Bell Labs announces 2014 Bell Labs Prize Winner

On Dec 11, 2014

Murray Hill-based Bell Labs, the industrial arm of Alcatel-Lucent, announces that it has selected the three winners of the first Bell Labs Prize. Designed to provide motivation and incentive to drive disruptive innovation, the Bell Labs Prize recognizes proposals that “change the game” in the field of information and communications technologies by a factor of 10.

• The $100,000 first prize was awarded to Emmanuel Abbe, assistant professor at Princeton University. Subject: A Shannon Theory of Social Networks and Beyond

• The $50,000 second prize was presented to Patrick Reynaert, associate professor at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) and a staff member of the ESAT-MICAS research group. Subject: Gigabits Through Plastic
• The $25,000 third prize went to the team of Matilde Sanchez Fernandez, associate professor at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain; Ana García Armada, professor at University Carlos III de Madrid, Spain; Eva Rajo-Iglesias, affiliate professor at Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden. Subject: Unleash the Wireless Power of your Device: Blended Antenna HUBs for your Unconstrained Mobile Cloud Experience

In addition to the cash prizes, all of the finalists will be offered the chance to continue to collaborate with Bell Labs to further explore and develop their ideas.

Since the creation of the Bell Labs Prize six months ago, almost 500 applicants submitted their ideas for consideration. As one of the pre-eminent global research organizations, Bell Labs has a rich history of identifying and solving some of the greatest challenges facing the information and telecommunications industry. Recognized by some of the most prestigious technology organizations for their contributions over the years, the company set forth to identify some of the next great minds in the field and find new ways to contribute to the growth of technology in innovative ways.

“It is a historic day for both Alcatel-Lucent and Bell Labs,” said Marcus Weldon, president of Bell Labs. “We were extremely pleased by the myriad innovative ideas and concepts that were proposed, and we are excited to see where these ideas might lead. The unique research and proposals presented here truly embody the spirit and mission of Bell Labs. And the feedback we have received from the 23 applicants who got the chance to collaborate with Bell Labs researchers in the latter phase of the competition has been phenomenal — they were amazed to discover what it means to be part of Bell Labs even for just a few days or weeks.”

Michel Combes, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, added: “The Bell Labs Prize is fully aligned with Alcatel-Lucent’s innovation strategy which is firmly focused on developing game-changing partnerships and fostering open innovation. Given the exceptional quality of applications received and the enormous potential of the projects presented by the three winners, we envision the Bell Labs Prize becoming a prestigious and productive award for the ICT industry. We’re now looking forward to watching the projects presented develop further through the partnership between the winners and our researchers.”

In addition to the three winners, finalists included:

• Andrew Eckford, Professor at York University, Toronto, Canada; Nariman Farsad, Ph.D. candidate with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada and Weisi Guo, Exchange Assistant Professor, NYU CUSP, New York, USA
• Elaine Shi, Associate Professor at University of Maryland, Maryland, USA
  Guangyu Yang, PH.D. Student, Clemson University, South Carolina, USA and Sufeng Niu, Ph.D. at Clemson University, South Carolina, USA
• Lav Varshney, Professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA

The seven finalists presented their ideas to a panel of judges, including Alfred V. Aho, Bell Labs alumnus and professor at Columbia University; John Cummins, senior adviser with Hawkpoint Partners; Kevin Fitchard, technology writer with Gigaom; Marcus Weldon, president of Bell Labs and CTO of Alcatel-Lucent; Michel Combes, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent; Robert Wilson, senior scientist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Dr. Sangchul Lee, CEO of LG+; and Siya Xuza, entrepreneur.

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