Abstract:  Skype, Zoom, Webex, Facebook voice chat and Whatsapp are all businesses built on VoIP, a disruptive technology that was controversial when Dr. Ikhlaq Sidhu developed and wrote its seminal patents while he was an engineer at 3com.

In this talk, Ikhlaq will discuss his journey from lab engineer to industry innovator — and the concepts, mindset, and behaviors he discovered that are needed for innovation and commercial success. The talk includes methods for students at Berkeley to develop valuable emerging skills and make a greater impact on the world — even while they are still in school.

Bio:  Ikhlaq Sidhu is the chief scientist and faculty director of UC Berkeley’s Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology.  He is the author of the book Innovation Engineering and creator of the very popular course, Applied Data Science with Venture Applications (also called “Data-X”) at Berkeley.  He holds 75 patents for internet communication technologies. Dr. Sidhu has developed entrepreneurship and technology engineering programs at UC Berkeley, the #1 public university in the world, the Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship curriculum for new ventures, and the Berkeley Method of Innovation Leadership curriculum for technical leaders.

In 2018, Dr. Sidhu received the IEEE Major Education Innovation Award. He also received the Berkeley IEOR Emerging Area Professor Award in 2009 at UC Berkeley. In 1999, he received 3Com Corporation’s Inventor of the Year Award. He serves on many advisory boards related to innovation and technology. Dr. Sidhu received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his masters degree and doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University.