Innovation Fellowship 2014

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 2014 from outstanding PhD students in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (and related) departments at:

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

We will be awarding fellowships for eight winning teams for the 2014–15 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 2014–2015. Total funding for eight teams x two students x $50,000 each = $800,000.

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:

• Internet of Everything (IoE)
• Mobile Applications, Gaming, and App Enablers
• Neuromorphic Computing
• Advances in Communication Techniques and Theory
• Computational Photography and Mobile Graphics & Imaging
• Mobile Security & Privacy
• Cloud Computing
• Software System Architecture
• Semiconductor Research
• Processor Architecture and Implementation
• RF-Related
• User Interfaces

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

• 3D object and scene reconstruction
• Adaptive RF Matching
• Advanced System in package (SiP) solutions and packaging technologies
• Affecting Computing
• Alternative or optimized ISA’s for supporting (current & future) mobile use cases
• Augmented Reality using HMDs
• Autonomic Computing
• Biometric Input
• Cache, memory & interconnect subsystems for supporting above
• Carbon based electronics
• Cloud assist for mobile computing
• Connected Home
• Crowdsourcing
• Dynamic reconfigurable micro-architecture
• Edge computing
• Emerging technology (eg. cell design, process, memory architecture, STT-MRAM, PCM, near- and sub-threshold, etc.)
• Energy-efficient, high-performance micro-architecture & circuits
• Eyetracking devices and algorithms
• Flexible/printable electronics
• Haptics/Vibrotactile Feedback
• HCI across multiple screens
• HW-integrated security
• HW/SW co-design for heterogeneous systems
• Image editing, synthesis, retargeting and composition
• Image enhancement and super-resolution
• Image stabilization, rolling shutter removal
• Innovative PA Design
• Low cost radio
• Low power discovery & routing
• Low power multi-processor/multi-core designs
• Low power wake-up receiver architectures
• mm-Wave RF architectures
• Mobile Cloud Applications
• Mobile Cloud Computing
• Mobile Computing languages, compilers and tools
• Mobile Gaming
• Mobile Payment/Commerce
• Mobile Privacy (content control)
• Mobile Security
• Monolayer semiconductor
• Natural Interactions/NUIs on/with mobile devices
• Next generation 3DIC technology, design and automation
• Optical I/O and photonics.
• Parallel and heterogeneous programming: models, frameworks, runtimes
• Personal Cloud
• Power efficient algorithms for 2D and 3D UI
• Processor modeling & simulation for power, performance & area
• Real time rendering
• Resilient & fault-tolerant architecture & design
• RF Applications for Graphene
• RF Mems
• Scene understanding
• Sensors (e.g. environmental, optical, chemical, etc.)
• Shared Experiences on single and multiple devices
• Spintronics (novel devices and circuit design)
• System Software for mobile clouds
• Thermal management (modeling, materials and innovative heat dissipation technologies)
• Touchless HCI
• UI technologies for wearables;
• Ultra-low power technology (transistors, memory, circuits)
• Wireless Docking
• Wireless Health
• Wireless swarm

• Application Deadline: November 4, 2013 (23:59h PST)
• Finalists Announcement: December, 2013
• Finalists Presentation Submission: Two weeks before Finals
• Finalists Presentation: Spring, 2014
• Winners Announcement: April, 2014
• QInF Day: Fall 2014

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.

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

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.