Investigators on Calit2's Adaptive Systems Project Nominated for Most Innovative New Products

Rene Cruz, founder of Mushroom Networks, Inc.

San Diego, CA, December 10, 2007 -- Two Calit2-affiliated electrical engineering faculty in UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering, both of whom set up companies to commercialize new wireless technologies, are now finalists for CONNECT's 2007 Most Innovative New Product Awards, to be handed out at a ceremony on December 14.

Rene Cruz and Sujit Dey founded Mushroom Networks and Ortiva Wireless respectively, while they were co-principal investigators on Calit2's Ericsson-funded Adaptive Systems project. Their companies have been nominated for products in the Communications Technology and Hardware category of CONNECT's competition. CONNECT is a globally recognized public benefits organization that fosters entrepreneurship in San Diego.

Mushroom Networks was nominated for its Broadband Bonding Network Appliance and Ortiva Wireless for its Mobile Content Delivery Network.

Mushroom Networks' Broadband Bonding Network Appliance is a finalist for best new product. It allows enterprises, hotels and other multi-tenant buildings to aggregate multiple Internet access lines for increased performance and reliability.

Mushroom Networks’ Broadband Bonding Network Appliance provides cost-effective accelerated Internet connectivity to entities within multi-tenant buildings who wish to aggregate multiple Internet access lines for increased performance and reliability. With the Broadband Bonding Network Appliance, up to five DSL, cable modem or T1 services can be combined.

Ortiva Wireless' Mobile-CDN monitors the network, user by user, shaping content around real-time network conditions.

The Ortiva Wireless Mobile Content Delivery Network (Mobile-CDN) gives content providers and aggregators an innovative, hosted means of managing and delivering content to mobile subscribers. It delivers smooth video, clear audio, and rich multimedia experience to mobile users under highly variable wireless network conditions. Ortiva’s mobile network operator solutions extend the coverage and expand the availability of rich media content.

Rene Cruz, an electrical engineer from UCSD, founded Mushroom Networks in 2004 with Cahit Akin, a venture partner at ITU Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in university spin-offs, and a researcher at Calit2, who subsequently became the CEO of the startup company.

Cruz currently serves as Chief Science Officer. He works in the area of performance analysis of communication networks and has developed traffic and service models for communication networks that have been widely adopted within the research community. Cruz is an internationally recognized expert in the area of Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees in packet switched networks, and was elected to be a Fellow of the IEEE on the basis of these accomplishments.

Sujit Dey, an electrical engineer from UCSD, founded Ortiva Wireless in 2004 based on technologies developed at the Jacobs School. Dey heads the Mobile Systems Design and Test Laboratory within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Jacobs School. He has twenty years of experience in research, technology, and product development in wireless networks, wireless multimedia, systems, circuits, and design tools. He currently serves as the Chief Technologist for Ortiva Wireless.

Sujit Dey, founder of Ortiva Wireless, Inc.

In 2004, Dey won a grant of $50,000 from the Jacobs School's von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement to build a first proof-of-concept for software that dynamically shapes data in applications as a function of network and device conditions and constraints. Rene Cruz received commercialization advisory services and incubation space from the von Liebig Center.

Dey recently returned to campus full-time after a leave of absence to start up Ortiva Wireless. Cruz is still on an unpaid leave of absence and has applied for an extension of his leave.

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Investigators on Calit2's Adaptive Systems Project Nominated for Most Innovative New Products