Tech Forum 2009 Highlights

May 1, 2009

By UCLA Samueli Newsroom

On April 23, the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science held Tech Forum 2009, the school’s annual research showcase.

This year’s program was highlighted by three keynote speakers. Vinod Khosla, of the venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, spoke on developing new ideas for clean technology; Patrick Soon-Shiong, president and CEO of Abraxis BioScience, spoke on how health care will be transformed by breakthroughs in bioinformatics and molecular medicine; and Ronald Sugar, president and CEO of Northrop Grumman Corporation, spoke on new technologies under development for national security.

In the afternoon, the Tech Forum featured four translational technologies sessions, covering topics including the energy-water nexus; biotechnology for health care; advanced technologies for defense, aerospace and security systems; and networking the future. Presenters included faculty members, as well as representatives from both industry and government agencies.

Tech Forum 2009 Sponsors

Lunch and Poster Competition Sponsor:
Boston Scientific

Keynote Sponsor:
Northrop Grumman Corporation

Translational Technology Sessions Sponsors:
Broadcom
Qualcomm

Host Sponsor:
California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI)

During the lunch break, nearly 100 UCLA Engineering students were on hand to present posters of their research. All students were eligible for the poster competition, which awarded a top prize of $1,000 and three prizes of $500 each to three runners-up.

2009 Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Awards
At the Tech Forum, UCLA Engineering presented the 2009 Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Awards to its top three industry supporters of the past year.
The 2009 Excellence In Corporate Philanthropy winners were:
Cisco Systems, Inc., Intel and Microsoft Corporation

2009 Student Poster Competition
Finally, the event concluded with the recognition of the winners for the student poster competition. The $1,000 grand prize went to Harish Rajagopalan, of electrical engineering. The three runners-up, who each received $500, were: Anadika Dhaliwal, of chemical and biomolecular engineering; Hyowon Lee, of biomedical engineering; and Nicolas Cirigliano, of materials science and engineering.

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