Local entrepreneur hired to support REV-UP Center for Entrepreneurship

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Originally posted on the Patch

Leo Daiuto joins Penn State Great Valley as the campus’ entrepreneur-in-residence.

MALVERN, Pa. — Penn State Great Valley welcomes Leo Daiuto as the campus’ part-time entrepreneur-in-residence. In addition to starting two technology-based businesses, he formed and grew a user experience-focused group at Unisys. As the entrepreneur-in-residence, Daiuto will support the campus’ REV-UP Center for Entrepreneurship and mentor and assist students interested in starting a businesses.

With a background in computer science, Daiuto started his career at Unisys as a summer intern. Over the course of 20 years, he worked his way up the career ladder to ultimately build and direct the company’s Human Factors and Design Group. Concentrating on user interface and the physical design, his team’s approach shed a new perspective on the company’s technology. He grew the group from an initial 11 Pennsylvania-based employees to 140 across the world.

“My experience there inspired me to create new things and build teams,” he added. “I hired a core group of people — some of whom I still work with today. If you construct the right team of people, they can thrive in a variety of industries and situations.”

In 2005 he turned one of his ideas into reality. Daiuto and his brother, a Penn State graduate, founded Slamm, a creative agency providing digital solutions in application development, user experience, and branding. The company built a variety of platforms, including a home control platform that contributed to their acquisition by Evolve Controls. After the merge, Daiuto continued his involvement to provide guidance on product development and overall strategy as the senior vice president of user experience and chief experience officer.

Embarking on another entrepreneurial endeavor, he and his brother started the West Chester-based Revolt Group in 2013. More technology-based than Slamm, the company builds and provides cloud-based solutions to other organizations. Daiuto sits on the group’s board today.

Daiuto heard about the entrepreneur-in-residence position from fellow entrepreneur and current board member Anthony Gold. Already familiar with both the Great Valley campus and the Penn State brand (in addition to his brother being a Penn State alumnus, his father served on Great Valley’s Advisory Board), Daiuto is eager to get started with REV-UP.

“I enjoy working with passionate people to help foster their ideas,” he remarked. “I love the concept of REV-UP. I’m excited to harness the power of the Penn State brand to create a hub of corporate sponsors, investors, students, alumni, and entrepreneurs in this community.”

In addition to his work with Penn State Great Valley, Daiuto actively consults with startups and established businesses to help them grow, hire effective teams, and build successful products. Although the entrepreneur-in-residence position is part-time, he has already met with key stakeholders to discuss future initiatives for REV-UP, including the Lion Cage competition set for 2017.

“With Great Valley’s location in Malvern, we can provide a different appeal from the city. The REV-UP Center for Entrepreneurship will offer something different, and I think we can help local entrepreneurs launch their ideas.”

Cheap Therapy

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This may not be precisely what you expected, but I am talking about the video game Destiny (by Bungie).

I am a techie for sure and I play games, but I would not consider myself a “gamer”. When I play I usually just play to experience the latest and greatest without any true attachment to the results or the game itself. Destiny, on the other hand, has been quite different.

I think a lot of my involvement in the game has been the social aspect of many of the guys at Evolve are playing (that’s how I became introduced to it). The fact that I have friends that are playing it and we are experiencing the game together is a big part of it for me. The fact that Bungie (even with the occasional server issue) created a really good game experience is also a big part. But those two items alone would not have hooked me the way it has. This has been a very unique experience for me.

I’ve joked around with my brother (VP @ Evolve) about how this was therapeutic over the past month or so but the more I think about it the more I think it actually is.

The reality is, there is a lot of very stressful and difficult things happening across the board right now and the game has become a way to focus that energy into something abstract while being connected to friends. After the kids get to bed (and after the jokes about dad going back into Destiny to fight the aliens), I put the big Astro headphones (avoid making direct eye contact with my wife, who must be thinking how lucky she is to married to the 40+ yr old yelling at the Xbox) and head to the Tower. The truth is, she is occasionally sitting next to be on the couch playing a game on her iPad giving me a supportive look when I’m getting my ass kicked by the Cabal and that’s my favorite time to play.

It’s a brief escape from everything that unfairly hijacks my brain and just allows me to not have to worry about all of the uncertainty, all of the problems I need to fix, all of the problems I can’t fix and just have a therapy session while on a quest to save mankind.

PS: If you haven’t played it. Do it !

photo credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67519485@N05/16346843936
http://photopin.com
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0

Philadelphia Tech Executive Advises To Stay Involved Beyond School

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For more news and information about employment and education, visit Let’s Get To Work Philly.

Leo Daiuto is the chief experience officer and senior vice president of User Experience & Innovation of Evolve Controls. Evolve Controls creates customizable enterprise-class solutions for automating, controlling and monitoring connected spaces. Daiuto is responsible for product innovation, design and marketing initiatives. With over 15 years of experience building and leading creative teams, Daiuto was the founder and CEO of software design agency, Slamm Creative and served as director of human factors and design at Unisys Corporation.

What sort of education is needed to successfully do your job?

“There are a few different paths that could lead to what I do (user experience and product strategy), especially when you have a multi-faceted group reporting to you. At Evolve, I am driving how people interact with our platform, products and brand, as well as product innovation, design and marketing initiatives. I work with technical people (computer science), creative (design and development), and marketing (strategy, branding, positioning). Any of that education path could lead someone to a tech company like Evolve.”

“I think that whatever the initial path is, it’s really important to continue to educate yourself, formally or not, on all of the pieces to the puzzle. Different backgrounds bring different perspectives to problems that are extremely valuable when you are looking to expand your focus.”

What is the most relevant aspect of your education that applies to your day-to-day job?

“Education helps for problem-solving and eventually gaining the confidence to understand that you’re not going to get everything right all the time. For me, it was learning how to learn and how to think about the big picture: the strategy.”

What is the most fun aspect of your job?

“I really enjoy solving big, challenging problems and coming up with a way to implement those solutions. The people I work with on a day-to-day basis to solve these problems, make what I do very inspiring.”

What advice would you give someone just starting out in the field of technology?

“There are two things that are invaluable for people just starting out:”

“Get into an internship program or summer program with a company, or companies, as soon as possible. Getting to see how your education will be applied on a day-to-day basis will give you a completely different perspective on learning. Don’t wait — try to get in somewhere as early as you can.”

“Remember that your current education is a basis; it’s the core skill set. Challenge yourself during your education to be involved and aware of what is happening in the field you are studying. There is innovation happening in every field. Getting into a company early will really help fuel that but you have to take the initiative to get involved as well, especially in the creative or technology fields. Coming out of school with real world experience and active participation in what is happening in the industry will make hiring managers separate your resume.”

Christina Thompson is a freelance writer living in Philadelphia. Her work can be found at Examiner.com.

Originally published at philadelphia.cbslocal.com on March 22, 2015.

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