Where Renewables / Electric Vehicles and the Electric Grid Meet

The intersection of renewable energy, electric vehicles, and the electric grid was the topic of conversation yesterday at a press conference here at UC San Diego.  Read the press release on the Jacobs School news site.

Friday Event: Entrepreneurship to Engineering Leadership

A Gordon Leadership Center Event on Friday Jan 28: 5PM: "Entrepreneurship to Engineering Leadership"

Location: Jacobs Hall - Qualcomm Conference Center, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. Map here.


Creativity, innovation and leadership are among the essential attributes of future engineers as identified in the Engineer 2020 report by the National Academy of Engineering. It is critical for students to have the ability to identify new needs and opportunities for technological innovation in highly complex and interdisciplinary domains. The goal of this talk is to discuss a “technological innovation start-up” model and its stages such as seed stage to start-up stage, early stage to expansion & lead stage.


Speaker Bio:

Speaker Bio

Cahit Akin, PhD – Principal, ITU Ventures/President & CEO, Mushroom Networks, Inc. received his PhD and MSE degree in Electrical Engineering and MS in Mathematics from University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Bilkent University, Turkey. Currently, he is a Principal at ITU Ventures, LLC, a seed stage Venture Capital firm with $200 million under management, where he has been working since 2001. Dr. Akin managed the Adaptive Systems Laboratory out of Cal-IT2 at University of California San Diego, and continues to be a volunteer scholar at Cal-IT2. Dr. Akin is a cofounder and investor in Mushroom Networks, Inc. where he is also the President and Chief Executive Officer. Previously, Dr. Akin has worked as a senior analyst at a boutique marketing consultancy firm on Wall Street ­ New York, formulating marketing strategies for multi-billion dollar companies. Dr. Akin has worked on technical and research aspects of communications for over 7 years including several patents. Dr. Akin is a recipient of the NATO Graduate Study Scholarship award and was a national team member for International Mathematics Olympiad in 1993.

UC San Diego Weather Balloon Journeys South of the Border

It’s a bird… it’s a plane… no wait a minute... it’s a weather balloon. A weather balloon recently launched from the UC San Diego campus traveled 300 miles until landing on a mountain slope between Puerto Penasco and Caborca, Mexico on the north-eastern edge of the Gulf of California.
The weather balloon, equipped with data transmitters and GPS locators, was launched by a group of UC San Diego mechanical and aerospace engineering students. The students, led by Prof. John Kosmatka, initiated the launch to flight test and develop experience with zero-pressure balloons. The students’ previous weather balloons traveled to a much higher altitude (90,000 feet or 17 miles) and burst, but traveled a short distance (5-10 miles). Zero- pressure balloons, such as the one used in the recent launch, rise to a predetermined altitude (such as 45,000 feet or 9 miles up - the lower edge of the stratosphere), then are pushed by the winds until they gently come down in the evening as the air and helium cool.

For Kosmatka and his students, the recent launch was a huge success.

“We learned that these balloons are very easy to load, launch, and track,” Kosmatka said. “Experimental data can be recorded and transmitted via ham radios to the internet, so that anyone in the world can monitor the flight progress. For this flight we monitored GPS location (latitude, longitude), altitude, speed, temperature, and air pressure. For most of the six-hour flight, the balloon cruised at 45,000 feet (lower edge of the stratosphere) where the air temperature is close to minus 60 Fahrenheit and the air pressure is only 2 pounds per second.

“These balloons have the research advantage in that data can be collected across a greater area at a specific altitude assuming that the winds are blowing in the right direction and are strong enough,” he added.

Kosmatka and his students plan to develop a variety of environmental and structural engineering experiments that will be flown on a future flight along with science payloads provided by local high school students.

The engineers have launched a total of six weather balloons since 2008. The launches are sponsored by the California Space Grant Consortium. Last fall, the students sent a weather balloon up 80,000 feet to near space to study the effects of solar power, climate change and the survival rate of anti-freeze beetles. Read more about that launch here.

Track the progress of previous and future balloon launches on the UCSD Near Space Balloon site.

Computer Science professor Yuanyuan (YY) Zhou in La Jolla Light

Computer Science professor Yuanyuan (YY) Zhou was included in a recent round up of local researchers in the La Jolla Light. Check out Lynne Friedman's full story here.

Calit2's Tiffany Fox wrote an interesting profile of Zhou in 2010.

Have you check out the latest issue of Pulse?

If you missed it, the latest version of Pulse, the Jacobs School magazine is online and in print. If you're an alumnus of the Jacobs School and would like to get the bi-annual magazine in the mail, let me know.

Electrical Engineers Engage with Audi on Urban Car Problems

There is an interesting Calit2 story out today about a new research initiative launched by Audi, its Electronics Research Laboratory in Silicon Valley, the University of California, San Diego and three other major U.S. research universities will develop technologies aimed at easing the congestion, dangers and inconveniences that often confront drivers in the world’s biggest cities

The new three-year research initiative is called “Audi Urban Intelligent Assist.” The aim is to take connected car, driver assistance and infrastructure electronics to the next level of providing detailed information so motorists have a better sense of the driving conditions surrounding them.

“Safety on urban roads will require a very deep understanding of the driver and his or her environment,” added UC San Diego electrical and computer engineering professor Mohan Trivedi, director of the university’s Laboratory for Intelligent and Safe Automobiles (LISA), within the Jacobs School of Engineering. “With the proliferation of consumer electronics devices in and on-board vehicles, a major challenge in front of us is to ensure that assistance systems really help rather than distract or irritate the driver.”

Read the full story on the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering site.

Related links:

Laboratory for Intelligent and Safe Automobiles
UCSD Computer Vision and Robotics Research Lab
Audi USA
Audi News
Electronics Research Laboratory

Entrepreneur Challenge / Elevator Pitch Finals Jan 19

Elevator pitch finals are Jan 19, 6-8 PM in the Student Services Center (multipurpose room) here at UC San Diego. RSVP for the event.

Keynote: Dr. Philip Low (CEO/Founder/Chairman) of NeuroVigil.

$1,000 is up for grabs in the 5th Annual UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge Winter Kickoff and Elevator Pitch Competition.  The event features the top 8 submissions to the E. Challenge Elevator Pitch Competition who will have the opportunity to pitch their ventures live to an audience of several hundred.  The best pitch will be determined by audience vote and the winner will be awarded $1,000.

The event is moderated by past E. Challenge winner and successful startup founder and CEO, Dr. Philip Low.  Dr. Low is a graduate of the Salk Institute and the winner of the 2007-2008 Entrepreneur Challenge.  Dr. Low has also won several other national business plan competitions including the prestigious Draper Fisher Jurvetson Venture Challenge, been named as one of the Top 35 Under 35 Innovators by the MIT Technology Review, won the 2010 CONNECT Most Innovative Product award in Life Sciences and operated successfully out of Neurovigil's La Jolla offices.