As you all know, the Omega Envoy team was formed by university students from around central Florida. Our mission was to give students the opportunity to design, build, and fly real space missions- a chance not usually found in the standard curriculum! It has been amazing to see ourselves grow from a bunch of aerospace students meeting in empty classrooms on the weekends to a serious competitor for the prize backed by supporters, sponsors, and partners.

Just recently President Obama spoke about another group of students who have gone through a near identical experience, the West Philly Hybrid X team from the Progressive Automotive Insurance X PRIZE. To think that a group of students worked on a project after school hours or on the weekend and were able to, with limited funds, build a hybrid vehicle capable of over 60 mpg; a high standard even for the commercial car industry. And on top of that to have competed amongst the leaders of that industry for the X PRIZE!

These students did extraordinary well, and much of it is due to who they are- students. As students, we have not been jaded by the industry. We have different notions of what is possible. We don't know what we don't know. We have new ways of looking at old problems. Obama said it pretty well, "... these are the kind of things that, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, we are going to look back and say these made a difference."