Category: Entrepreneur of the Year

Kevin Mis Solval, associate professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, demonstrates entrepreneurial leadership that translates food engineering research into sustainable commercial innovation. A specialist in sustainable food process engineering and blue proteins, Mis Solval co-founded JellyCoUSA to transform underutilized marine resources into high-value nutraceuticals. JellyCoUSA is built around a proprietary, environmentally responsible process developed at UGA to produce readily absorbed collagen peptides from cannonball jellyfish—an abundant species along the Georgia coast historically viewed as a nuisance or limited to niche markets. The technology offers an alternative to mammalian collagen for health care and wellness applications while creating economic opportunities for coastal fishing communities. The company licensed its technology through a Georgia Startup License and secured significant financial support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Georgia Research Alliance, UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, and Innovation Gateway. Through JellyCoUSA, Mis Solval has demonstrated how research-driven entrepreneurship can help create blue economies while advancing food innovation.

Entrepreneur of the Year 2025

Prashant Doshi, professor in the School of Computing, is transforming artificial intelligence research into real-world applications through his work on human-robot collaboration and inverse reinforcement learning. His research has broad implications across industries, including agriculture, where he is developing AI-driven collaborative robots (cobots) to streamline produce processing operations. To bring this technology to market, Doshi co-founded InversAI, a company focused on commercializing AI-powered automation. Under his leadership, the company secured grants from the Georgia Research Alliance and NSF Small Business Technology Transfer, funding the first application of AI-driven cobots in onion sorting and enabling onsite trials of the technology in Georgia’s onion processing sheds. By bridging academic research and industry, Doshi exemplifies the successful transition of university-based innovation into practical, scalable technologies. His work continues to push the boundaries of AI-driven robotics, shaping the future of intelligent automation and expanding its role in commercial and industrial settings.