“Honorary degrees salute special achievements and recognize outstanding service to the university and to the community,” said Gonzalez. “I am pleased and proud to confer this degree on such an extraordinary individual.”

Nolan’s leadership and efforts have resulted in $50 million to help support public education initiatives in Louisville to provide equitable access to quality educational opportunities for all students. For Nolan’s commitment to public education, in 2020, he received the Kelly Award from the Kentucky Department of ����ֱ��.

During his time as vice president of technology at GE Appliances, Nolan created FirstBuild, a global maker destination, in partnership with UofL. The partnership continues today, boasting 15 products on the shelf and 454 prototypes created.

Nolan is also a longtime member of UofL’s J.B. Speed School of Engineering’s advisory board. Gonzalez noted that, thanks to Nolan, strong ties between UofL and GE Appliances have been built resulting in the development of scholarships and GE’s participation in student organizations such as Speed Spectrum, Society of Women Engineers, the Women’s Leadership Conference and the Engineering Living Learning Community.

Since 2004, GE Appliances has hosted 575 co-op students from the Speed School, which have completed 1,314 co-op rotations. In 2020, UofL honored GE Appliances as its “Outstanding Corporate Partner of the Year.”

“With Kevin’s leadership, GE Appliances invested in first-generation college students through support of the Speed School’s Brown-Forman Engineering Academy,” said Gonzalez. “Kevin has also invested personally, giving to the Mechanical Engineering Fund in the Speed School.”

In his remarks to the graduating class of 2022, Nolan emphasized the importance of how one’s unique gifts and differences can define character and create future opportunities. Nolan, an honors scholar graduate from the University of Connecticut, where he received a mechanical engineering degree, shared how struggles with dyslexia early in his studies hampered his interest in school. It was one of his professors at the University of Connecticut whose belief and support helped drive and influence Nolan’s success.

“It’s your differences that make you special,” said Nolan. “Leverage those differences to create opportunities for yourself. Don’t try to fit in by becoming something else or someone else. Be who you are and who you want to be. We need all of you with all you have to offer. After all, creativity thrives on the diversity of ideas. And that’s why I have been so committed to this university and why I have appreciated the many partnerships we have built with UofL.”

Nolan’s final word of advice to the 2022 graduates: Stay curious.

“Use your skills and innate curiosity to fuel your passion and discover what you love,” he said. “I have been so fortunate to have my career and passions intersect. It is truly something I wish on all of you. Keep learning. Keep growing. Keeping asking the question, ‘what if’.”

Hear Kevin Nolan’s complete remarks on the UofL YouTube channel .

The company has launched , a technology startup with headquarters just north of the Belknap campus.

“We love the partnership between UofL and Giddy,” said Mark Rondina, Giddy’s director of User Experience. “We feel that it really is mutually beneficial.”

The idea is to get students and other online makers to help companies create new products and refine existing ones. There are prizes for winning challenges, like designing a or a .

“We are able to work with talented designers with fresh perspectives and ideas and the students gain experience in a production environment,” Rondina said. “They are able to apply what they have studied to real world projects and deliverables.”

Amber Kleitz, a senior studying communication art and design, is now a junior designer at Giddy. She said these experiences allow students to collaborate with people outside their chosen discipline, such as designers with engineering and business majors. 

“As soon as I started working with engineers and developers, I started seeing what the process behind a successful product really looked like,” she said.

Before Giddy, Kleitz also and interned at , GE Appliances’ makerspace and microfactory on UofL’s campus. The center opened in 2014, and has since been as “a model for adapting to a changing competitive environment that disadvantages large firms.”

Giddy is an extension of FirstBuild’s open-innovation model. The idea is to use a community of citizen hackers and makers to generate new products more quickly — and with built-in consumer demand. 

“Giddy is a totally unique enterprise for GE Appliances,” said Rick Hasselbeck, GE Appliances’ chief commercial officer. “The success and growth of the FirstBuild innovation model has given us a great platform from which to launch Giddy.”

Giddy’s headquarters are at 227 E. Lee St., just up the street from FirstBuild. That has become a hub for industry wanting to work with UofL. 

In November, Louisville-based Kindred Healthcare across the street from Giddy. And Advanced Energy Materials opened a .

Dr. Rob Keynton, interim executive vice president for research and innovation, said working with industry provides “real-world experiential learning opportunities for our students as well as plant the seed for research collaborations between our faculty and industry.”

“We welcome Giddy to UofL and look forward to establishing a strong relationship with them,” he said.