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Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Where are they now: how Conrad School undergrad alumni built Zero Experience and shaped the future of innovation

When Covid-19 hit and students started losing their co-op placements, two Conrad School BET 300 students and Problem Pitch alumni Holden Beggs and Jackson Mills teamed up to give their peers experience anyways.

That idea changed everything. It became The Zero Experience, an all-online program that has now reached over 5,000 learners worldwide and been recognized in Forbes 30 under 30 Class of 2025.

“Zero was born from our experiences with the Problem Lab, entrepreneurship at Conrad, research across national labs, and too many side projects to count,” says Holden. “We saw common threads in successful innovation, but also a big gap: there was no true first step for students who didn’t yet have ‘a great idea’ or didn’t feel like innovators.”