3D-Printed Space Rocket Startup Funded by New VC Fund Contrary Capital

UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering students are the founders of one of the first two university startups to receive funding by a new VC fund called Contrary Capital.

Contrary Capital has a novel take on tracking down university startups to invest in. The details are outlined in a story by Mike Freeman ( @TechDiego on Twitter ) in the San Diego Union Tribune:

This venture cap fund taps university students to find the best on-campus investments.

The Jacobs School startup that received funding is Additive Rocket Corporation (ARC), which 3D prints high-impulse, low-cost, lightweight metal rocket engines for the space industry. Additive Rocket Corp. Founded in 2015 by recent graduates Andy Kieatiwong and Kyle Adriany. According to the ARC website, “space exploration hinges on innovation of propulsion technology.”

The ARC students have participated in a number of entrepreneurism programs on campus, including The Basement and the Qualcomm Institute Innovation Space.

We look forward to tracking ARC’s successes. 

Good luck, and may the [propulsive] force be with you!

On May 26, the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center successfully completed its third year and seventh Cohort as an NSF I-Corps site. To celebrate, the Center threw a reception for all the students, faculty, and mentors who have participated, ending the night with presentations from Spring Quarter’s 12 teams. During the final presentations, teams presented their ideas, target markets, and lessons learned from customer interviews conducted throughout the quarter.

Each of the mentors ranked the presenting teams categories of progress throughout the program, as well as quality of presentations. Each and every mentor believes that the teams have developed significantly from their initial idea pitches to their final presentations.

For example, the idea for Catalyst Technologies was initially developed in India.  Through customer discovery and market research, Lenord Melvix, the Entrepreneurial Lead, pivoted his focus from Indian to small American hydroponic farmers who were interested in seeing how his solutions could significantly cut their operation costs.

Dr. Seth Alexander of GenTag Solutions identified that designing multiple "all-in-one kits" that allow technicians to tag and capture RNA are much more useful and potentially profitable than his initial offering of a "do-it-yourself" method for clinical and academic researchers. He was able to gather this crucial information through the customer discovery process, an important tactic taught by mentors at the Center.

Armando Armillo of Saros created unique 3D Printers for community maker spaces and individual hobbyists. Through the customer discovery process,  these customer segments revealed the need for a niche quality of 3D printing between high-cost industry grade and the slower, lower-cost consumer grade 3D printing.

Saharnaz Baghdadchi of Singular Imaging, a team from the Phase II group, is developing a single-pixel imaging microscope that reduces the time and cost of stem cell tissue sample processing.  Through customer discovery, researchers confirmed that a beneficial application of the microscope is its high-definition quality, providing images of greater depth for brain imaging research.

Over the past three years, the von Liebig Center (vLC) has trained approximately 100 teams (250 student and faculty participants) in the process of starting a company using the customer discovery process and lean startup methodology.  The two-phase program has resulted in over 2,780 customer interviews conducted, and 19 teams have since filed patents, 44 teams have created prototypes, and 9 teams have gone to the NSF I-Corps Teams (National) program.

According to a survey sent out to the teams, participants revealed that the best part of the (vLC) I-Corps program was the focus on mentor relationships, the cultivation of the entrepreneurial mindset, the understanding the customer discovery process, and enhanced presentation skills.

“The best part of the I-Corps program was going through the process of determining the value of your technology,” says Dustin Fraley of the HeatSeq project. “Great framework for developing a business plan and justifying why your technology is needed through potential user interviews,” Fraley said, commenting that it was an invaluable experience.

Beyond commercialization of technology, the von Liebig Center also hopes to impart and encourage an entrepreneurial mindset in students, faculty, and staff that will help in job searches, identifying other areas of research that are translatable, and writing more competitive grant proposals. This is in line with the vision of Don Millard, the Deputy Division Director of the Engineering Education and Centers (EEC) Division at the National Science Foundation. Millard has held this philosophy since the NSF I-Corps program was founded. Millard attended the Institute of the Global Entrepreneur launch on June 2nd and met with the Center about the strong outcomes UC San Diego’s NSF I-Corps site has produced.

