Stories & Updates

If you have participated in one of Horn Entrepreneurship’s commercialization programs, attended a REEF@UD Demo Day at the Venture Development Center or reached out through the UD Innovation Gateway, chances are Linda Walck helped make the experience possible.

As program manager for commercialization, Walck coordinates the people, logistics and connections that keep programs moving forward. From managing complex schedules alongside Troy Wilford, director of commercialization programs, to helping innovators find the right resources across the University of Delaware, she is known for stepping in wherever she can add value.

Who doesn’t love free food and insightful conversation? Free Lunch Fridays are returning this semester at Horn, offering a weekly speaker series featuring entrepreneurial leaders from the community. Come for the free lunch and stay for the conversation. Each Friday gives students the opportunity to hear firsthand from entrepreneurs and professionals as they share their experiences, lessons learned, and advice.

For many students, the path from graduation to startup success is a long, winding road of trial and error. For Sebastian Torres, a University of Delaware computer engineering graduate, that journey began in the middle of his undergraduate career—first by navigating the technical hurdles of video editing, and then by launching a digital project that turned a simple idea into a growing online venture.

Social innovation is often the result of collaboration, but the efforts of one person dedicated to furthering a cause can truly make a difference. That’s what the young entrepreneurs and their chaperones from across the globe gathered to celebrate at the 2026 Limitless World Summit, an annual conference hosted by the University of Delaware’s Horn Entrepreneurship that offers secondary school students the chance to hone their entrepreneurial skills and win funding for their business and social ventures. Epitomizing that potential was the 2026 Emerging Innovator of the Year: Soneesh Kothagundla, an 18-year-old health advocate from Georgia, USA.

For many college students, graduation marks the terrifying unknown of entering the traditional job market. But for Willem Westra, who graduated from the University of Delaware in 2022, the journey took an ambitious turn.

As School Partnerships Manager at Horn Entrepreneurship, Brittany Acosta is helping expand access to entrepreneurship education beyond the University of Delaware campus. Through partnerships with high schools, she works with educators and administrators to bring business, innovation, and leadership courses to students before they begin their college journey.

On August 13, Horn Entrepreneurship celebrated the 2026 Summer Founders cohort at its 11th annual Demo Day, bringing together University of Delaware student founders, mentors, supporters and members of the entrepreneurial community.

The event marked the culmination of an intensive 11-week experience filled with customer discovery, venture development, mentoring and plenty of iteration. With stipend funding, dedicated venture support and access to nearly 100 volunteer experts throughout the summer, founders had the opportunity to focus on their ideas, test assumptions and make meaningful progress on their ventures.

The pathway to positive world-change isn’t a journey one should take alone, but rather hand-in-hand with like-minded visionaries — that’s what young entrepreneurs from 13 countries and 20 U.S. states learned firsthand at the 2026 Limitless World Summit, a conference hosted by the University of Delaware’s Horn Entrepreneurship for high school students to learn and grow together as leaders in business and innovation.

The Lerner College of Business & Economics recently hosted its spring Sales Competition, a high-stakes event that brought a competitive intensity to the University of Delaware campus. Led by Dan Alia, head of the Sales Minor, the competition serves as a premier test track for undergraduate talent, pushing students to refine their pitches and execute complex missions under pressure.

In an era of rapid technological advancement, the digital landscape is becoming increasingly complex—and with that complexity comes a critical need for robust, reliable security. As software development cycles accelerate and sensitive data becomes a prime target, the tools used to identify and neutralize vulnerabilities are more important than ever. This is the final article in the series highlighting the teams participating in the 2026 Summer Founders program. You can meet them at this year’s Demo Day.