Thursday, October 20, 2016

Madrona Awards UW Computer Science and Engineering Team With Prize

Seattle-based venture capital investor Madrona Venture Group said today that it has awarded a prize, the "Madrona Prize," to a team of graduate students from the University of Washington. According to Madrona, the prize--in its eleventh year--is awarded every year to a ground breaking and commercially viable technology developed at the University of Washington. This year's team is working on "backscatter communications technologies" which Madrona said is aimed at making battery-free communication systems work over long distances. The cash prize goes to a team made up of Vamsi Talla, CSE postdoc; Mehrdad Hessar and Bryce Kellogg, UW Electrical Engineering; Shyam Gollakota, CSE faculty; Josh Smith, CSE and EE faculty. Madrona says that, since its inception, it has funded 16 companies out of the University of Washington, including Impinj (now public), Farecast (acquired by Microsoft), and Turi (acquired by Apple).