The Team

Dr. Nikil Jayant, Co-Founder and CEO

Nikil obtained his BE and PhD degrees in Electrical Communication Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science. During 1968-98, Nikil Jayant performed and led fundamental signal processing and communications research at Bell Laboratories. At Bell Labs, he created and led the Signal Processing Research Department and the Advanced Audio Technology Department, and later served as the Founding Director of the Multimedia Communications Research Laboratory. Dr. Jayant joined Georgia Tech in 1998 as Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. In an earlier entrepreneurial effort at Georgia Tech, he served as co-founder and chief scientist of EGT (acquired by Arris in 2009), and helped raise $20M+ in VC-funding. Dr. Jayant is the author of 5 books, 150 papers and 40 patents in audiovisual signal processing and broadband communications. Dr. Jayant is a winner of several IEEE Awards including the Third Millennium Medal and a Member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Daniel Howard, CTO and SBIR-PI

Daniel Howard has more than twenty years of experience in broadband communications and video, with a strong record of fundraising, technology innovations and marketing. He was a co-founder and CTO of a Georgia Tech based startup, Digital Furnace Corporation, which was sold to Broadcom for $136 M in 2000, with Daniel continuing as a Technical Director for three years. Subsequently, he has served as the President and CEO of an interactive television startup company as well as a non-profit organization to advance information networking in the Atlanta school system. Most recently, Daniel has been leading several future-looking projects at Motorola, while also helping the company with conceptualizing new products and positioning them with customers.

Pravin Mane, Co-Founder and Software Architect

Pravin has 10 years of product development experience in corporate environments. Pravin obtained his BE from Pune University, India and MSCS from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). Before starting VQLink, Pravin worked at Intel Corporation, ClickFox Inc., Infinovate Inc. and Rational Software. While at Intel, Pravin worked on Server load balancers as well as multi-billion dollar platform initiatives such as Intel Centrino and Intel ViiV technologies where he invented and developed advanced multimedia streaming technologies for Intel’s Digital Home platforms. While working at Infinovate, Pravin worked as a consultant for IP digital set-top box vendor Nagravision. Pravin has authored five patents in areas of multimedia communication and wireless communication technologies.

Nitin Suresh, Co-Founder and Video Architect

Nitin Suresh obtained his B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India and his Master's degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Nitin finished his PhD in May 2007. Much of the AVQ technology is work done by Nitin Suresh as part of his PhD research with Dr Jayant. He has co-authored five conference papers and a pending patent with Dr Jayant.

Advisors

Chris Bowick, Strategy Advisor

Chris Bowick is a widely recognized industry leader in broadband technologies and services. In June 2009, he retired from his position as Senior Vice President of Engineering & Chief Technical Officer for Cox Communications. At Cox, he was responsible for strategic technology planning, day-to-day technical operations, and the development and deployment of technology solutions for the company’s video, voice, high speed data and wireless products, including the development and deployment of many telecommunications services:  circuit-switched telephony, Voice over IP, high-speed data, digital video, HDTV, video-on-demand, and interactive television. He was also responsible for Network Engineering and Network Operations for Cox’s nation-wide network infrastructure including its national backbone, Metropolitan Area Networks and HFC networks. Before his career at Cox, Mr. Bowick held leadership positions at Jones Intercable and Scientific Atlanta. In 2007, Chris Bowick received the highest honor of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the Vanguard Award for Science and Technology.

Paul Pishal, Business Advisor

Paul has over 20 years experience in general management, business development and engineering. He has worked with Cisco, Philips Electronics, and Scientific-Atlanta in developing and bringing to market, advanced digital video products and solutions for the Telecom and Cable TV industry. He is ex- Managing Director, H.I.G. Ventures, specializing in the digital media, broadband and data communications sectors. Paul has developed industry-leading solutions for integrated voice, video and data services, both from a system architecture view and a product perspective.