Fellow:Vincent Arena

Vincent Arena Cliffs.jpg

Vincent Arena is a lifelong learner, design thinker, and food fanatic. He's the type of guy who carries around a moleskin everywhere, has a 3D printer in his closet, and grows aquaponic basil above his fish tank on his desk. Originally from Long Island, Vincent has spent the last three years at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, including one semester abroad in Denmark (DTU). He dual majors in Mechanical Engineering and Design Innovation & Society, a.k.a. socially and environmentally sustainable "inventing". As a freshman in a class calledHow To Change The World (HTCTW), Vincent was inspired by his professor Burt Swersey to use his creativity, passion for technology, and drive for helping others to pursue a career as an entrepreneur. With a love for teaching and empowering others, Vincent became a teaching assistant for the HTCTW as well as an Engineering Ambassador. Both roles have required coming up with creative and educational teaching material while simultaneously encouraging other students to discover their inner creativity and combine it with engineering to follow their dreams. Since then, Vincent's goal has been to make the world a better place in the short term through his day-to-day interactions, and in the long term through his companies.

Vincent is a highly energetic and adaptable individual who is always eager to jump on new ideas. He has pursued many side-projects which align with his interests, such as a cradle-to-cradle 3D printer filament, hydroponic furniture, a mood-based social app, and meditation/inspiration virtual reality experiences. With a week's notice at the end of his summer internship creating virtual reality experiences for Wayfair, Vincent was presented with the opportunity to pitch, as a last-minute replacement, for his friend's startup, Sanguine Diagnostics. He was so excited with the potential of the idea that he placed first out of all 12 pitches and since then has joined the team as a co-founder and completed three startup accelerators this the past semester: NSF I-Site, RPI's Change the World Challenge, and the Albany Medical BACC Academy. Vincent plans on pursuing Sanguine Diagnostics, a low-cost, paper diagnostics delivery platform, full time in May 2017.

In his free time, Vincent loves to draw and write in his sketchbook, travel to new cities or places in nature, have long talks or jam sessions with friends, and prototype his ideas. Since a kid, his sacred place has always been the beach. He loves listening to the sound of the waves, body-boarding, as well as entering sand-sculpting competitions.

Vincent would love to know about your passions and talk, collaborate, or share ideas in whatever way possible. He can be reached via email: (vincent.l.arena@gmail.com) or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VincentArena1995.

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