Omni Design Technologies, Inc. announced the appointment of three distinguished leaders from industry and academia to their advisory board: Professor Anantha Chandrakasan, Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Dr. Dirk Laukien, President and CEO of Black Forest Ventures, and Venktesh Shukla, Chairman, TiE Global and General Partner at Monta Vista Capital.
With the addition of three advisory board members, Omni Design Technologies continues to grow and build its team of world renowned circuit experts, industry veterans, world class technologists and experienced entrepreneurs.
“I am thrilled to welcome these talented and distinguished individuals to our advisory board. Dr. Chandrakasan, Dr. Laukien and Mr. Shukla each will bring unique and invaluable experience and perspective to Omni Design, and I look forward to working closely with them in the years ahead,” said Dr. Kush Gulati, President and CEO of Omni Design.
“I am delighted to join the Omni Design advisory board,” said Dr. Anantha Chandrakasan. “There are exciting new opportunities in the Internet-of-Things (IoT) and ultra-low-power wireless systems. Omni Design is well positioned in these spaces with their differentiated technology, focusing on ultra-low power, highly integrated circuits and systems.”
Anantha P. Chandrakasan is the head of MIT’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Dept. He received the B.S, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1989, 1990, and 1994 respectively. Since September 1994, he has been with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, where he is currently the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He has been the Head of the MIT EECS Department since July 2011.He was a co-recipient of several awards including the 2007 ISSCC Beatrice Winner Award for Editorial Excellence and the ISSCC Jack Kilby Award for Outstanding Student Paper (2007, 2008, 2009). He received the 2009 Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) University Researcher Award and the 2013 IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in Solid-State Circuits. In 2015 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. His research interests include ultra-low-power circuit and system design, energy harvesting, energy efficient RF circuits, and hardware security.
Dirk Laukien, Ph.D. has been an experienced technology investor for 15 years. He is currently President & CEO of Black Forest Ventures LLC, an asset management firm with an investment focus in technology, hospitality, corporate aviation and commercial real estate. Under his leadership, Black Forest Ventures has grown to more than $500M in assets, and provides growth capital to numerous technology companies and start-ups. Dr. Laukien holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Tufts University, and a BA in Physics from Brandeis University. Prior to Black Forest Ventures, he served in senior management roles at publicly-traded and privately-held multinational scientific instrumentation companies. As Senior Vice President of Bruker Corporation, and President and CEO of Bruker Optics, Dr. Laukien has successfully managed numerous M&A, capital raises, and Initial public offerings.
Venktesh Shukla has had a long and varied career that includes sales, marketing, and general management, and has a proven track record of leading companies through rapid growth. As President of The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE) Silicon Valley and Chairman of TiE Global, he presides over one of the most powerful networks focused on technology startups in Silicon Valley. Venk also started a CIO Forum which connects 25 CIOs from companies, such as Costco, Walmart, Clorox, GE Capital, HCA Health Care and others with the most innovative B2B companies in the Valley. He is also the Founding Chair and active member of TiE Angels, one of the most active Angel investor groups in the Valley. Venktesh holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and a B.Eng in Electronics Engineering from NIT in India.
About Omni Design Technologies:
Omni Design Technologies (https://www.omnidesigntech.com) is a developer of high-performance ultra-low power semiconductor embedded IP cores for connected sensors and other applications. Omni’s mission is to provide a wide range of disruptive ultra low power high performance embedded circuits that enable highly differentiated semiconductor systems and plug-and-play system-on-chip (SoC) development. Omni is staffed by semiconductor industry veterans, world class technologists from MIT, and experienced entrepreneurs.