Inside the Program Preparing Engineers To Think Like Founders
Engineering education equips students to imagine what’s possible. Turning that possibility into a viable product or venture requires a different kind of learning, one that is grounded in the messy realities of entrepreneurship. In the lab, success is measured in precision; in the startup world, it’s measured in traction. Between those two worlds lies a gap that aspiring entrepreneurs can struggle to cross.
Now, The Sugi and Millie Widjaja Entrepreneurship Fellows Program at Penn Engineering prepares students to do just that and more, offering a uniquely immersive experience for a select group of young engineers poised to become tomorrow’s entrepreneurs. Launched in 2023 under the visionary guidance of Tom Cassel, Practice Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics and Director Emeritus of Penn Engineering Entrepreneurship, and backed by alumni champions Sugi Widjaja (ENG’00) and Millie Wan (W’01), this competitive program blends rigorous coursework, mentorship and real-world startup experience.
At Penn, Sugi Widjaja (ENG’00) and Millie Wan (W’01) were introduced to each other and to a world of possibility. After their time on campus, the couple has since traveled the globe, living in Asia and Silicon Valley while raising a family, with Widjaja working at the intersection of engineering and business. Their shared belief in entrepreneurship as both a mindset and a force for good inspired them to endow the Widjaja Entrepreneurship Fellows Program. For Widjaja and Wan, giving back means planting the seeds of innovation and daring future engineers to imagine — and build — what’s possible.
Fellows are selected using a process that includes case-based interviews designed to reveal entrepreneurial traits like leadership, teamwork and resilience, and participants benefit from personalized mentorship from Penn Engineering alumni in startups and venture capital firms. Through summer internships, students like Arianna Alonso Bizzi, Shiyao (Angelina) Ning and Eli Weisbord are able to translate classroom insights into tangible contributions, whether shaping terms sheets or steering product development.
“Programs like this demystify the startup world,” says Vanessa Chan (ENG’94), Jonathan and Linda Brassington Practice Professor in Materials Science and Engineering and Vice Dean of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Penn Engineering. “Students walk away with the confidence and knowledge to launch companies, join startups or become the next generation of venture investors.”
Breakthroughs in Brain Tech
Growing up, Arianna Alonso Bizzi (GEng’26), looked at London’s Science Museum as a second home. She remembers circling the Apollo 11 lunar module replica with her father, who told stories of seeing the landing on Italian TV. Years later, while watching Interstellar at the museum, she began to wonder about distorted realities not only in space, but within the brain.
This summer, as a Widjaja Entrepreneurship Fellow, Alonso Bizzi — a Thouron Scholar and master’s student in Electrical and Systems Engineering — interned at Blackrock Neurotech, a Utah-based leader in brain–computer interfaces (BCIs). The technology is already helping people living with paralysis restore movement and communication. “BCIs reconnect the brain with the outside world, bypassing the body’s limits,” she explains. “Someday, they could even enhance human capabilities more broadly.”
At Blackrock, Alonso Bizzi developed systems to analyze the electrodes used to record neural activity. “Picture testing a race car,” she says. “You can’t test each component one by one. You need systems that run checks in parallel and still stay precise.”
The Widjaja Fellows Program gave Alonso Bizzi a unique perspective that she carried into her summer at Blackrock. Lessons from Cassel’s spring seminar encouraged her to think about the broader forces that keep a neurotech company alive: how funding, strategy and adoption shape whether a technology actually reaches people. “I began to see Blackrock not just through my own work, but as a system moving technology toward the public,” she says.
Alonso Bizzi, who studied physics as an undergraduate, also realized how easily perfectionism can hold back progress. “The physicist in me wanted to optimize every detail,” she says, “but with so many variables, I risked getting stuck. Thinking like an engineering entrepreneur means starting simple and then relentlessly improving.”
From Medicine to Market
At first, Shiyao (Angelina) Ning (GEng’26) imagined becoming a doctor. “It seemed like the best way to ‘do good’ with science,” she says. As an undergraduate, she conducted research in medicine, but realized that the path was simply too rigid. “I get energy from open-ended questions,” she says. “Not fixed steps.”
Now, as a Widjaja Entrepreneurship Fellow pursuing a master’s in Biotechnology, Ning channels her desire to do good with science through startups. “I want to put useful things into the world,” she says. “Tools or services that people reach for to solve real problems, save time or ease pain.”
This summer, Ning interned at NewSpring Capital with Jonathan Brassington (GEng’97, WF’08), a partner at the firm, a member of Penn Engineering’s Board of Advisors and a longtime supporter of Engineering Entrepreneurship, which houses the Fellows Program.
At NewSpring, Ning mapped industries and met with founders to surface new investment leads. The work taught her to ask new questions: “Who really needs this? Will they value it enough to adopt? And can I put the right mix of people and resources together to deliver it?”
The experience — which involved so much hands-on mentorship that Ning describes the firm as “watering their interns like trees” — changed Ning’s perspective on engineering. “As a student, I always focused on avoiding mistakes,” she says. “But what really matters the most is the journey itself, and the lessons you take from each previous venture to the next one.”
Optimizing Systems, Improving Lives
Eli Weisbord (C’26, GEng’26) has always been fascinated by systems. Starting in middle school, he configured and built desktop computers for friends, spending hours researching components to optimize performance. “What excites me most is applying systems-level thinking to solve real-world problems,” he says.
Initially, Weisbord enrolled in Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences, where he majored in Mathematics. Then he learned about Penn Engineering’s accelerated master’s in Systems Engineering and the Widjaja Entrepreneurship Fellows. “I wanted to make an impact by building on top of theorems and abstractions,” he says.
This summer, as a Fellow, Weisbord interned at Pickle, the e-commerce clothing rental platform founded by his mentor Julia O’Mara (ENG’19). There, he contributed directly to changes in marketing strategy and product development, providing data-driven insights that improved how the platform matches renters and lenders.
In the future, Weisbord plans to apply the same mindset to American health care. “It’s hard to find someone who hasn’t dealt with delays, confusion and lack of transparency,” he says. “I want to improve care by giving patients better tools to weigh medical and financial trade-offs.”
Already, the Fellows Program — which Weisbord calls “the single most impactful experience” of his time at Penn — has altered how he sees the world. Now, every problem looks like an entrepreneurial opportunity.
Learn more about how you or your organization can expand the impact of the Widjaja Fellows Program.
Story by Ian Scheffler / Photos by Jeff Wojtaszek