People
Subutai Ahmad
VP of Engineering
Subutai Ahmad brings experience across real time systems, computer vision and learning to his leadership of the Numenta Engineering team. Prior to Numenta, Subutai served as VP Engineering at YesVideo, Inc. From 1999 until 2005, he helped grow YesVideo from a three-person start-up to a leader in automated digital media authoring. YesVideo's real time video analysis systems have been deployed internationally on a variety of platforms: Large scale distributed clusters, retail minilabs, and consumer set-top DVD Recorders. In 1997, he co-founded ePlanet Interactive, a spin-off from Interval Research. ePlanet created the IntelPlay Me2Cam, the first computer vision product developed for consumers. Previously, Subutai served as a researcher at Interval Research.
Subutai holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Cornell University, and a PhD in Computer Science (thesis on computational neuroscience models of visual attention) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He currently serves as a Technical Advisor to YesVideo.
Donna Dubinsky
Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Board Chair
Numenta Founder Donna Dubinsky serves as CEO and Board Chair. She brings business operations leadership and experience to the Numenta team. Numenta also marks the third venture where Donna has teamed with Jeff Hawkins. Donna first joined Jeff in 1992 to become president and CEO of Palm, a position she held through Palm's acquisition by U.S. Robotics and subsequently 3Com Corporation. In 1998, Donna and Jeff co-founded Handspring, creator of the category-defining Treo smartphone. In October 2003, Handspring merged with the Palm hardware group to create a new company, palmOne, Inc. ( now called Palm, Inc.). Previously, Donna spent 10 years at Apple Computer in a variety of sales, sales support and logistics functions both at Apple and at Claris, Apple's software subsidiary.
Donna holds a B.A. from Yale University in History, and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School. She currently serves as a director of Palm, Inc., and is a Trustee of the Computer History Museum and of Yale University.
Dileep George
Founder and Principal Architect
Founder Dileep George¹s interest in discovering how the human brain functions began soon after hearing a seminar on the topic while as a graduate student in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. His primary research interests are in understanding the organizational properties of the world and in linking that to the cortical micro-circuitry and architecture.
Dileep joined the Redwood Neuroscience Institute as a Graduate Research Fellow and began working closely with Jeff Hawkins in extending and expressing Jeff¹s neuroscience theories in mathematical terms. He created the first proof-of-concept program to illustrate these concepts, which triggered the launch of Numenta with Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky in 2005. Within five months of Numenta¹s founding, Dileep and his team created the first prototype of HTM technology.
Prior to his graduate studies, Dileep served as a Principal Engineer in several communications-related start-up companies.
Dileep holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay and a Ph.D degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Dileep's PhD thesis provides a detailed study of the HTM technology and its mapping to biology. The thesis can be found here.
Jeff Hawkins
Founder
Jeff Hawkins is well known as co-founder of two companies, Palm and Handspring, and as the architect of many computing products such as the PalmPilot and Treo smartphone. Throughout his life Jeff has also had a deep interest in neuroscience and theories of the neocortex. His interest in the brain led him to create the non-profit Redwood Neuroscience Institute (RNI), a scientific institute focused on understanding how the human neocortex processes information. While at RNI, Hawkins developed a theory of neocortex which appeared in his 2004 book, On Intelligence.
With the team of Dileep George and Donna Dubinsky, Hawkins founded Numenta in 2005 to develop a technology platform derived from his theory. It is his hope that Numenta will play a catalytic role in creating an industry based on this theory and technology.
Jeff Hawkins earned his B.S. in electrical engineering from Cornell University in 1979. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2003.
Ed Colligan
President & CEO, Palm, Inc
Ed Colligan has been in the forefront of mobile computing since its inception. As president and chief executive officer of Palm, Inc., Ed continues to drive the industry with innovative products such as Palm® Treo™ smartphones on the Palm OS® and Windows Mobile® platforms. Along with Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins, Ed has helped create and define the handheld and smartphone categories during his years in the industry.
Earlier in his career, Ed was vice president of strategic and product marketing at Radius Corporation. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Oregon.
Donna Dubinsky, Chair
Bruce Dunlevie
Partner, Benchmark Capital
Dunlevie is a seasoned veteran of venture capital with more than 15 years experience in high-tech investing. Prior to Benchmark, Bruce spent six years as a general partner with Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre (MPAE). Before MPAE, Bruce served as general manager of the Personal Computer Division of Everex Systems. Bruce also worked in investment banking for three years at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and as a systems designer and programmer with Andersen Consulting.
