Minh Nguyen, 17, becomes youngest CEO admitted to Early World Order Fellowship

DALLAS, Sept. 1, 2026 /CourierPR/ -- At just 17 years old, Minh Nguyen, co-founder and CEO of xOrbita Inc., a Dallas-based aerospace company, has taken a significant step in his career. Nguyen has been accepted into the prestigious Early World Order Fellowship (EWOR), marking him as the youngest founder ever admitted into the program.

EWOR is a highly selective fellowship that admits only one in 1,000 applicants annually. According to the organization, founding members who join EWOR go on to raise an average of $10 million in funding. Additionally, 25% of recent fellows have achieved nine-figure valuations, and nine of the full-time founders running EWOR have built companies valued between $100 million and $10 billion.

Nguyen's company, xOrbita, is working on a groundbreaking project: developing an autopilot system for satellites. The satellite industry faces a frequent challenge known as conjunction, where operators receive warnings of potential close encounters between objects in orbit. Currently, this process involves ground analysts assessing the situation and planning a maneuver, which can take hours. Nguyen's platform, ARBITER, aims to streamline this decision-making process by making it on-board the satellite.

"Space doesn't have a data problem. It has an authority problem," said Nguyen. "Everyone can see the conjunction coming. The critical question is who is allowed to act on it, and how quickly. Our system, ARBITER, allows operators to delegate critical decisions to the spacecraft while maintaining full control."

ARBITER works by setting predefined rules for the operator, including acceptable collision risks and autonomous maneuvers. Once the satellite encounters a situation that exceeds these limits, it will log and report the decision to the ground station. The platform ensures that every action taken is transparent and auditable.

Nguyen co-founded xOrbita with John Avera, an IBM alum and a Colonel in the U.S. Army National Guard, who previously served as the Chief Architect of Air Combat Command's Federal Laboratory. The two met when Avera contacted Nguyen after reading one of his papers on orbital debris.