“The best thing I learned was entrepreneur-like thinking. I'm currently looking into other potentially translatable technologies in my lab with the mindset imparted to me by the I-Corps program,” says Wangzhong Sheng, from the AMDepot project.

The NSF I-Corps program will be offered again in Fall 2016. Applications are open and teams will be selected in September. Click here to apply!

As a tribute to the success of NSF von Liebig Center, 5 out of the 8 finalists in the UCSD Entrepreneur Challenge -- NanoVR, Pain Measurement Technologies, Clip Diagnostics, Locana, and Genrix – had participated in the vLC I-Corps program and were awarded funds towards their projects by placing in the top 3 of their track.

Read more about the winners here, and take a look through Priya Bisarya’s experience here. 

UC San Diego Startup Invited to First-Ever White House Demo Day

Cocoon Cam

Wearless Tech, Inc., a San Francisco/San Diego startup with its roots in the University of California, San Diego’s Computer Science and Engineering department, was invited to showcase their first product – a wellness video baby monitor – in the first-ever White House Demo Day on August 4, 2015. The event was hosted by President Obama and brought in innovators from across the country, including the co-founders of Wearless Tech, Rubi Sanchez, Siva Nattamai, and UC San Diego computer science alumnus Pavan Kumar Pavagada Nagaraja, MS ‘15.

Nattamai and Sanchez first met at a hackathon where they had the idea for a baby monitor that could detect a baby’s heartbeat without any wearable sensors attached. After interviewing a number of parents, the pair realized that the need was greater – a monitor that can non-invasively detect the baby’s heart rate, respiration and temperature and then send an alert when something isn’t right. That’s when UC San Diego computer science and engineering graduate student Pavan Kumar, now an alumnus and currently employed as researcher in the Computer Science and Engineering Department, joined the team as a software developer. Together, the three co-founded Wearless Tech, Inc. and began work on what would become their first product – Cocoon Cam.

“Cocoon Cam is unique in that it is completely non-invasive,” said Kumar. “The hardware consists of a video camera with a passive infrared sensor, meaning that unlike other technologies, no microwaves are emitted. Instead, it gathers data from the camera and sends it to the cloud, where software analyzes the video.”

Using the latest advances in computer vision, machine learning, and Infrared (IR), Cocoon Cam is able to detect a baby's presence and positioning, making it the first video baby monitor that can transmit live information about a baby's safety and activity without invasive wearable technology

Once it receives the video feed, the software amplifies and quantifies the color changes in the baby’s skin and the movement of the baby’s chest. From there, a notification is sent to the parents’ smartphone app alerting them to changes in the baby’s heart rate, respiration and temperature.

Cocoon Cam can be pre-ordered beginning in October.

Wearless Tech is currently continuing its collaboration with UC San Diego and Weibel to conduct field patient studies in both clinical and in-home environments. In the future, the company plans to develop intelligent video camera systems that provide continuous, non-contact and non-invasive vital sign monitoring for Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Units (NICUs/PICUs) and Emergency Rooms (ERs). The technology promises to reduce false alarms and alarm fatigue in critical care environments, and the team plans to test its efficacy through an NSF grant for which they applied in collaboration with UC San Diego’s Computer Science and Engineering and Pediatrics departments in early summer 2015. Other areas under development include post-surgery and eldercare monitoring as well as enhanced screening for security applications.

Interested in supporting Cocoon Cam? Visit https://www.cocooncam.com.

Read about Wearless Tech's journey to the White House here.

A Conversation with Pierre Sleiman: Reimagining Farming through Sustainable Frontiers

UC San Diego held its annual Alumni Weekend June 6-7, 2015 and featured a talk by Pierre Sleiman, graduate of Rady School of Business Class of 2013 and UC San Diego Alumni Honoree of 2015. Sleiman is the founder and CEO of Go Green Agriculture, a company dedicated to local farming and sustainability through hydroponic technology with strong family values. 

