abstract:Wireless Valley is a term that was coined by Professor Ted Rappaport in 1990 when he was a faculty member at Virginia Tech, and was used to describe the Roanoke/Blacksburg, Virginia region and the potential of research to create spin-out companies. He and his students founded Wireless Valley Communications in 1995, a company that pioneered the creation of computer-aided wireless network prediction and management software that was sold to Motorola in late 2005.
They illustrate her wide-ranging interests (from e-commerce to wireless electricity), as well as her throw weight in Silicon Valley (not everyone gets to co-invest with Andreessen Horowitz or to back Jack Dorsey).
After Alberto Herrera , chief executive of fledgling wireless-sensor network company Medida , pitched his firm to a panel of four top-tier Silicon Valley venture capitalists--in front of a standing-room-only crowd of some 350 people-- Josh Stein of venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson was so impressed that he asked Herrera to set up a meeting.