InterDigital Innovation Challenge Winners to Be Announced Friday at GigaOM Mobilize
By Tiffany Fox, (858) 246-0353, tfox@ucsd.edu
San Diego, Calif., Sept. 17, 2012 — The final round of the $175,000 InterDigital Innovation Challenge (I2C) has come to an end, and the top three winners of the student wireless engineering competition will be announced at GigaOM’s flagship Mobilize conference Sept. 21 in San Francisco.
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I2C was organized by InterDigital (NASDAQ: IDCC) and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at the University of California. Representatives from each of the 11 teams in the final round -- who hail from across the United States and Canada -- will present a three-minute summary of their proposals at a Mobilize event titled “From the Research Labs.” InterDigital Chief Technology Officer Naresh Soni and Calit2’s Director at UC San Diego, Ramesh Rao, will then announce the winners.
“While this competition will ultimately produce three winners, the real intent was to motivate teams around the country to draw on their years of work on a topic that serves a need,” says Rao. “We’re delighted with all the participants, and we’d like to emphasize that we’ll be redoubling our efforts to reach out to this community next year when we will launch the competition a second time.”
GigaOM’s two-day Mobilize conference explores the technical and business opportunities presented by connected systems, devices and apps such as those proposed by the teams participating in the InterDigital Innovation Challenge. At the “From the Research Labs” event, the competition finalists will showcase their innovation projects in front of hundreds of wireless industry executives, VCs, angel investors, tech journalists and other conference attendees, live and streaming online.
The I2C submissions are now being evaluated by a nine-member judging panel from academia and industry. Awarding criteria include innovation of idea; probable commercial viability of the technology; likely milestones necessary to develop and commercialize the technology; marketplace attractiveness and likely intellectual property outcomes, if any.
First prize is $100,000, second prize is $50,000 and third prize is $20,000.
An additional $5,000 "popular choice" prize has already been awarded to the Rutgers-based DataMiser team, which logged 574 votes during the public-voting stage of the contest. DataMiser is a data optimizing solution to reduce cellular data and thereby save consumers on their wireless bills.
In addition to DatMiser, the other finalists of the InterDigital Innovation Challenge are:
- Airshark - University of Wisconsin-Madison
- AmbNet - Université Laval
- Cognitive Power Manaement - UC Irvine
- Intelligent RF Sensor - Wright State University
- Mobile 3D Video System - UC San Diego
- Null Space Learning Algorithms - Stanford University
- Signet Ring - Rutgers University
- Ultrasonic Wireless Sensors - Columbia University
- Wireless Imaging System - UC Berkeley
- Wireless Media Express - University of Waterloo
About Calit2 at U.C. San Diego
The UC San Diego Division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), together with Calit2’s division at U.C. Irvine, houses more than 1,000 researchers across the two campuses, organized around more than 50 projects on the future of telecommunications and information technology and how these technologies will transform a range of applications important to the California economy and its citizens’ quality of life.
About InterDigital®
InterDigital develops fundamental wireless technologies that are at the core of mobile devices, networks, and services worldwide. We solve many of the industry's most critical and complex technical challenges, inventing solutions for more efficient broadband networks and a richer multimedia experience years ahead of market deployment. InterDigital has licenses and strategic relationships with many of the world's leading wireless companies.
About GigaOM
Founded in 2006, GigaOM has grown into the leading independent voice on emerging technologies and the disruption of media. The GigaOM news network’s online audience of 5.5 million monthly unique readers relies on its definitive coverage of cloud, mobile, cleantech, consumer web and media. GigaOM Pro offers the highest quality research and analysis of emerging technology markets and the companies making a difference in those sectors. GigaOM Events bring together the people innovating, shaping and defining the ongoing evolution of the technology industry.
Media Contacts
Tiffany Fox, (858) 246-0353, tfox@ucsd.edu
Related Links
InterDigital
InterDigital Innovation Challenge
GigaOM Mobilize