The event was held in The Basement, a shared campus-wide enterprise operated by Alumni & Community Engagement with a mission to stimulate, encourage and serve the entrepreneurial spirit of UC San Diego undergraduate students by educating them in the startup business process whether it’s evaluating an opportunity, starting a company or joining an existing startup.

Sleiman spoke of his initial entrepreneurial endeavors, from starting his first business to brainstorming in his college dorm room. Because he had to support himself financially in college, Sleiman wanted to create his own company that combined agriculture and technology.

“I always admired successful people and hearing about their stories," said Sleiman. "However, I would always want to know all the nitty-gritty stuff, which people often chose not to speak of. But really, all that stuff is critical to success.” 

So, Sleiman shared some of his own struggles. Though he was regarded as the "networking assassin" by his graduating class, Sleiman strongly disliked public speaking as a kid - imagine a nervous student with heart pounding, palms sweating, terrified. He wanted to improve himself, so he worked hard at becoming more comfortable with public speaking. It wasn't easy - he went through many rejections and moments of embarrassment before he found confidence within himself. Slowly, public speaking became somewhat of an adrenaline rush, and he now encourages everyone to practice as much as possible.

Pierre Sleiman and his father

According to Sleiman, networking is like dating.

"You have to have a purpose, and your entry and exit should be executed with good timing and style," said Sleiman. "More importantly, you have to sell your personality and connect on a human level." 

For example, Sleiman says he focuses on creating a relationship with his customer - whether that be a buyer, investor, or someone just trying to learn more about his company - rather than the selling the business. 

"You're not investing in Go Green," said Sleiman. "You're not investing in this product. You're investing in me."

Beyond networking, the entrepreneur says he loves helping others find their motivations. He suggests looking at what is important to you and what you are willing to lose. 

"Sometimes you find that you have nothing that is important, but that's perfectly okay," said Sleiman. "Many people are still looking for the formula."

The search for that formula can be short for some, such as Zeke Bottorff, a current fifth year transfer and one of the CEOs of the Entrepreneur Challenge. Having grown up in a poor family with his earliest memories taking place in a trailer park where he lived, Bottorff took on his first job at the age of five. 

Bottorff is heavily involved with The Basement, which he describes as a new space for entrepreneurs, a "student-to-student organization serving to help businesses grow and expand." 

Rady School student Mike Hayden is also involved in the organization and describes The Basement as an "inclusive workspace for students to collaborate" that "provides resources for students who are active entrepreneurs." 

Hayden describes Sleiman as a phenomenal leader who can energize just about any situation or any person. "It's no wonder that all he has to do is sell himself," said Hayden.

Five Jacobs Students Recognized as University Innovation Fellows

Five students from the Jacobs School of Engineering’s Entrepreneurism and Leadership programs received acceptances into the University Innovation Fellows program run by VentureWell, in partnership with the National Science Foundation and Stanford University.

Students Alex Finch, Deepak Atyam, Joyce Sunday, Uzair Mohammad and Neil Gandhi have been welcomed to a nationwide cohort representing 58 Fellows from 26 campuses that joined the active group of Fellows– bringing in a total of 168 Fellows from 85 schools across the United States.

There are 168 Fellows from 85 schools across the United States. 6 out of the 8 Fellows from the University of California system are UC San Diego students.

The University Innovation Fellows program is a component of a national movement that aims to encourage students to “design, dream and deliver” innovations that can solve real-world problems. The Program provides Fellows with training, mentoring and support to empower them to take on leadership roles in their related fields and communities. Fellows serve as advocates of the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to produce positive social innovation.

We are proud to see five of these Fellowships go to our outstanding students who demonstrate these values through their drive and desire to continue innovating.

