Seventeen-year-old Minh Nguyen is building xOrbita, an autopilot platform for satellites. Not in a classroom but in the real world. That on its own would be quite a feat.

But Nguyen’s company said he recently stepped up his burgeoning entrepreneurship as the youngest person ever accepted into the prestigious EWOR fellowship program for early-stage startups.

The Garland High School senior co-founded xOrbita Inc. to tackle a problem many aerospace veterans advised him was too tough to solve. That skepticism fueled his desire to prove them wrong.

Pivot to the final frontier

Before starting xOrbita in 2025, Nguyen focused his entrepreneurial efforts on bioplastics.

“I actually didn’t start off working in space,” Nguyen told Dallas Innovates.

But Nguyen ventured into aerospace when he joined NASA’s Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) working group. He described the group as a citizen science program for biology in space. The idea of exploring aerospace grew on him, eventually leading to the invention of xOrbita’s platform.

Inside the debris dilemma

The xOrbita platform aims to help prevent collisions in space. When objects in low-Earth orbit pass dangerously close to each other, no one follows a set protocol for how to avoid a crash, Nguyen said. Space debris poses a significant threat as more satellites and other craft launch from Earth.

“It isn’t necessarily because space debris itself is inherently that dangerous or the volume of it is dangerous, as a lot of people like to say,” Nguyen said.

“It’s really just because the depth of complexity that we have within the space environment is becoming gradually more advanced as time goes on,” he said. “And the systems that we need to have now require more advanced proximity navigation services.”

Nguyen said he believed there was an obvious solution to object collisions in space. But he didn’t set his sights on starting a company to tackle the issue.

“I tried to do a survey of the industry to see where everyone was at,” he said. “And the consensus around the idea of the solution I was thinking about was that everyone thought it was too hard to do.”

The real roadblock isn’t technical

The solution he foresaw didn’t present technical challenges. Rather, Nguyen said, “the infrastructure that’s been built up for these legacy companies has been cemented in their business models.”

The Arbiter platform would reduce the time it takes to identify and prevent an impending space collision. Instead of people on the ground debating what to do, then getting approval and sending commands to the satellite — a process that can take hours — Arbiter would handle real-time decisions.

Before a satellite launch, professionals agree on rules for handling a collision. For example, they would determine how much collision risk they could accept and which maneuvers require human intervention. Arbiter acts within the preset parameters. The platform logs any action taken and supports later audits.

Capital behind the concept

Nguyen said he doesn’t plan to work at a big aerospace organization. Instead, he wants to continue developing the Arbiter. Nguyen, who serves as CEO, and the three other xOrbita team members work remotely.

The company can carry out its work thanks to an undisclosed amount of capital from Pareto Holdings and $30,000 in grants from Emergent Ventures.

In addition, xOrbita could qualify for up to €300,000 (nearly $350,000 at current exchange rates) in funding from Germany-based EWOR. The organization also helps startups prepare to raise angel or institutional investments.

According to xOrbita, founders who join EWOR raise an average of $10 million. 

Cracking a 0.1% acceptance rate

EWOR represents a golden opportunity for Nguyen.

The organization claims an acceptance rate of about 0.1% for its fellowship program. Nguyen said the program appealed to him more than a startup accelerator or incubator because EWOR works with startups across various industries. Plus, one EWOR staff member collaborates directly with aerospace startups like xOrbita.

“That screamed out to me that they give the same level of care and attention to every single founder no matter the business model that you’re trying to adhere to,” he said.

Still a teenager at heart

Although he stays busy with xOrbita, Nguyen said he balances his startup work with normal teenage activities like going to homecoming.

Co-founder John Avera, an IBM alum and a colonel in the Army National Guard, said Nguyen’s age creates no issues. In fact, the startup benefits from Nguyen’s fresh eyes.

“People ask about the age gap like it’s something I put up with. It’s the reason this works,” Avera, the startup’s chief technology officer, told Dallas Innovates.

“Twenty-five years in technology teaches you every reason a thing can’t be done, and Minh doesn’t carry any of that,” Avera said. “He looks at a hard problem in orbit and asks why nobody has solved it, and he doesn’t accept the first answer he gets. I have watched people with far more experience talk themselves out of ideas before they ever tried them. He doesn’t do that.”

Avera said Nguyen’s vision for xOrbita plays a key role.

“Vision without execution is a pitch deck, and execution without vision is a contract shop. You need both in the same room,” he said. “That is what we have, and it is why I believe this company works.”

Sage advice

Nguyen credited Avera with lending perspective. The two met after Avera read a paper Nguyen wrote on orbital debris.

“He’s basically told me that this will always be here. I have the ability to make this always be here,” Nguyen said of their business venture. “But high school will not always be here. And my senior year will definitely not always be here.”

“And at this stage, I have to remind myself that I am a very worthy founder,” he said, “and that it’s not just the company that I need to be working on.”