Championing innovation via entrepreneurship

“Don’t go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” This was the sage advice shared by Dan Jenkins with the 10 teams participating in the grand finale of the 2026 Stella Zhang New Venture Competition, housed in UC Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business. The event is in its 22nd year, and Jenkins has been one of its co-chairs since 2014. He’s also an honorary board member for UC Irvine’s Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, whose faculty director, Imran Currim, offered this additional thought about the competition: “It takes a village.” That village is populated by many people, including myriad sponsors, volunteers who act as mentors and judges, and the contestants themselves: teams consisting of students, faculty, researchers, staff and community members who are enthused to launch a startup and turn their idea into a real business. We’re shining a spotlight on the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition in this episode of The UC Irvine Podcast. We’ll speak with Sakhi Patel, a graduate student in UC Irvine’s School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, whose lived experiences inspired her team’s business, CuraVoice. We’ll also hear from Alicia Rantos and Ernie Rapp, two of the event’s 160 volunteer coaches and judges. And we’ll take listeners inside the Merage School’s SB1 Auditorium on May 21, when the finalists presented their pitches to dazzle the panel and audience and win prize money that could help them achieve their goals. “Blazing Nights of Light,” the music featured throughout this episode, was provided by The Whole Other via the audio library in YouTube Studio.