Alex Finch and Deepak Atyam of Tri D Dynamics recently took first place in the Tech division of Entrepreneur Challenge, this year.

Alex Finch is a graduating Structural Engineering student and Deepak Atyam is a graduating Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering student. Atyam received the Engineering Leadership Award in 2013 from the Gordon Engineering Leadership Center. Both students are current Scholars at the Gordon Center. Their startup, Tri D Dynamics, part of the Moxie Center Incubator and the team also completed Phase I of the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center’s NSF Innovation Corps Program. The two recently took first place in the Tech Division of Entrepreneur Challenge where they presented Tri D Dynamics’ 3D printing technology to create designs for high performing, lightweight and cost efficient rocket engines.

Joyce Sunday is a graduating senior from the Department of Chemistry who participated in Phase I of the von Liebig Center’s Innovation Corps Program and is now currently participating in the Center’s Phase II program. Her startup in the Moxie Incubator, Wastelights, is converting sewage into electricity and turning kitchen waste into biofuel and biochar.

Uzair Mohammad's Moxie Incubator Team, Saaf Engineering Solutions, is developing a revolutionary water filter.

Bioengineering student Uzair Mohammad is working with his team in the Moxie Incubator on Saaf Engineering Solutions: a revolutionary water filter that can remove all bacterial contaminants in water using a costless method of manufacturing.

Neil Gandhi is a student from the Nanoengineering department and is currently working in the Moxie Incubator on developing a new and simplified method of streaming and sharing music, Audograph.

VentureWell is accepting applications for the University Innovation Fellows program’s Fall 2015 Fellows. The application is due May 11 and you can click here to apply online or contact UC San Diego faculty advisor Dr. Jay Kunin at jskunin@ucsd.edu.

Congratulations to everyone! We look forward to seeing more excellent and inspiring work.

Entrepreneurism & Leadership Program Students Sweep Top Places at E-Challenge Contest

Six students supported by the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering’s Entrepreneurism and Leadership Programs sweep five out of six top positions at the Entrepreneur Challenge Elevator Pitch Contest.

The Entrepreneur Challenge is a UC San Diego student organization focused on connecting science, engineering and business students with local entrepreneurs and professionals in San Diego. EChallenge competitions are excellent opportunities for students to receive early seed funding and publicity for their research and ideas.

Taking first place in the Tech Division were Deepak Atyam and Alex Finch (pictured above). Atyam, a Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering student, and Finch, a Structural Engineering student are the founders a startup on a mission to use 3D printing to create designs for high performing, light weight, cost efficient rocket engines: Tri D Dynamics. The team's accomplishments have made UC San Diego the first university in the world to successfully design, print, and test a metal 3D printed rocket engine. Finch and Atyam started as a Moxie Center Incubator team, where they were provided lab space to develop their product and create working prototypes. The two honed their skills in becoming more effective technical leaders as scholars in the Gordon Engineering Leadership Center and made use of the von Liebig NSF I-Corps program to focus on customer validation of their product.

Bioengineering student Delara Fadavi (pictured below, on the right) won second place in the Tech category for her presentation Meego. Fadavi founded Meego with Bioengineering student Aditi Gupta (pictured below, on the left) to develop a motion-detecting security device for laptops. They’re developing a prototype for students who expressed a need for increased security while they study in public spaces, such as the library or a coffee shop. Both students completed the von Liebig Center’s I-Corps program and are part of Moxie’s incubator program. Fadavi was a 2013 Gordon Scholar and an alum of the mystartupXX program which is a collaborative effort between the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center and the Rady School of Management.

First place in the Bio/Med category went to Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering student Alex Phan for his work in Intraocular. The Intraocular team is working on improving the diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma using continuous intraocular pressure measurement. During the von Liebig NSF I-Corps program, Phan worked to develop the team’s business model and validate the idea with potential customers.

