University of Silicon Valley

In a sunlit lab at Arizona State University, a team of students huddled over laptops, designing solutions for real-world challenges at companies like NASA, Starbucks, and Zoom. Behind the scenes was Jon Relvas, the connector who turns ideas into action. Relvas arrived at ASU’s R&D lab in 2020, a place rich with student talent but with few corporate partnerships. With a career spanning two decades in strategic business development across technology, software, professional services, and nonprofit sectors, he brought a practical, execution-oriented approach—and a belief that students learn best by doing.