership, and outreach work centered on confidence, access, and learning. A lot of my philosophy comes from this: people remember whether you showed up.
UTEP, MiniTec, STTE, FOSS Club
Teaching ML · ColorStack
STAR Hackathon Win
GDG · UTEP CS
Science Floor · Insights
Insights Science Discovery
Web design, digital content, analytics, outreach systems, and event support across SCRSEF, Science on Screen, DinoTracks, and STEAM programs.
Summer 2025
Pioneers 21 Business Incubator and Co-Work Space
Worked inside a startup incubator helping support founders, entrepreneurship programming, and operational materials while learning venture building from the inside.
September 2024 - February 2026
The University of Texas at El Paso
Provided front-line technology support inside the College of Education, solving real technical problems while helping users feel more confident with the tools around them.
September 2025 - January 2026
Walt Disney World
Worked across park operations with a strong focus on safety, guest experience, and execution, while learning from Disney's culture of detail, service, and storytelling.
ColorStack at UTEP
Helped launch the chapter and lead student-facing technical and professional development programming, including LinkedIn and personal branding workshops.
GDG on Campus: UTEP
Support students in their professional and technical growth through mentorship, guidance, and shared learning.
FOSS Club at UTEP
Support planning, coordination, and operations for an open-source student community.
MiniTec
Help lead programming and activities for children with disabilities, combining service, patience, creativity, and community-centered leadership.
Studio G UTEP
Developed startup thinking through customer discovery, business planning, funding strategy, and founder-focused workshops.
UTEP Undergraduate Fellows Program
Participate in campus leadership, mentorship, and professional development programming centered on long-term academic and professional growth.
Technical execution, AI experimentation, mentorship, leadership, and startup thinking.
Software engineering
Full-stack applications with a growing focus on scalable architecture, systems behavior, and products that solve real user problems.
AI and emerging tech
Applied AI tools, retrieval workflows, prompt systems, and product ideas built around usefulness rather than hype.
Design and storytelling
Using product design, communication, and narrative thinking to make software feel clear, motivating, memorable, and human.
Leadership and communication
Leadership shaped by mentorship, theater, workshops, student organizations, public-facing roles, and repeated experience presenting ideas.
Entrepreneurship
A builder mindset shaped by incubators, accelerators, founder conversations, local startup ecosystems, and repeated pitch experience.
Community and momentum
Showing up repeatedly across student organizations, service work, sports, creative projects, and the El Paso innovation community.
Service, mentorship, performance, sports, and creative work shape how I lead, communicate, and stay grounded.
Disney College Program
A reminder that the biggest stages are earned by showing up every single day.
Walt Disney World · College Program
Earning My Ears — Disney University, Orlando
MiniTec
Working with children with disabilities has sharpened my patience, communication, empathy, and sense of responsibility. It is one of the clearest reminders that impact is not abstract.
Mentorship
Through GDG and ColorStack, I keep returning to mentorship because helping other students gain confidence and direction is part of how I want to lead.
Theater and storytelling
My theater background shaped how I communicate, present, tell stories, and think about emotion, presence, and audience experience.
Soccer
Soccer keeps me connected to discipline, teamwork, energy, and the kind of consistency that only matters if you bring it repeatedly.
DJing and music
DJing and music production give me a creative outlet that keeps experimentation, rhythm, and taste active outside of code.
Community · Service
Giving back, showing up, staying grounded.
The mindset underneath the resume — how I think about action, growth, risk, and building a life with intention.
I believe that life rewards movement. Most people wait for certainty before they begin, but readiness usually does not appear before action. People become ready by trying, learning, adjusting, and continuing forward.
A belief that has stayed with me for years is that we are capable of doing more than we initially think. I never saw that as pressure. I saw it as responsibility. If I have the chance to learn something, build something, or step into a bigger room, I should take it.
Because of that, I approach life as experimentation. I build projects, join communities, pitch ideas, mentor others, and place myself in environments where growth can happen. Some things work, many things do not, but every attempt creates information. That information helps you adapt, pivot, and keep moving.
What people call luck is often just repeated action becoming visible. When someone keeps showing up, connecting, and trying, opportunities start to appear. The point is not arriving fully formed. The point is becoming the person capable of building what comes next.
Message
You do not need permission to begin. You do not need the perfect plan, the perfect timing, or complete confidence before you start. If something genuinely matters to you, build it, test it, learn from it, and keep going.
Impact
I want to encourage students, young builders, and creators to explore their potential earlier and with more courage. Through technology, entrepreneurship, and community, I want to build tools and environments that help people discover opportunities they might not have seen otherwise.
10 — Contact
Open to internships, startup opportunities, founder-led teams, freelance web work, and collaborators building useful technology.
Direct
igalvan6@miners.utep.edu(915) 630-3282
El Paso, Texas
Education
The University of Texas at El Paso
B.S. in Computer Science · Entrepreneurship · Expected May 2029
Elsewhere