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 online.
Maximo Gamez's days are pretty packed. From taking his sister to school to analyzing investments to conducting research, Gamez may start his day around 7 a.m. and not wrap it up until 9 or 10 p.m. But the El Paso native wouldn't want it any other way.
Gamez, after living with his family in other parts of Texas, in Nebraska and as far away as Hawaii, returned to his home city of El Paso in 2018 to study at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). While he initially went in as an electrical engineering student, Gamez said his focus soon shifted to the intersection of engineering and business.
That connection allowed Gamez to take part in "hackathons" — collaborative engineering events held between students over the course of one or two days — while at UTEP. In turn, that experience — and being selected as a top 10 senior, which allowed him to meet many professionals around El Paso — pushed Gamez toward the world of entrepreneurship and innovation.
Another program Gamez took part in is the Fire Venture Fellows program, a venture capital fellowship for students in the Borderplex region, which spans between El Paso and Las Cruces. It's run through the Arrowhead Center, an entrepreneurial-focused organization attached to New Mexico State University (NMSU).
That program introduced Gamez to Beto Pallares, a prominent venture capitalist in the region who leads an investment firm called Joseph Advisory Services. The first meeting between the two would eventually spin into a job opportunity; Gamez currently works as a venture analyst at Pallares' investment firm.
But besides his VC work, Gamez also serves as part of the STTE Foundation, an innovation and entrepreneurship-supporting nonprofit based in El Paso but working throughout the Southwest.
And, in addition to Joseph Advisory Services and the STTE Foundation, Gamez and a pair of friends from UTEP launched their own startup, called Acemate. It's a mobile application that helps students find study partners on campus or virtually.
"Imagine LinkedIn but for studying," Gamez said. "That's what we do."
Acemate was recently selected to take part in Aggie Shark Tank, a pitch event held in Las Cruces and sponsored by the Hunt Center for Entrepreneurship, part of NMSU's Arrowhead Center.
As if those three roles — venture analyst, nonprofit worker and startup co-founder — weren't enough, Gamez is conducting research surrounding economic development for a fellowship at UTEP. It's part of a larger, National Science Foundation-backed program to better understand the importance of universities in fostering entrepreneurship.
How does he manage all those different responsibilities? "I choose what days to work on certain things," Gamez said.
But that doesn't always end up working.
"Even though I choose not to work on all the things in one day, it ends up happening," he said.
To learn more about his various roles and duties in El Paso, how he views innovation and his path forward, Albuquerque Business First sat down virtually with Gamez.
The interview was edited for brevity and clarity.
Albuquerque Business First: You mentioned the challenge of innovating, especially as it relates to Acemate but maybe even just in general. What do you think is the most challenging part of innovating, especially as someone who is young and trying to get your foot in the door in different industries?
Maximo Gamez: I think breaking the mold that has been there before when you're trying to do something new. People run into that in whatever industry when you're trying to do something that hasn't been done before. But I think we can learn a lot from our peers and especially from mentors. I couldn't have done any of this without special help from university professors, from mentors here in the working places that I have.
You mentioned shifting to an engineering and business focus in college, and now you're doing a lot of work with VCs, you have your own startup. What has pulled you toward business or toward entrepreneurship? Why do you enjoy working in that space? The ability to work in the VC space and meet the brightest people working on solving the hardest problems in the world, for me, there's no other job that gives me that variety, that gives me the opportunity to find the people who are so specialized in a specific field and how they're working on this specific solution that's going to revolutionize their industry. Being able to propel those people to create their ideas is amazing. Being able to connect with them and meet some of the best decision-makers within those industries is pretty cool.
Do you have any idea what's next for your career? Or do you have a big, long-term career goal that you're trying to work toward or do you take it more day by day? I definitely live my life day by day. I plan a lot of things. I hope to live in a planned, spontaneous way, where you allow the currents of life to take you to some places. But I think it's good to plan how you want to take that current, how you want to ride that wave. For my career itself, I plan on eventually becoming a venture capital investor. That's my goal is to invest here in the region.
Do you want to stay based in El Paso or in the Southwest region? Definitely. Anything I do I want to come back here and do it. I think going elsewhere and learning from different cities and different parts of the world and cultures is super important, but coming back home and applying all of those learnings is huge. I think helping the same community that helped me is key.
