Building new-venture experience through a food startup is a common denominator shared by UTD‘s two 2021 Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation Scholar Award recipients.

Mercedes Johnson, a Naveen Jindal School of Management MBA student, dreamed up Food Magnet, an app that helps customers find food trucks and food trucks find business. Rohit K. Shenoy, an Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science 2021 BS in Computer Science graduate, was a co-founder of CampusOven, a meal delivery service that brough fresh, healthy dining alternatives to students.

In a video announcement of winners, Johnson and Shenoy were recognized as recipients of awards funded by the Mitchell Family Foundation. A 2011 Texas Business Hall of Fame inductee, Lee Roy Mitchell founded Plano, Texas-based Cinemark Theatres.

The scholar awards, $15,000 apiece in unrestricted funds, were to be presented at the TBHFF Scholar and Veteran Award luncheon in Dallas on Oct. 28. Scholars also were invited that evening for the foundation’s annual Legends Induction Dinner, where distinguished members of the business community from throughout the state were to be honored for civic and professional achievements.

Johnson, who works as a principal user experience designer at Capital One, earned a BS in electronic media and mass communication from Texas State University before earning a BA from UTD’s School of Arts, Technology and Emerging Communication in 2019.

Returning for her graduate degree, Johnson saw that the MBA program offered a concentration in innovation and entrepreneurship, and in taking an I&E accelerator course her first semester, she hit upon her Food Magnet idea.

“My goal is to be a ‘serialpreneur,’ ” says Johnson, who envisions eventually starting her own production company.

Shenoy came to UT Dallas as a McDermott Scholar. His freshman year, he became heavily involved with the Entrepreneurship Club and the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s Blackstone LaunchPad. He took part in the CometX Accelerator program, interned at Tech Wildcatters, a startup accelerator in Dallas; and was a venture analyst in the UT Dallas Seed Fund. The CampusOven team was a finalist in the 2020 Big Idea Competition.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic and the founding team’s college graduations closed CampusOven, Shenoy has a stealth startup in the works, a data mining and analysis company.

In selecting scholars, the Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation looks for students interested in staying in the state. “From talking to venture capitalists in the area, I truly believe that Texas will continue growing rapidly and become a major center for entrepreneurial activity in the coming decade,” Shenoy says, “and I look forward to being a part of this movement.”