March 31 Vint Cerf keynotes Paul Baran Young Scholars program at Georgia Tech. Join us.

SAVE THE DATE FOR THE 2015 MARCONI PRIZE CEREMONY AND SYMPOSIUM

The 2014 events will take place Oct. 20th in London, UK. Location and details to be announced soon.  If you would like to receive updates or have questions, please contact Hatti Hamlin, 925.872.4328

Vision 2020: March 31 at the Georgia Institute of Technology

Join us March 31, 2015, 11 AM to 3 PM, at Georgia Institute of Technology School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in Atlanta for “Vision 2020”, a program on next generation computing and the Internet. Presented jointly by the Marconi Society Young Scholars and Georgia Tech, the event features a keynote by Marconi Fellow Vint Cerf. For more information, contact Alicia Richhart Richhart,alicia@cc.gatech.edu

2015 Young Scholar Nominations and 2016 Marconi Fellow nominations open

The deadline is June 30, 2015 for two prestigious awards. The Marconi Prize is awarded annually to individuals who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of communications for the benefit of mankind through scientific or technological discoveries or innovations. The winner receives $100,000. Young Scholar nominees for 2015 must have been born in 1987 or later in recognition of the fact that Guglielmo Marconi was age 27 when he successfully completed the first transatlantic radio signal transmission on December 12, 1901. They receive $4,000 and travel expenses to the Gala Award Ceremony held October 20 in London. 

Nominate a Fellow using this link. Nominate a Young Scholar using this link.

Marconi Society Webinar on “Spectrum Choices” features Marconi Fellows John Cioffi & Marty Cooper

Live webinar takes place February 25th

The Marconi Society will host “Spectrum Choices”, a webinar featuring Dr. John Cioffi, a renowned inventor of the DSL modem and 35-year veteran of the DSL industry.  He'll be joined by Marty Cooper, who built the first cell phone. The webinar takes place February 25, 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. New York, 6 p.m. London. “Spectrum allocation is the hottest topic in the broadband industry now,” says Dr. Cioffi. “How to divide the spectrum is the challenge we’ll discuss. 

Stanford Professor A.J. Paulraj Wins the 2014 Marconi Prize

Honored for his pioneering contributions to developing the theory and applications of MIMO antennas

Palo Alto, CA, January 21, 2014—Professor (Emeritus) Arogyaswami Joseph Paulraj, Stanford University, has been awarded the prestigious 2014 Marconi Society Prize. His idea for using multiple antennas at both the transmitting and receiving stations - which is at the heart of the current high speed WiFi and 4G mobile systems – has revolutionized high speed wireless delivery of multimedia services for billions of people. 

“Paul (as he is commonly known) has made profound contributions to wireless technology, and the resulting benefit to mankind is indisputable. Every wifi router and 4G phone today uses MIMO technology pioneered by him,” says Professor Sir David Payne, Chairman of the Marconi Society and Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton. “MIMO will soon be pervasive in all wireless devices. Moreover, Paulraj’s work has provided fertile ground for thousands of researchers to explore and advance MIMO’s potential to enhance wireless spectrum efficiency.”.

Paul’s story is a remarkable one. A native of India, a brilliant and always a top ranking student, he finished high school at 15 and having no career guidance, joined the Indian Navy. He opted for the electrical engineering branch, where his training focused on practical skills for maintaining weapons systems. But Paul wanted more and taught himself subjects like control theory, information theory and signal processing. He so impressed his superiors that in 1969 the Navy sent him to the Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi), one of India’s top schools, for a MS program.

In 1970, Stanford Prof. Thomas Kailath, a brilliant and influential systems theorist, visited IIT Delhi to lecture on non-linear estimation. Inspired by Kailath’s lectures, Paul went on to make fundamental advances in non-linear estimation of signals using advanced tools from Ito calculus and stochastic diffusion theory.

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