HCII Team Named Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship Finalists
News
HCII Ph.D. students Xiang Anthony Chen and Adrian de Freitas have been named finalists for the 2015-2016 Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship for their project "Snap-To-It: Using Mobile Cameras To Opportunistically Connect and Interact With an Internet of Things."
Founded in 2009 and awarded to only a handful of teams, the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship (QInF) recognizes, rewards and mentors innovative Ph.D. students across a broad range of technical research areas, based on Qualcomm’s core values of innovation, execution and teamwork. The program is open to students at selected schools throughout the US, and encourages teams of two students to submit proposals on any innovative idea of their choice. Qualcomm engineers review the proposals in the initial application round, and select the QInF Finalists.
As part of that group of finalists, Chen and de Freitas will travel to Qualcomm to present their idea before a group of expert panelists in March. Should they win, each will receive a $50,000 fellowship, as well as an industry mentor who will help guide their project's progress. The students would also benefit from regular collaboration opportunities with Qualcomm Research.
Qualcomm received 146 applications for this year's QInF, and 35 teams were selected as finalists. Fellowships will be awarded to only eight teams, which will be announced in April. Last year, HCII Ph.D. students Sauvik Das and Gierad Laput were one of nine teams to win the 2014 Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship.
For more on the QInF program, click here.