Alumni Hall Of Fame

Paul Capriolo

Photo of Paul Capriolo
Graduation Year:
2006

 

Paul Capriolo received his Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of Maryland in 2006. Immediately following, he went on to receive his Master’s degree at Carnegie Mellon University in Entertainment Technology in 2008. While at Carnegie Mellon, Capriolo founded Now or Never with Patrick Jenkins and Jon Howard, who also received their Bachelor's degrees at the University of Maryland in Computer Science. Now or Never was eventually acquired by Free Cause, where Capriolo became the Vice President of Development. At Free Cause, he spearheaded the development on SnapCMS, a drag and drop from CMS which creates social networking applications across multiple networks quickly and without programming, and a white label online shipping mall builder, which has generated tens of millions in sales and revenue since its launch in April 2009.

When Free Cause was acquired by Rakuten, Capriolo left the company to found Social Growth Technologies with Patrick Jenkins. The goal of Social Growth Technologies is to provide a more technical and flexible solution to monetize the exploding social game market through in-game advertising.  By leveraging social media, monetization, online gaming and virtual currency, they have taken advantage of the largest areas of growth on the Internet to provide advertisers with greater demographic targeting, advanced analytics and unique fraud protection which results in higher conversions and increased brand engagement.

In 2010, Capriolo and Jenkins won first place at Cupid’s Cup, a business competition hosted by the University of Maryland’s Kevin Plank (CEO of Under Armour) for one of their most successful brands, Social Ingot.  

In 2013, Ernst Young, LLP named Capriolo as the winner of the regional Entrepreneur of the Year for Emerging Companies Award in the 2013 EY Entrepreneur Award Program. He won this award based on the outstanding achievements of Social Growth Technologies. The company has worked with Coca-Cola, Disney, and eBay through Social Ingot, Coupon Buddy, and Social Kredits—the company’s three most successful brands. 

Inductees

Photo of Narendra Ahuja

Narendra Ahuja
PhD 1979

Photo of Michael Antonov

Michael Antonov
Bachelor's 2003

Photo of J. Gary Augustson

J. Gary Augustson
Master's 1969

Photo of David Baggett

David Baggett
Bachelor's 1992

Photo of Suman Banerjee

Suman Banerjee
PhD 2003

Photo of Sergey Brin

Sergey Brin
Bachelor's 1993

Photo of Paul Capriolo

Paul Capriolo
Bachelor's 2006

Photo of Anthony Casalena

Anthony Casalena
Bachelor's 2005

Photo of Charles Dyer

Charles Dyer
PhD 1979

Photo of Martin Farach

Martin Farach
PhD 1991

Photo of Gary Flake

Gary Flake
PhD 1993

Photo of Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi
PhD 2003

Photo of Howard Gobioff

Howard Gobioff
Bachelor's 1993

Photo of Naresh Gupta

Naresh Gupta
PhD 1993

Photo of Patrick Jenkins

Patrick Jenkins
Bachelor's 2006

Photo of Vipin Kumar

Vipin Kumar
PhD 1982

Photo of Ronald Larsen

Ronald Larsen
PhD 1981

Photo of Haroon Mokhtarzada

Haroon Mokhtarzada
Bachelor's 2001

Photo of Idris Mokhtarzada

Idris Mokhtarzada
Bachelor's 2010

Photo of Zeki Mokhtarzada

Zeki Mokhtarzada
Bachelor's 2001

Photo of Shmuel Peleg

Shmuel Peleg
PhD 1979

Photo of Andrew Reisse

Andrew Reisse
Bachelor's 2001

Photo of Glenn Ricart

Glenn Ricart
PhD 1980

Photo of Debanjan Saha

Debanjan Saha
PhD 1995

Photo of Pooja Sankar

Pooja Sankar
Master's 2004

Photo of Jagdeep Singh

Jagdeep Singh
Bachelor's 1987

Photo of Aya Soffer

Aya Soffer
PhD 1995

Photo of Lee Spector

Lee Spector
PhD 1992

Photo of Granger Sutton

Granger Sutton
PhD 1992

Photo of Qiang Yang

Qiang Yang
PhD 1989

Photo of Shayan Zadeh

Shayan Zadeh
Master's 2002