In 2024, Ray Owen (BSEE, 1979) and Charissa Willard established the Owen/Willard Student Entrepreneur Scholarship. For Ray, it was the relationships fostered at Michigan State that connected him with the opportunity to contribute to speech recognition product development, an early application of what would later be known as generative AI. This experience was formative and later led him to Silicon Valley as a systems engineer. Most importantly, that move led him to Charissa, a cybersecurity architect and software engineer at several networking and storage startups. Both are now partners at Farallon Research, an investment and advisory vehicle. Their shared perspectives in deep tech inform the Scholarship in its mission to support MSU students working to advance society through innovation.
The Owen/Willard Student Entrepreneur Scholarship is intended to encourage students who have demonstrated capacity and motivation to achieve educational and professional goals and seek opportunities to further their progress.