[Miles Braxton speaking]

I was really excited to go to UVA, the whole concept of opening yourself up to new experiences, new ideas, new people, new perspectives.

Now I’m 29. And, you know, those are still some of my closest friends.

I started my academic career in electrical engineering did some research and found the father of photonics, Doctor Mool Gupta, doing research on solar cells at UVA.

Coming out of college, I was applying to over 90 positions, one of the interviews led to a company called ITility.

They had won a contract to convert 220 tons of chicken manure into electricity.

You know, a couple of days in a row of scooping chicken poop will have you thinking.

I loved working in this almost startup environment, but knew I wanted to do that in solar.

I have a very entrepreneurial spirit, and I knew that the final step for me would be working for myself.

Okovate develops community solar farms, on active farmland where farmers are able to grow crops, graze livestock, within the rows of the solar array. and allowing farmers to unlock the economic benefits of solar without sacrificing, you know, farmland that's been in their family for generations.

I think a lot of kind of the entrepreneurial skill set is a lot of my experience at UVA.

You have to be a constant learner.

UVA really gave me the resilience and hardness that I needed to kind of go out in the world and just experience things for myself and figure it out.

Going through that journey as a student was all an experience that I live today and is part of what has made me, me.