MURRAY HILL, N.J., Dec. 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Bell Labs, the
industrial arm of Alcatel-Lucent, announced that it has selected
the three winners of the first Bell Labs Prize. Designed to provide
motivation and incentive to drive disruptive innovation, the Bell
Labs Prize recognizes proposals that "change the game" in the field
of information and communications technologies by a factor of
10.
- The $100,000 first prize was
awarded to Emmanuel Abbe, assistant
professor at Princeton University.
- Subject: A Shannon Theory of Social Networks and Beyond
- The $50,000 second prize was
presented to Patrick Reynaert,
associate professor at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) and a
staff member of the ESAT-MICAS research group.
- Subject: Gigabits Through Plastic
- The $25,000 third prize went to
the team of Matilde Sanchez
Fernandez, associate professor at Universidad Carlos III de
Madrid, Spain; Ana Garcia Armada, professor at University
Carlos III de Madrid, Spain;
Eva Rajo-Iglesias, affiliate
professor at Chalmers University of Technology, Goteborg, Sweden.
- Subject: Unleash the Wireless Power of your Device: Blended
Antenna HUBs for your Unconstrained Mobile Cloud Experience
In addition to the cash prizes, all of the finalists will be
offered the chance to continue to collaborate with Bell Labs to further explore and develop their
ideas.
Since the creation of the Bell Labs Prize six months ago, almost
500 applicants submitted their ideas for consideration. As one of
the pre-eminent global research organizations, Bell Labs has a rich history of identifying and
solving some of the greatest challenges facing the information and
telecommunications industry. Recognized by some of the most
prestigious technology organizations for their contributions over
the years, the company set forth to identify some of the next great
minds in the field and find new ways to contribute to the growth of
technology in innovative ways.
"It is a historic day for both Alcatel-Lucent and Bell Labs," said Marcus
Weldon, president of Bell
Labs. "We were extremely pleased by the myriad innovative
ideas and concepts that were proposed, and we are excited to see
where these ideas might lead. The unique research and proposals
presented here truly embody the spirit and mission of Bell Labs. And the feedback we have received
from the 23 applicants who got the chance to collaborate with
Bell Labs researchers in the latter
phase of the competition has been phenomenal — they were amazed to
discover what it means to be part of Bell
Labs even for just a few days or weeks."
Michel Combes, CEO of
Alcatel-Lucent, added : "The Bell Labs Prize is fully aligned with
Alcatel-Lucent's innovation strategy which is firmly focused on
developing game-changing partnerships and fostering open
innovation. Given the exceptional quality of applications received
and the enormous potential of the projects presented by the three
winners, we envision the Bell Labs Prize becoming a prestigious and
productive award for the ICT industry. We're now looking forward to
watching the projects presented develop further through the
partnership between the winners and our researchers."
In addition to the three winners, finalists
included:
- Andrew Eckford, Professor at
York University, Toronto, Canada; Nariman Farsad, Ph.D. candidate with the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at
York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada and Weisi Guo,
Exchange Assistant Professor, NYU
CUSP, New York, USA
- Elaine Shi, Associate Professor
at University of Maryland, Maryland, USA
- Guangyu Yang, Ph.D. Student,
Clemson University, South Carolina, USA and Sufeng Niu, Ph.D. at Clemson University, South
Carolina, USA
- Lav Varshney, Professor at University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA
The seven finalists presented their ideas to a panel of judges,
including Alfred V. Aho,
Bell Labs alumnus and professor at
Columbia University; John Cummins, senior adviser with Hawkpoint
Partners; Kevin Fitchard, technology
writer with Gigaom; Marcus Weldon,
president of Bell Labs and CTO of
Alcatel-Lucent; Michel Combes, CEO
of Alcatel-Lucent; Robert Wilson,
senior scientist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory of
the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Dr. Sangchul Lee, CEO of LG+; and Siya Xuza,
entrepreneur.
About the Bell Labs Prize
The Bell Labs Prize is an
annual competition rewarding 10x game-changing proposals in the
field of information and communications technologies and related
software systems and applications. The competition is open to
anyone in one of the participating countries, who "owns" an idea
and meets the eligibility requirements. For more information, visit
the Bell Labs Prize website. No purchase or payment necessary to
enter the competition. Void where prohibited.
About Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE:
ALU)
Alcatel-Lucent is the leading IP networking,
ultra-broadband access and cloud technology specialist. We are
dedicated to making global communications more innovative,
sustainable and accessible for people, businesses and governments
worldwide. Our mission is to invent and deliver trusted networks to
help our customers unleash their value. Every success has its
network.
For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on:
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com, read the latest posts on the
Alcatel-Lucent blog http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/blog and follow
the Company on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Alcatel_Lucent.
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