UC San Diego’s Qualcomm Institute Opens Startup “Innovation Space”

the space made short presentations Thursday about their technology and startup plans:

—Comhear CEO Randy Granovetter is developing speakers and wearable audio products that use beam-forming technology and software to produce an immersive, 360-degree sound for listeners.

—Foundation for Learning Equality co-founder Jamie Alexandre said the non-profit foundation has been working with the Kahn Academy and other edutech companies to develop open-source curriculum for the hundreds of millions of children around the world who are unable to attend school.

—RAM Photonics president John Marciante said the six-year-old startup is focused on identifying and licensing highly innovative and transformative photonic technologies for use in medical, high-power machining, and communications industries.

—Sinopia Biosciences co-founder Aarash Bordbar has been working with UC San Diego professor of Bioengineering Bernhard Palsson to develop analytics technologies for identifying signature characteristics in genomic data that correlate with adverse drug reactions.

—STEAM Engine co-founder and Qualcomm Institute research scientist Albert Yu-Min Lin said the company is creating an education technology platform committed to immersive learning, citizen science, and the aggregation of knowledge through game-based simulation.

—Technosylva CEO Joaquin Ramirez, a fire prediction expert, has developed technology for geospatial data analysis that can be used by public safety agencies in fighting wildfires.

—VirBELA CEO Alex Howland said the startup has developed software that uses simulation and virtual world gaming for executive recruiting and related human resources assessments of job competencies.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.