QVF 09

Yesterday during the day, Qualcomm had an event called the Qualcomm Venture Fest (QVF). The event was the finale for a 2^nd (maybe 3^rd) year program put on by QIN – the Qualcomm Innovation Network. The program started earlier in the year when teams of employees were encouraged to submit business plans for their idea of a new product that Qualcomm should start producing. This year, 196 business plans were submitted, which is pretty incredible in itself. Of those 196, 14 teams were chosen to attend a 3 month “boot camp.” This involved speakers from SDSU’s business school, Qualcomm VPs, and Irwin Jacobs himself. At the end of this boot camp the 14 teams presented their ideas to judges in two rounds, with 6 making it through the first round and a top 3 decided by the second panel of judges, which consisted of Senior VPs and Paul Jacobs.

 

The ultimate purpose for the QVF event was to announce the three winners, but also included Paul Jacobs as the keynote speaker. I was impressed by Jacob’s speech, by even more impressed by the content. He focused on the innovation going on all over Qualcomm. Earlier this week, QCOM opened a fabrication plant in Taiwan that will start producing Marisol displays, the low power displays inspired by butterfly wings. He also talked about Zeebo, an affordable video game console designed for developing countries, where video games are downloaded over a 3G network using a Qualcomm chip. This was the product of a previous QVF participant and is expected to be widely successful. He mentioned a new 14 mm thick Smartbook, powered by QCOM’s new Snapdragon chip. Qualcomm, it seems, is expanding in every direction. They are not allowing themselves to be typecast as a wireless chip-maker, but rather spreading out in any area where a good idea rises. Every time they see something that is smart and makes sense, they invest and get involved. Jacobs seemed really passionate about this type of business plan, and I think that in doing so he has effectively created an atmosphere at Qualcomm where innovation is not just encouraged, but is the focal point of almost every division.

 

The top three winners consisted of a wide range of ideas. Third place went to a team who imagined an embedded wireless device for use in medicine. Second went to TVLINK, a group who I thought had the best idea. Their idea was to create a wireless display interface, basically a wireless monitor cable. This is needed in such a bad way. I actually went looking for one online less than 2 weeks ago, and couldn’t find anything that would do the job for a reasonable price. Think about how many people watch TV on their computers rather than their actual TV, and how many YouTube videos are watched daily. There needs to be a better way to transmit your computer’s display to you HDTV. TVLINK came up with an idea that is so beyond brilliantly simple. Jacobs acknowledged this as well saying the Qualcomm has been searching for a way to master this technology for a long time. Their idea: rather than broadcast over WiFi or other network, broadcast the display over an unused TV channel. The second I heard that I was so amazed. It makes perfect sense. TV’s are already capable of receiving over-the-air HD channels, so why not just make your computer’s display an HD channel? This is something that I know Qualcomm will strive to produce as soon as possible, and I hope so, because I want one. The first place winner was called SWARM, and though I didn’t understand their exact technology, the premise was to create a more environmentally friendly (high throughput, low power) processor using existing technology. This is definitely an important concept as computing grows, because current processors produce a ridiculous amount of heat and require constant cooling.

 

Anyway, I was really impressed by the event, and impressed by the brilliant people, who in the 3 months came up with incredible ideas, without any time off of work.