Wangzhong Shen – a Mechanical Engineering student – took second place in the Bio/Med category for Nanolipo. The Nanolipo is improving invasive liposuction treatments through the injection of a solution to better dissolve fatty tissue making it easier to extract during liposuction procedures. Shen is an alum of the von Liebig NSF I-Corps program.

Stephanie Allen-Soltero – a post doc in the Department of Medicine – took third place in the Bio/Med category for her Cereus Innovation pitch. The Cereus team has a novel solution for overcoming the growth and maintenance of stem cells in high atmospheric oxygen. Allen-Soltero is currently part of the mystartupXX program which is a collaboration between the Rady School of Management and von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center and is supported by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. MystartupXX mentors female entrepreneurs with ideas to commercialize.

We would like to offer our students, Deepak Atyam, Alex Finch, Delara Fadavi, Alex Phan, Wangzhong Shen and Stephanie Allen Soltero, each a proud congratulations on their excellent performance and continued success!

Engineers Think Business: von Liebig NSF I-Corps Program Launches 3rd Cohort

Mentors, entrepreneurs and students met in the Qualcomm Conference Room on Jan. 20, ready to dive in head first into Phase I of the 2015 National Science Foundation Innovation Corps program at UC San Diego hosted by the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center.

The NSF I-Corps program aims to bridge the gap between business and technology through hand-on experiential classes designed for scientists and researchers and taught by experienced entrepreneurs.

The von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center became an I-Corps Site in 2013 and has already conducted two 10 week workshops. This quarter, the Center received 27 excellent applications and 13 teams have been accepted into the 6-week program that will prepare them for commercialization, while expanding their opportunities to receive funding for their technology. This is the third Phase I cohort of teams participating in the program bringing it to a total of 54. Teams that successfully complete the program are also eligible to compete for up to $50,000 and participate in the national NSF I-Corps program.

Nineteen mentors and 30 participants from various departments and schools including the Jacobs School of Engineering, Rady School of Management and Scripps Institute of Oceanography attended the program's first day of class. After the mentors introduced themselves with a brief background of their work and expertise, the students took center stage. Each team gave their 60 second pitch of the concept of their technology, the customer's problem they attempt to solve and the market they hope to reach.

Andrea Belz, PhD, MBA
(Photo by Anne Cusack, Los Angeles Times)

The program mentors and students then met Adrea Belz, Director of the Southern California I-Corps node, experienced angel investor, entrepreneur and business consultant for an invigorating presentation that encompassed how the program will challenge its students and what it takes to go from idea to a business. I-Corps Nodes and Sides are members of the National Innovation Network focused on bringing best practices and collaboration around technology commercialization in the country.

During her presentation, Belz urged students to step out of their comfort zones and get out of the building and talk to customers. With the help of Frank Chen, an MBA candidate from the Rady School of Management, Belz reenacted a customer interview demonstrating the importance in identifying your market and listening to customer needs.

“You’ve done the research and you’ve got the idea. Now, you won’t find answers in the classroom, and you won’t find them in the lab,” Belz said. “You’ll only find them out there.”

To practice, the teams and mentors broke into groups and conducted their own interviews, where each team asked questions to a mentor, who acted as the team's determined potential customer for their technology.

When class was called back into session, Belz encouraged the teams to iterate and pivot, to think with the business model, to turn guesses into facts and to fail before succeeding.

Throughout the evening, it was made clear that the I-Corps program will challenge students to think on their feet and interact with their market. The program will continue to meet weekly on Thursday evenings, from January 29 to March 12.

Student Team Practicing Customer Interviews

After three cohorts, teams that completed the two-phase program have drawn a lot of success. Some of the program's most recent successes include:

Nanolipo, led by a PhD student and professor in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and the CACST-UCSD Center for Excellence in Nanomedicine, has designed a materila that improves liposuction procedures. In parallel with their scientific advancements, the team has begun incorporating the feedback of surgeons to their non-traditional approach, and have recently formed a company.