Dunlevie holds a BA from Rice University and an MBA from Stanford Business School. Dunlevie serves on the board of directors of Matrix Semiconductor, Orchestria, Palm, Rambus and Raza Foundries. Dunlevie is participating on the Numenta board as an individual rather than as a representative of Benchmark Capital.
Mike Farmwald
General Partner, Skymoon Ventures
Mike Farmwald is a successful serial entrepreneur. He has founded many companies with breakthrough technologies including FTL - a super computing company that merged with MIPs, Rambus - a developer of high-bandwidth interfaces for memories and other chips, Chromatic Research - a developer of media processors that was acquired by ATI Technologies, Epigram - a creator of advanced semiconductor home networking technology that was acquired by Broadcom, and Matrix Semiconductor - a creator of 3D integrated circuits.
Farmwald holds a BS degree in Mathematics from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. He currently sits on the boards of Rambus (Nasdaq: RMBS), Matrix Semiconductor, and Circumnav Networks. Farmwald is participating on the Numenta board as an individual rather than as a representative of Skymoon Ventures.
Harry Saal
Chairman of the Technical Committee - USDOJ v. Microsoft Consent Decree
Harry Saal founded Nestar Systems, a pioneer in local area network systems, in 1978. In 1986, Saal became the founder and CEO of Network General Corporation, the first company wholly dedicated to the area of network diagnostics. From 1993 through 1995, Saal served as founding CEO and President of Smart Valley, Inc., a non-profit organization chartered to create a regional electronic community based on an advanced information infrastructure and the collective ability to use it.
Saal is active in philanthropy and community affairs, having served as Chairman of the Board of the Community Foundation Silicon Valley, the President of Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley, and the Vice Chairman of the American Leadership Forum, Silicon Valley Chapter.
Saal holds a BA, MA and PhD in Physics from Columbia University. Saal also serves on the board of the American Institute of Mathematics.
Gill Bejerano
Assistant Professor of Developmental Biology and Computer Science
Stanford University
Gill Bejerano is a pioneer of Human Genome research. He is the discoverer of "Ultraconserved Elements", human genomic regions that defy our understanding of molecular evolution. Gill has also done influential work in applying Markovian models to biosequence analysis, and in showing that co-option of junk DNA into functional roles is an under-appreciated force shaping the evolution of the Human Genome.
Gill holds a triple BSc in Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science (summa cum laude) and a PhD in Computer Science (Machine Learning applications in Bioinformatics) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Developmental Biology and Computer Science at Stanford University, and a member of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence (AI) Laboratory and Bio-X program.
James J. DiCarlo M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Neuroscience
Massachussetts Institute of Technology
Dr. DiCarlo received his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering and M.D. from The Johns Hopkins University in 1998, and did his postdoctoral research in visual neurophysiology at Baylor College of Medicine. He is currently an Associate Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and an Investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been named an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, and a McKnight Scholar in Neuroscience.
William T. Freeman
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachussetts Institute of Technology
Bill Freeman is a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He does research in computer vision, computer graphics, and machine learning, studying how to represent, manipulate, and understand images. Before joining MIT, he worked for 9 years at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, for 6 years at the Polaroid Corporation, and for 1 year as a Foreign Expert at the Taiyuan University of Technology, Shanxi, China. Hobbies include flying cameras in kites.
Andrew Y. Ng
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Stanford University
Dr. Andrew Ng is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. His research spans machine learning, robotics and broad-competence AI. He has also developed a number of neuroscience-informed approaches to building artificial learning systems. His group has won best paper and best student paper awards at ACL, CEAS and 3DRR. He is also a recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship.
Tomaso A. Poggio
Eugene McDermott Professor, McGovern Institute
Massachussetts Institute of Technology
Tomaso A. Poggio, is the Eugene McDermott Professor at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences; Co-Director, Center for Biological and Computational Learning; Member for the last 25 years of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT; since 2000, member of the faculty of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and member of the steering committee of the Center for Collective Intelligence. He is author or co-author of several papers in the fields of learning theory, computer science, biophysics, computational neuroscience, and nonlinear systems theory and he belongs to the editorial board of several scientific journals. He is an honorary member of the Neuroscience Research Program, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Founding Fellow of AAAI. He received several awards such as the Otto-Hahn-Medaille Award of the Max-Planck-Society, the Max Planck Research Award (with M. Fahle), from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the MIT 50K Entrepreneurship Competition Award, the Laurea Honoris Causa in Ingegneria Informatica for the Bicentenario dell'Invenzione della Pila from the University of Pavia and the 2003 Gabor Award.
