Spring/Summer 2011
Emerson Malca attended the MESA Student Leadership
Conference as a San Francisco State University
student in 2009.
A year later the 23-year-old was speaking at the conference
as a business owner.
Malca became involved with MESA as a junior computer
engineering major. He graduated in May 2010 and
founded OneZeroWare, an iPhone application and accessories
development company. He created inClass, a student
organizer, which was featured as a top app in the
College Survival Guide by Apple, a list of the company's
top suggested apps for college students.
For Malca, the public speaking and leadership skills he
learned at the Pacific Gas and Electric-sponsored MESA
leadership conference inspired him to persevere with his
fledgling company after initial failures. It also led him to
become the president of SF State’s Society of Hispanic
Professional Engineers chapter.
“Never give up. No matter how hard it gets,” he told
MESA students, some just a year younger than himself. “Even if you fail the first time—or a couple of times—if
you like what you are doing, just try harder.”
Each year more than 150 MESA engineering and computer
science majors from around the state attend the
two-day conference. Students develop leadership skills
through workshops, interact with technical professionals,
hold mock interviews and interact with alumni panel presentations.
While at SF State, he was also a MESA tutor for electrical
and computer engineering courses.
“Malca has been an invaluable and integral member of
the MESA program these past three years,” said SF State
MESA director Nilgun Ozer. “Malca shone in both his ability
to take on a leadership role and collaborate with others.”
Malca hopes to continue to participate in the student
leadership conference and help students who were like
him.
“MESA provided me with a lot of opportunities, but the
conference overall was inspirational,” he said. “You see
role models right in front of you.”
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