Orlando, Fla. (February 24, 2022) Each year, the University of Central Florida graduates thousands of students who go on to have great lives and careers.
That’s why the UCF Business Incubation Program is excited that one of its clients, Joe Sleppy, CEO, Capacitech Energy, has been named as one of the top UCF alumni under the age of 30.
The company’s supercapacitor technology, the Cable-Based Capacitor, is unlike any other on the market as it is flexible and shaped like a wire. Its unique form factor helps engineers use supercapacitors in new ways and in new places to improve their designs. Capacitech’s product enables new features and unprecedented performance by complementing batteries, providing peak power assistance and backup power, and improving power quality; all of which can be hidden within or alongside the wiring already used in the system.
“Joe has had a remarkable career already with the technology he helped develop while he was a student at UCF,” says Carol Ann Dykes Logue, director, Innovation Districts Programs & Operations, University of Central Florida. “We expect his company to truly be an example for years to come about the economic development ecosystem we have built here at the university and in Central Florida.”
The 30 under 30 recognition is an annual event held by UCF Alumni. Nominations were reviewed and scored by UCF staff, previous award recipients, and the UCF Young Alumni Council. The finalists were then confirmed by the UCF Alumni Board based on the following criteria:
- Must be a graduate of UCF (undergraduate or graduate degree)
- Must be age 29 or younger on June 1, 2022
- Must demonstrate a commitment to maintaining a lifelong relationship with UCF and strive to uphold UCF Young Alumni values
Sleppy, who graduated in 2018, certainly holds those criteria.
His first company founded during his junior year of high school, SleppSolutions, not only provided amputees with hands-free fitness equipment but also put him on the map as the winner of the 2013 Next Generation Entrepreneur contest.
As an undergraduate at UCF, Joe won awards, co-authored research papers, founded Capacitech, licensed intellectual property from UCF, won the 2016 UCF Joust New Venture Competition, and received the highly competitive Small Business Technology Transfer grant from the National Science Foundation to develop promising technologies.
Since then, he:
- Was selected by UCF to meet with Bill Gates in a one-on-one meeting
- Was awarded the “Young Entrepreneurship Award” presented by Governor Rick Scott
- Has raised more than $1.4 million in capital for Capacitech
Most recently, he led Capacitech to be named one of the Top 5 Supercapacitor Startups in the world while mentoring UCF-students in the company’s internship program and regularly appearing as a guest speaker at UCF’s STEM and entrepreneurship programs.
“Entrepreneurship is a mindset and methodology to solve problems, improve lives, and make the world a better place,” Sleppy says.
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UCF Business Incubation Program: Carol Ann Dykes Logue, 407-635-9882, carolann.dykeslogue@ucf.edu; Alan Byrd, Alan Byrd & Associates, 407-415-8470, Alan@ByrdConnections.com
About Capacitech Energy: Capacitech is bringing a new type of capacitor to market. This capacitor, unlike traditional capacitors, is shaped like a wire rather than a soda can. This unique form factor has a plethora of advantages. Most significantly, its thin and flexile nature gives way to embed Capacitech’s Cable-Based Capacitor (CBC) inside power cords. This enables Capacitech’s customers to discreetly build high-power density energy storage systems into their design to improve power quality and complement batteries, without needing to change circuit designs. We are initially targeting the wearables and Internet of Things space and will scale to renewables, IT backup power systems, EVs, mobility, and more in the future. For more information, visit capacitechenergy.com
About the UCF Business Incubation Program:
The University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program is a community resource that provides early-stage companies with the tools, training and infrastructure to become financially stable, high growth/impact enterprises. Since 1999, this award-winning program has provided vital business development resources resulting in over 300 local startup companies reaching their potential faster and graduating into the community where they continue to grow and positively impact the local economy.
With seven facilities throughout the region, the UCF Business Incubation Program is an economic development partnership between the University of Central Florida, the Corridor, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia Counties, and the cities of Kissimmee, Orlando and Winter Springs. For the 2017/2018 fiscal years, the activities of these participating firms have helped to sustain more than 6,725 local jobs and have had a cumulative impact of over $725 million on regional GDP and over $1.3 billion on regional sales. During the same period, the program has returned more than $12.00 in state and local taxes for every $1.00 invested in the program. In addition, for every $1.00 of public investment the firms also produced $118 of additional regional GDP and $226 of regional sales. For more information, visit www.incubator.ucf.edu
