Senior blends engineering, entrepreneurship, singing, and sports

The day after the Illinois basketball team defeated No. 1-ranked Indiana with 0.9 seconds on the clock, a picture of the winning layup graced the front page of the Daily Illini. MechSE senior Daniel Borup, wearing dress clothes and a tie that clashed with the bright orange attire of the students clustered around him, can be clearly seen in the center of the background with his arms thrown into the air and excitement on his face.

"I grew up in Champaign," Borup said. "I’ve been hooked on Illinois sports for a long time."

Now as a senior Borup is the president of Illini Pride, the largest registered student organization on campus with over 3600 members. Illini Pride encompasses all of the student support groups for athletics, including Orange Krush, Block I, and Spike Squad to name a few. These groups go to games en masse, usually in coordinated clothing and with coordinated cheers.

But for this game, instead of wearing the characteristic orange of Orange Krush, Borup dressed in a suit and tie to sing the national anthem in front of the entire Assembly Hall. In addition to being on the executive board of Illini Pride for three years—first as a sports chair for spring semester sports and then as president—Borup has sung at a multitude of Illini sporting events including men’s basketball, women’s gymnastics, and for the Chicago White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field on Illini Day in June 2012. He is also an active member of several local choirs, including the Baroque Artists of Champaign-Urbana.

Borup went to University Laboratory High School before applying to Illinois. After deciding he wanted to become an engineer, he says Illinois was a "natural choice."

"I was definitely one of those kids that played with LEGOS," Borup said, "I like problem solving, I've always been blessed with good skills in math, and I like working with my hands. I have an old car I work on over the summers. I like seeing how things fit together, and when you add those things up I guess that leads you to engineering pretty naturally, and it doesn't get much better than here in terms of engineering programs."

In addition to his interests in engineering, Illini Pride, and singing, Borup has become involved in several entrepreneurship pursuits here at Illinois. He has taken a seminar class with the Technology and Management program in the College of Business, and has taken entrepreneurship classes from the Technology Entrepreneur Center to earn a Technology Commercialization certificate.

"I love those classes," Borup said. "I’ve always loved entrepreneurship. I like the idea of building up your own business, being your own boss, and being able to create something big more than I like the idea of contributing to something established."

Borup puts his entrepreneurship lessons to good use. He and his business partner, longtime friend Evan File, manage their own startup company HigherMed, Inc., which develops unique and useful medical products. They competed against other startup companies in the 2012 Cozad New Venture Competition, a contest run by the Technology Entrepreneur Center and the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the University of Illinois. HigherMed, Inc. won the Adobe Technology Innovation Prize and second place overall with their pill-dispenser design.

"Evan and I used to sell sodas in middle school to try to make money," Borup said. "And then we stayed friends when he went to Milikin to go to business school. In October 2011, he had the idea for a pill dispenser. It was a pretty cool idea. We took a look at what was out there in terms of patents, and we decided we had something that was kind of unique and that we should start a company, so that was the seed for it. More recently we’ve been looking at different product ideas."

Borup will graduate with a degree in engineering mechanics in May, but he began his undergraduate career in general engineering because he was unsure which engineering discipline would appeal to him the most.

"I chose engineering mechanics because I feel like mechanics really gives you a good core that you can build off of in any direction you want," Borup said. "It applies to materials, civil engineering, aerospace, and I've always been interested in a lot of different things. I would be just as happy designing heating systems as designing airplanes. So engineering mechanics is a really solid foundation, both for graduate studies and a future career."

Borup says he is grateful for the skills he has developed in MechSE and the opportunities that MechSE has given him over the past four years.

"I think the skills you learn in the engineering curriculum are extremely valuable, even if you don’t end up being an engineer," Borup said. "You learn a lot of problem-solving skills, how to analyze things, and you learn how to work with people. It's given me the opportunity to do a bunch of different things while still getting that core curriculum. It's never felt like being an engineer means I have to only do engineering, which I really appreciate. I really love being involved in Illini Pride and singing and entrepreneurship. So the fact that I have those opportunities is probably my favorite thing about MechSE."