Plasmacaps, a team composed of a PhD student and processor in nanoengineering, has designed a powerful energy technology which improves energy density capacitors. In the I-Corps program, the team visited many customers and incorporated feedback into the compact, redesign of their nanocarbon energy capacitors. Plasmacaps was accepted into the accelerated National I-Corps Program in Washington D.C.

CocoonCam, led by a UC San Diego graduate student in Computer Science and Engineering, has designed a next-generation baby monitor that monitors the baby's health touch-free. In the I-Corps Program, he designed and conducted a series of interviews to obtain first-hand information validating CocoonCam's desirability to parents and institutions who will be utilizing it. They will soon begin product testing and are in a much stronger position to approach investors with the customer validation gleaned in I-Corps.

Eatsafe, led by a Biotechnology grad student at UC San Diego, has created a small portable device that can detect food pathogens by simply being in close proximity. Eatsafe team members took advantage of the I-Corps Program to interview several categories of customers for their device, determining that international travelers and people with food sensitivities would be the best early adopters. This, in turn, helped guide prototype development and marketing strategies for the device.

Jacobs School alum wins San Diego startup competition with smart alarm clock prototype

A team led by Jacobs School alum Nick Morozovsky won the MEGA Startup Weekend event this past weekend at the downtown San Diego Library with Daybreaker, a smart alarm clock that connects to your smartphone and the lamp on your nightstand.
Morozovsky recently earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He is the creator of SkySweeper and worked on MiP, the first self-balancing consumer robot. Both won a Best of What's New Award from Popular Science in 2014 and 2013. He also worked on Switchblade, a search and rescue robot capable of climbing stairs.
During the MEGA Startup Weekend, inventors had to pitch and idea, form a team and build a prototype, all in three days. 
Morozovsky pitched the idea of Daybreaker. The device has several features:
It wakes you with sound and light at the right time to let you get the most sleep without missing what's important to you. Connect it to your calendar to make sure you never sleep through an important meeting. Connect it to your favorite surf break and it will wake you on the weekend only when the surf is up. Daybreaker monitors traffic and will wake you if you need extra time to get to work. Customize the rules for you to maximize your sleep while never missing a thing. More info at: http://www.getdaybreaker.co
“Startup Weekend was a great (and intense!) event where I was able to get the full experience of launching a startup in only 54 hours," Morozovsky said. "Working with my team and networking with other entrepreneurs was empowering, winning first place was icing on the cake."
The Daybreaker team is now entering the Global Startup Battle and further investigating commercialization options.

Plasymd Co-Founders Turned Academia.edu Employees Recruiting at UC San Diego Career Fair

Adnan Akil (center) and Kevin Wu (right) 

UC San Diego alumni Adnan Akil and Kevin Wu staffed the academia.edu booth yesterday at the UC San Diego Science and Technology Job and Internship fair. They were busy recruiting software engineers to Academia.edu which describes itself as a platform for academics to share research papers. Akil and Wu landed at Academia.edu by way of a startup they co-founded: a peer-review platform called Plasmyd.

Almost a year ago to the day, the announcement came out that academia.edu acquired Plasmyd. At the time, Akil told pandodaily, “[Academia.edu has] built the largest online community of scientists while we’ve been working on building the next generation tools of peer review,” said Plasmyd’s co-founder Adnan Akil.

Headlines from media reports of the acquisition paint a picture:

CNET Academia.edu acquires Plasmyd to let peers review papers

Venture Beat Academia.edu acquires Plasmyd to bring peer review into the 21st century

Pandodaily: Academia.edu acquires Plasmyd to prove itself to the academy

Akil, a Jacobs Scholar, was a bioengineering major at UC San Diego and went on to UC Irvine for graduate studies in stem cell biology. Wu studied bioinformatics at UC San Diego.

