Innovation can take root anywhere, whether it's in a lab at a tier-one research university or a coworking space within a booming West Texas border city. This year's Inno Under 25 class proves that — and then some.
Each year, Albuquerque Business First and New Mexico Inno look for young startup founders, novel researchers or other folks working to advance the state's growing innovation ecosystem. Through a public call for nominations and our own individual outreach, the editorial team selected five individuals for this year's group of Inno Under 25 honorees. To qualify, those chosen had to be 25 years old or younger as of Oct. 13, 2023 (the date of this publication).
While previous iterations of our Inno Under 25 awards have picked people based primarily in and around the Albuquerque area — which is not surprising as the Duke City is by far the state's largest city — Business First looked a bit farther south for this year's class. A couple of our honorees base their work in the Borderplex region, which spans from El Paso, Texas, to Las Cruces, and another has pioneered research at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro.
But don't worry. Albuquerque — and the University of New Mexico, specifically — is still well represented.
You can read all about those five honorees in the Oct. 13 print edition of the the paper, or in the coming days online.
It's not easy to market an organization as wide-ranging as New Mexico State University's Arrowhead Center. Mariana Bucio seems up to the challenge.
Bucio, who's from Santa Teresa and graduated from New Mexico State University (NMSU), first got in the door with the Arrowhead Center as an intern while still a student at the Las Cruces-based university. Specifically, she interned with the Arrowhead Innovation Fund (AIF), the venture arm of the NMSU-attached entrepreneurship organization.
Her focus while an intern was on growing AIF's social media accounts. Bucio then, after graduating, took that experience and turned it into a full-time job with the Arrowhead Center.
Bucio is part of the Center's communications and design teams, helping craft and distribute marketing materials. That work has helped reinforce — and build upon — a lot of what she learned while studying at NMSU, where she earned a bachelor of arts in graphic design with a minor in marketing.
"When I was finishing up my degree the one negative was it was around the time Covid-19 happened," Bucio said. "So, I would say I didn't get the full experience to learn about printing since everything was virtual. Working with Arrowhead Center I learned the printing process, which was not something I had known as a student."
Another example is motion graphics, which Bucio said she's learned a lot about while working with the Arrowhead Center. That's an area she wants to go into long term, as well.
Aside from building upon graphic design and marketing skills, Bucio said collaboration has been at the core of her work, both in school and with the Arrowhead Center.
"Looking back, I really value being able to connect with other students and professors and just faculty in general," she said. "It really opened my eyes to all the perspectives and new perspectives that I wouldn't have been able to grasp on my own."
Albuquerque Business First sat down with Bucio to hear more about how she views innovation in her work, why she chose that work and what could be next in her career.
The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Albuquerque Business First: Why marketing and social media? What has drawn you to doing this type of work?
Mariana Bucio: I don't remember exactly the timeline but at some point around the time I decided I wanted to do graphic design, I took a course in marketing when I first started at NMSU. I was really intrigued by the psychology behind it and the reasoning behind it. Obviously, graphic design comes into play with that too, it kind of goes hand in hand with marketing. Initially, I thought I wanted to stick with marketing but I was more interested in the visual aspects of it and communicating through that.
I feel like innovation is a core part of social media and marketing. So, how do you in your own work think about innovation? Do you consider yourself an innovative person in the work that you do? I don't know if I'd say I consider myself an innovative person, but you do have to innovate to be in the industry just because trends are constantly changing and there's always something new in graphic design. I'd say in that way I do innovate. I do try to keep up with the trends and new updates with new platforms and ways we can communicate and grow our audience and expand our reach.
Is there a favorite platform that you work with, whether it be a social media platform or a graphic design platform? For social media I would say my favorite is Instagram. I think in some ways it's more engaging, which is why I really like it. With graphic design software, I'm going to say After Effects. That's for motion graphics, but it's a really nice tool that you can do a lot of things in. It's kind of like a multi-purpose platform.
Do you have a career goal or long-term hopes for your career? Is there a place that you see yourself in like five or ten years? Although I really enjoy my experience working with the Arrowhead Center and the industry, with like entrepreneurship, I do want to gradually shift into a different industry later down the line. The beautiful thing with graphic design is a lot of the skills can be applied to different industries, so what I've learned is going to be really valuable when I do take that step forward. Long term, I do want to work more with motion graphics. I still want to work on strategic communications. But I would, in terms of industry, I would want to gear more into the entertainment industry.
