LA JOLLA, Calif., Nov. 17, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/
-- University of California San Diego alumnus and Qualcomm
(NASDAQ: QCOM) co-founder Franklin
Antonio is donating $30
million to the university in support of a new building for
engineering research and education.
In recognition of the generous gift, UC San Diego will name the
planned building that the campus is currently designing – and
raising funds to build – Franklin Antonio
Hall.
The approximately 200,000-square-foot building is being designed
from the ground up to facilitate cross-discipline collaborations
that are critical for solving the toughest health, energy, autonomy
and security challenges facing society. Franklin Antonio Hall is scheduled to open by
fall of 2021.
The gift contributes toward the campus' $2 billion Campaign for UC San Diego, which is
focused on enhancing the student experience, enriching our campus
community and sparking research and innovation.
"We are so grateful to Franklin
Antonio for his incredible generosity to UC San Diego," said
Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. "Mr.
Antonio is a remarkable alumnus and visionary who has made
transformational technological advances that have touched each of
our lives. With this gift, he is now making a significant impact on
the campus and beyond, fueling future research, collaboration and
discoveries that will have a positive impact around the globe."
"It's been fun to watch the incredible growth and evolution of
UC San Diego since my graduation. I'm privileged to be a small part
of it," said Franklin Antonio.
Franklin Antonio Hall, which is
slated to be LEED Platinum or equivalent, will provide the Jacobs
School of Engineering with collaborative research, education and
industry-interaction spaces that are critically needed to
accommodate the School's ambitious growth. In the last four years
alone, the Jacobs School has hired more than 75 professors and
increased its graduate student population to 2,272, up from
1,715.
"We are designing this building to encourage more of the
innovative collaborations that are a hallmark of the Jacobs
School," said Albert P. Pisano, dean
of the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. "I am so
grateful to Franklin Antonio for his
generosity. We are extremely fortunate that he recognizes the need
to support the education, research and technology transfer mission
of our engineering school."
Approximately 25 percent of the Jacobs School's faculty and
graduate students are expected to be housed in Franklin Antonio
Hall. The building will be located near the intersection of Voigt
Drive and Engineer Lane.
Collaborative Research and Education
Eleven collaborative research spaces will make up the heart of
Franklin Antonio Hall. Jacobs School Dean Albert P. Pisano describes these
collaboration-focused laboratories as "collaboratories." Each
collaboratory will house five to seven professors – and their
respective research groups.
The professors within each collaboratory will come from a mix of
different academic departments within the Jacobs School of
Engineering. Co-locating diverse yet complementary research groups
will encourage the interdisciplinary collaborations necessary for
solving the toughest challenges facing humanity.
At the Jacobs School, these kinds of collaborations are already
happening. Wearable technology innovators, for example, are working
with battery researchers who characterize and modify materials at
the nano-scale. One outcome of this particular collaboration is
Ocella, a flexible, rechargeable battery startup. Ocella is
currently being incubated at the Jacobs School through a new
technology accelerator run by the Institute for the Global
Entrepreneur.
Franklin Antonio Hall will
provide much-needed space designed specifically to allow these
kinds of unique research collaborations to flourish.
"It's absolutely crucial that we provide our faculty and
students with the resources they need to learn and to innovate,"
said Pisano. "These are the people who will create the next
Linkabits and Qualcomms."
Successfully transferring innovations into the marketplace where
they can do good for society is a challenge that the Jacobs School
researchers – and their campus and industry partners in each of the
eleven collaboratories – will take on. Successful technology
transfer requires sustained interactions with networks of industry
partners, in part, to ensure relevance.
"Collaborations that cross between academia and industry
multiple times are critical for developing systems-level solutions
to challenges in medicine, energy, security, robotics and more,"
said Pisano. "I won't be surprised when I see our industry partners
starting to collaborate with one another in the new building."
The building design also includes plans for:
- A large, approximately 250-seat auditorium for teaching
classes
- Executive education spaces including facilities optimized for
online teaching and learning as well as facilities for the Jacobs
School's master's programs for engineers who are already in the
technical workforce.
- Flexible meeting spaces for industry-academia
collaborations
- A high-bay laboratory with flexible research space for projects
that require high ceilings and access to the building's loading
dock
- Multipurpose classrooms, faculty offices, meeting rooms and a
café
Franklin Antonio
Franklin Antonio is a co-founder
of Qualcomm, where he currently serves as Chief Scientist. He
graduated from UC San Diego with a bachelor's degree in Applied
Physics and Information Science in 1974. After college, he worked
at Linkabit for 12 years before joining Irwin Jacobs, Andrew
Viterbi and four others to create Qualcomm in 1985.
Antonio led the growth of Qualcomm's engineering departments,
served as project engineer for Qualcomm's OmniTRACS satellite
communication system, and contributed to Qualcomm's code division
multiple access (CDMA) technology and Globalstar low-Earth-orbit
satellite system. He has provided strategic technical guidance and
engineering mentoring across all of Qualcomm's engineering
programs. He holds 378 granted and pending patents worldwide.
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SOURCE University of California, San
Diego