About a year before the acquisition, Tech Crunch wrote this story: Meet Plasmyd, A Search Engine/Discussion Platform Just For Scientists

BeneFunder.org Goes Live

From the "how it works page" on Benefunder.org which is building a unique funding platform where individual donors can connect with the innovators of science. BeneFunder helps donors to engage in long-term giving to the researchers of their choice, to support the next innovations in our society. They are starting off at UC San Diego, and one of the co-founders is Gert Lanckriet, an electrical engineering professor here at the Jacobs School of Engineering.

Benefunder is a marketplace that allows donors to find, fund, and follow researchers and other university initiatives in a simple, efficient way.

Benefunder partners with top universities to gain access to top researchers and initiatives across all disciplines to ensure that your donations go to the intended use. Researchers create and manage their profiles on our site, which must be approved internally prior to getting published. This way you always get the most up to date information regarding their work and can rest assured knowing that all our causes are in fact vetted.

To search for causes you can browse our home page, click on a category, or click on "search" in the header and type in a term that matches your areas of interest. Click on a tile to learn more about the cause details and watch the videos from our researchers.

Once you have found the researcher and cause of interest to you, click the "Benefund it" link to make a donation. You will be asked for specific information to be able to process the transaction through our secure servers. You can rest at ease knowing Benefunder is backed by Blackbaud Merchant Services, the leader in non-profit payment processing currently serving thousands of non-profits. Benefunder provides you with a tax deductible receipt for your donations and passes the money you donated to the university as a gift earmarked for the cause or researcher of the donor's choosing. Benefunder receives 10% of every donation which funds its overhead and operating expenses.

When a researcher has updates, they post them and we pass that information along to you to see the impact your donation has made. We encourage you to interact with researchers through the Benefunder portal, continue to donate to one or more causes you find interesting as often as you'd like and share the things you find interesting with your friends!

We will constantly be improving the site with new features and functions, your feedback is very welcome!

Commercialization of the Internet

Former chairman of Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) and Network Solutions (NSI), Michael Daniels will give a talk on the commercialization of the Internet in the 1990s, as well as offer a glimpse into the future challenges on Internet regulation, security and privacy issues.

With co-author Bob Beyster, founder, former CEO and chairman of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), Daniels recently published the book Names, Numbers, and Network Solutions. It is the story of NSI, then a small Virginia technology company, that helped bring about the commercialization of the Internet by providing access to the network and its domain name system.

Daniels and Beyster provide an insider’s view of the process of commercializing government-funded technology, and how success is anything but inevitable. Mike will be available to sign books, which can be purchased at the event or via Amazon.

This is part of the Rady School of Management 10thAnniversary Speakers Series.

When: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 · 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Where: UC San Diego campus in the J. Robert Beyster Auditorium · Wells Fargo Hall · 1st Floor · Rady School of Management

iPassStore / UC San Diego students create a discount card for your phone

Do you like discounts on stuff you buy at UC San Diego?

A chemical engineer and a computer science undergrad from the Jacobs School think you do. They built a virtual discount card for UC San Diego called Triton Pass. It’s free. 

Triton Pass is on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TritonPass

Triton Pass is part of a larger projects the students are working on, called iPassStore. Find out more at: https://ipassstore.com/ They already have almost 3,000 Likes on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/iPassStore

Ford Wang, the chemical engineering student from UC San Diego, told us the following:

“Students can save the virtual card into their smartphones and simply show it at participating stores to receive 10% off. Currently we have Subway, Yogurt World, Bombay Coast, Cafe Roma etc., and more restaurants are coming soon.”

Ford says they will soon be expanding to other universities.

The iPassStore founders have gotten help on their business from the Moxie Center for Student Entrepreneurship here at the Jacobs School. Ford said the Moxie Center experience helped a lot in terms of setting up a business model and providing free work space. The Moxie Center is having an open house on Weds Oct 30, if you’ve got a business or invention idea that needs a boost. 

http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_events/index.sfe?id=2283&categoryID=16)

Dexin Qi, also a co-founder, is a computer science major. The team also has four UC San Diego interns who are just ramping up now. Check out the team page here: https://ipassstore.com/index.php