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$3.3 million Vodafone–US
Foundation gift to support wireless programs
Vodafone–US Foundation has awarded the College of Engineering
$3.34 million over five years to fund fellowships for graduate
and undergraduate students and enhance existing curriculum in
wireless telecommunications engineering.
"We’re very proud to support the Vodafone–US
Foundation Fellows Initiative at Berkeley," said Mark Hickey,
president of Vodafone–US Foundation. "Berkeley is an
excellent school with excellent faculty and students, and they
will certainly help advance the future of wireless engineering
and technology."
At press time, a faculty committee was finalizing the selection
of the first 13 Vodafone Fellows, including four seniors and nine
graduate student fellows. Over the five-year period, the program
will help support tuition, fees, and living expenses for more
than 70 students in all. The goal is to foster a world-class community
of scholars dedicated to advancing the field of wireless technology.
As part of this effort, the College is creating a new teaching
facility to be called the Vodafone-US Foundation Wireless Laboratory.
"We already have courses in communications, but the Vodafone
Fellows program will enable us to add both undergraduate and graduate
courses that are more focused on wireless technology," says
Jan Rabaey, professor of EECS and scientific co-director of the
Berkeley Wireless Research Center (BWRC). Unlike the BWRC, which
is located off campus and oriented toward wireless applications,
the Vodafone-US Foundation Lab will be located in Cory Hall and
will focus primarily on undergraduate and graduate education in
technology and wireless systems.
"The new lab will also bring together more theoretical faculty,
more students in wireless, and more funding to add to our existing
programs. The BWRC and the new lab will complement each other
nicely," says Rabaey, who is serving on the faculty committee
to select the student participants. Professor David Tse of EECS
will serve as the Vodafone Fellows faculty coordinator, providing
strategic leadership for programming, student selection, and laboratory
design.
The gift will help fund substantial enhancements to Berkeley’s
wireless telecommunications program over the coming five years,
with additional support coming from the College, EECS, and the
Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of
Society (CITRIS). Berkeley is one of three engineering programs
selected from a yearlong nationwide search by the Vodafone-US
Foundation. The other two are Auburn University in Alabama and
the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.
The Vodafone-US Foundation, located in Walnut Creek, generally
gives more than $1 million throughout the San Francisco Bay Area
each year. This is Vodafone-US Foundation’s first major
initiative involving higher educational institutions. Vodafone
Group Plc., headquartered in the U.K., is one of the world’s
largest mobile telecommunications network companies, with operations
in 28 countries.
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