Yesterday we had the privilege to listen to Dr. Andrew J. Viterbi give an interesting presentation on the Science, Technology and Business of Digital Communications. He has been working in the middle of the mobile communications revolution and has left his mark in the field in many ways. Does the Viterbi algorithm sound familiar?
Dr. Viterbi is one of the Millennium Technology Prize Laureates for 2008. His lecture was a part of the Finalist Symposium that was held at the Helsinki University of Technology in Espoo, Finland. This year, the main Millennium Technology Prize, the largest technology prize in the world, was presented to Robert Langer from MIT for developing innovative biomaterials for controlled drug release.
The organizers of the symposium had also invited three promising Finnish companies to introduce themselves. All three companies combine science and technology with communication and are making solid business that aims “to someday repeat the success of Qualcomm”, as the organizers put it. One of these companies was Xtract and Jouko Ahvenainen gave the presentation that you can see below.
The presentation was about how to monetize digital communications and to deliver more relevant advertisements to end users at the same time guaranteeing more returns for the advertisers. In the audience was also Jason Pontin, Editor in Chief and Publisher of MIT Technology Review. He commented that our solution is the most complete solution he has seen for solving “the multi-billion dollar problem.” Afterwards we had some good conversations around the subject over some coffee and other refreshments.
