Introduction
From the moment Chris Ho arrived at Oregon State University, he approached college with a builder’s mindset: find a real problem, prototype a solution, and learn everything possible along the way. Now a third‑year computer science student in the College of Engineering, Ho has turned that philosophy into entrepreneurship, student leadership, and a string of high‑profile internships, culminating this summer with a software engineering role at Apple.
Launching a startup to solve a problem he knew well
Entrepreneurship is the throughline of Ho’s college experience, most clearly reflected in Arctex, the startup he founded after identifying how time‑consuming college and scholarship applications can be. Arctex’s College App Assist automates repetitive application fields, allowing students to apply faster with a single click. The idea grew directly out of his own experience.
“When I was applying to colleges and scholarships, I kept thinking, ‘There has to be a faster way to do this,’” Ho said. “I was spending five to ten hours per application just re‑entering the same information.”
The platform has attracted nearly 2,000 users and gained traction through OSU’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, including the Startup Hub. Mentorship, pitch competitions, and startup programming helped him refine both the product and his confidence as a founder. “Building Arctex taught me that computer science isn’t just about code,” he said. “It’s about listening to people, understanding their pain points, and turning that into something useful.”
That same impulse — to build and to share — has shaped Ho’s involvement in student organizations. During his first year at OSU, he served as vice president of BeaverHacks, OSU’s hackathon club, helping lead a rebrand and expand the club’s reach through larger, in‑person events. Unusually, Ho became an organizer before competing in college hackathons himself.
“I actually learned how hackathons worked from the inside before I ever participated as a competitor,” he said. “It gave me a really good perspective on how community, sponsorships, and projects all come together.”
No longer an organizer of the club, he participated in BeaverHacks 2026 this May. His team snagged a first-place finish in the competition’s Hardware Track with their project Training Rails, a machine learning model to detect rail defects in real time.
computer science student
Blue Primary, Yellow Secondary
Creating community through hackathons and student leadership
Ho has also served as an officer in the Google Developer Club, where he led technical workshops and presentations for fellow students. Teaching and mentoring others became a recurring theme, reinforced through his work as a teaching assistant for an introductory computer science course.
Beyond campus leadership, Ho pursued hands‑on industry experience early. At OSU’s Center for Applied Systems and Software (CASS), he worked as a student software engineer, developing a full‑stack system for a medical manufacturing supply chain.
“That was my first real taste of software engineering on a team,” he said. “I got to work with product managers, UX designers, and other developers, and see how all the pieces fit together.”
From Groq to Apple
He then joined Groq as an AI application engineering intern, building and demonstrating AI tools for enterprise clients—sometimes presenting them live at hackathons or company events. “It was my first time building AI applications quickly and putting them in front of real clients,” Ho said. “That was incredibly exciting.”
This summer, Ho will take the next step as a software engineering intern on Apple’s Core OS team. He initially became aware of the opportunity through his participation in the Lime Connect fellowship, a national program supporting high‑achieving students with disabilities. As one of just 25 undergraduate fellows, Ho, who has a hearing deficit, traveled to New York to connect with peers and alumni and gain insight into navigating the tech workforce.
“Lime Connect was huge for me,” he said. “Meeting other students with disabilities and hearing from alumni made me feel like I wasn’t navigating this path alone.”
Originally from Hawaii, Ho chose Oregon State for its strong computer science program and for the sheer number of opportunities available. “At OSU, there’s so much you can plug into,” he said. “Clubs, research, startups — if you want to build something, there’s space to do it here.”
