UMBC Alumni Association presents awards each year honoring alumni for their professional and personal achievements and service to the University. This year's Young Alumni Rising Star Award is being given to Delali Dzirasa (’04, Computer Engineering) who is the founder and president of Fearless Solutions, LLC.
While an undergraduate, Delali Dzirasa was a member of the inaugural entrepreneurship classes at UMBC, developing two companies before graduating. Today, he is founder and president of Fearless Solutions, a cybersecurity start-up housed at UMBC’s @bwtech cybersecurity research and technology park.
In addition to making waves in the Maryland cybersecurity community (Dzirasa recently met Maryland governor Martin O’Malley at UMBC’s Advantage Incubator launch), the two-year-old company employs a number of UMBC graduates and current students. In addition to serving as SGA speaker of the senate and helping to plan UMBC’s first Homecoming, Dzirasa also received the following honors as a student: Golden Key Honor Society (2001), Student Ambassador, Presidents Board of Visitors (2003), Most inspiring lead award (2003), USAA All American Scholar Award (2001), and NSBE Torchbearer Award for students possessing a GPA of 3.25 and above (2001). Following graduation, he worked at RABA technologies for fellow alumnus Rob Baruch.
Dzirasa is married to UMBC alumna Letitia Dzirasa ’03, biological sciences, and he has one son, Dominic Williams-Dzirasa. He follows in the footsteps of brothers Mawuli Dzirasa ’00, mechanical engineering, and Dr. Kafui Dzirasa ’01, chemical engineering, in graduating from UMBC. He enjoys giving back to the community within his church.
The 2011 awards will be presented on Thursday, October 14, 2011, at an awards ceremony in the Albin O. Kuhn Library on the UMBC campus. To attend, please RSVP online.
