HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY: THE WOZ PROJECT: Working with Wozniak.

• Position: EXTRAORDINARY EDUCATION

Apple Co-Founder and HPU's Innovator in Residence Mentors Students

They sat around a table shaped like a circle with their eyes locked on the mentor they know as "Woz."

They flipped through notes to recall their successes and challenges in building a self-driving vehicle. Then these students--a mix of majors in math, computer science and physics--glanced up for feedback.

And Steve Wozniak, the man who co-founded Apple Computer with Steve Jobs in a garage, provided it. As High Point University's Innovator in Residence, helping students is one of his passions. So he guided them to answers, and sometimes, to other questions, too.

"Always keep your end goal in mind," Wozniak told students during his spring 2017 visit. "When Steve Jobs and I started Apple, we had a goal to make peoples' lives easier. Ask yourself, 'What are you about and what will help you be more of that?' Your end goal is the most important thing; what will this mean to the people you want to impact?"

Wozniak has roots on the HPU campus. He's been guiding students' efforts to build an autonomous vehicle that will make deliveries across campus for more than two years now. He's filmed a public television segment with Dr. Nido Qubein that aired statewide, participated in interactive question-and-answer sessions open to the entire campus, and held numerous micro-sessions with smaller student groups. He's held impromptu meet-and-greets with hundreds more students, and in 2013, he was HPU's Commencement speaker.

"I am passionate about education, and that's why I love my time at High Point University so much, "Wozniak says. "HPU embraces a growth mindset. They show students how to learn. Transformation at HPU is second nature."

His mentorship spans far and wide, from the obvious computer science major, to the student studying business, pharmacy or exercise science.

Technology, as he and Jobs proved to the world decades ago, is applicable to every industry and part of life. It can literally change the world.

On the HPU campus, he helps students see that.

Mentorship Matters

Health care, in particular, can benefit, improve and evolve with technology.

Students in the Fred Wilson School of Pharmacy wanted to pick Wozniak's brain on that topic. So they developed ideas for apps that could streamline patient care, then pitched them to Wozniak for his feedback.

"We came together in groups to brainstorm ideas for our app before we presented it to Mr. Wozniak, which was fantastic," says Michael...