Innovation Fellowship 2013

We will hold the finals at three of Qualcomm's R&D Centers in New Jersey, San Diego, and Santa Clara. Finalists will be allocated to an appropriate finals location.

QInF 2013 East Coast Finals: Bridgewater, NJ

• Venue: Qualcomm Research Center New Jersey
• Address: 500 Somerset Corporate Blvd, Bridgewater, NJ 08807
• Date: March 18, 2013

QInF 2013 SoCal Finals: San Diego, CA

• Venue: Qualcomm Research Center (QRC) San Diego
• Address: 5665 Morehouse Drive, San Diego, CA 92121
• Date: March 20, 2013

QInF 2013 NorCal Finals: Santa Clara, CA

• Venue: Qualcomm Research Silicon Valley (QRSV)
• Address: 3165 Kifer Road, Santa Clara, CA 95051
• Date: March 21, 2013

We believe that research and development is the key to harnessing the power of imagination and to discovering new possibilities. We are excited to announce a new kind of fellowship that promotes Qualcomm’s core values of innovation, execution and partnership. Our goal is to enable students to pursue their futuristic innovative ideas.

Qualcomm is inviting applications for the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship 2013 from outstanding PhD students in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (and related) departments at:

• Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)
• Cornell University
• Columbia University
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• Princeton University
• Rutgers University
• Stanford University
• UC Berkeley (UCB)
• UC Los Angles (UCLA)
• UC San Diego (UCSD)
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
• University of Maryland
• University of Michigan
• University of Southern California (USC)
• University of Washington

We will be awarding fellowships for up to TEN winning teams for the 2013–14 academic year. Teams are limited to two students.

Each of the winning teams will be awarded a $100,000 fellowship for submitting the most innovative proposals. The respective academic departments at each university will administer funds to the winning students for their fellowship work and research expenses for the academic year of 2013–14. Total funding for ten teams x two students x $50,000 each = $1,000,000.

We invite teams to submit proposals focussing on the a number of specific areas within EE and CS (and related areas), which fall into the following broad categories:

• Advances in Communication Techniques and Theory
• Cloud Computing
• Internet of Things
• Mobile Applications
• Computational Photography and Mobile Graphics & Imaging
• RF-Related Topics
• Mobile Security & Privacy
• Neuromorphic Computing
• Semiconductor Research
• System Architecture & Programming Models
• User Experience

Specifically, we solicit proposals from the following sub-areas (however, we also explicitly welcome other sub-areas that fit into the above categories):

• 3D IC Technology, Design and Automation
• 3D Objects and Scene Reconstruction
• Adaptive RF Matching
• Affecting Computing
• Alternative Instruction-Set Architectures (ISAs)
• Application of new technologies (e.g., STT-MRAM, PCM, Near- and Sub-Threshold) on Processor and System Architecture
• Augmented Reality using HMDs
• Autonomic Computing
• Biometric Input
• Carbon based Electronics
• Cerebellar Processing and Motor Control
• Cloud Assist for Mobile Computing
• Cloud and the Internet of Things
• Connected Home
• Cortical Signal Processing
• Crowd Sourcing
• Dependable & Fault-Tolerant Architectures
• Dynamically Reconfigurable Architectures
• Dynamic Wireless Multicast
• Energy Modeling & Simulation
• Emerging Memory Technology (Cell Design, Process, Memory Architecture)
• Flexible/Printable Electronics
• Haptics/Vibrotacile Feedback
• Hardware Implementation of Neural Elements
• Hardware/Software Co-Design for Heterogeneous Systems
• HCI across Multiple Screens
• Image Enhancement and Super-Resolution
• Image Stabilization, Rolling Shutter Removal
• Image Editing, Synthesis, Retargeting and Composition
• Interference Management among Multiple Base-Stations
• Innovative PA Design
• Low-Cost Radio (Crystals, Radio front-end integration)
• Low-Power Wake-Up Receiver Architecture
• Low-Power Discovery & Routing
• Low-Power Multi-Processor/Multi-Core Designs
• Memory & Interconnect Subsystems
• Mobile Camera
• Mobile Computing Languages
• Mobile Hypervisor and Virtual Machine Technologies
• Mobile Payment/Commerce
• Mobile Privacy (Content Control)
• Mobile Security
• Mobile Web Technologies
• Monolayer Semiconductor
• Multi-Hop and Mesh Networks
• Natural Interactions, NUIs on/with Mobile Devices
• Network Coding for Wireless Networks
• Parallel & Heterogeneous Programming: Models, Frameworks, Runtimes
• Personal Cloud
• Processor Architecture
• Proximal Communication among Peer Nodes
• Real-Time Rendering
• Real-Time Resource Allocation in Cloud Platform
• RF Mems
• RF Applications for Graphene
• Scene Understanding
• Sensory Encoding Schemes
• Shared Experiences on Single and Multiple Devices
• Spintronics/Straintronics
• System Software for Mobile Cloud
• Touchless Human-Computer Interfaces (HCI)
• Ultra-Low Power Technology
• Wide-Area Wireless Networks using High-Frequency Spectrum
• Wireless Docking
• Wireless Health
• Wireless Systems for Unlicensed/Shared Spectrum

• Application Deadline: November 1, 2012 (23:59h PST)
  
  Bad Weather Extension:
  Application Deadline: November 8, 2012 (23:59h PST)
• Finalists Announcement: December 14, 2012
• Finalists Presentation Submission: Two weeks before Finals
• Finalists Presentation: March 14–20, 2013
• Winners Announcement: April 2013
• QInF Day: September 2013

Each team shall submit an innovation proposal that must include:

• Introduction and problem definition
• Innovation proposal and relation to the state of the art
• The one-year horizon of the project (even if the proposal is a multi-year project)
• The strength of the team for achieving the proposal milestones.

See FAQ for more details.

Winners will be selected through a two-phase process:


1. Finalists selection: Applications must be submitted online by the deadline above. Each application must include (in PDF or Word format):

• Three page proposal summarizing your innovative idea (references can be on a fourth page)
• Letter from one or more faculties recommending the innovation
• Each student’s CV

All proposals will be reviewed internally by a team of Qualcomm researchers and based on this review, approximately 30 teams will be selected to be finalists.

2. Winners selection: Each finalist team must prepare a 12-minute presentations for the judges. Presentation must be in PowerPoint or PDF format. The presentation generally includes:

• The idea
• The differentiating factors from state of the art
• The execution plan / strength of the team

The winning teams will be chosen from within these finalists after they present to the judging panel.

The official rules for the innovation fellowship are available for download.

All QInF-related information will be announced on this webpage. Please check back regularly for updates.

Submission of new proposals is now closed.

In addition to the faculty advisor(s) to guide the fellowship research, Qualcomm will also provide industry experts to mentor the teams, as well as regular collaboration opportunities with Qualcomm Research & Development to further assist with projects. Successful projects will be reevaluated after one year for further research funding from Qualcomm.

A summary of the information is available in form of the Info Session slide deck.

Do you need further Information? Please direct your questions to innovation.fellowship@qti.qualcomm.com