UNF graduate students help drive innovation through JAX Hub’s first year

During JAX Hub's first year, University of North Florida graduate students gained hands-on experience applying research and analytics to industry projects while helping businesses turn new ideas into commercial opportunities.

Building on that success, JAX Hub partners are preparing for its next phase, with the UNF Coggin College of Business continuing as its academic partner.

Led by global innovation specialist L Marks in partnership with the City of Jacksonville and JAXUSA Partnership, the inaugural initiative brought together founding corporate partner Paysafe, a leading global payments platform, and innovators developing solutions for financial services and digital payments.

"When we designed JAX Hub, we knew from the beginning that we wanted to incorporate UNF as our academic partner," said Daniel Saunders, L Marks chief executive officer. "One of the main things that drives businesses to a region is access to talent. By involving UNF in JAX Hub, students are prepared with unique skills, ready to work on innovative business solutions and can make real impact in the workforce."

Across two semesters, 24 Coggin graduate students participated in JAX Hub, using advanced analytics and large language models (LLMs) to examine real program data and support business case development. In one project, students used LLM-based categorization and thematic clustering to group de-identified applicant data by category and theme. Their analysis identified patterns across applications and helped organize information about the innovators considered for the program. In another project presented at JAX Hub's Demo Day, 14 master's in business analytics students evaluated and helped validate a market opportunity that helps merchants access funding more quickly using real-time transaction data for Parafin, one of three startups selected to work directly with Paysafe.

These projects gave students experience addressing the questions businesses face when evaluating emerging technologies, including identifying market opportunities and weighing a solution's potential benefits, costs, risks and strategic value. For industry partners, the collaboration provided access to graduate-level talent and research opportunities while helping develop a pipeline of future professionals equipped to address complex business challenges.

"Our participation in JAX Hub demonstrates the value of connecting graduate education directly to Jacksonville's innovation economy," said Dr. Gary Giamartino, interim dean of the Coggin College of Business. "Through applied industry projects, UNF Coggin College of Business graduate students used advanced analytics to examine real market challenges and generate insights that contributed to the work. This is the kind of experiential learning that prepares our students to lead while also creating value for our industry and community partners."

For its next phase, JAX Hub partners are exploring opportunities to expand the model into additional high-growth industries across Jacksonville and Northeast Florida, while continuing their partnership with UNF.

Learn more about JAX Hub.