New ATI Wireless Advisory Board Teeming with Industry
Leadership and Expertise

Industry influencers to guide companies in new ATI Wireless business accelerator

Austin, TX – Sept. 23, 2005 – ATI, a non-profit business accelerator committed to advancing technology initiatives under the guidance of the IC2 Institute and the University of Texas at Austin, today announced the formation of an advisory board to aid its wireless-focused business accelerator, ATI Wireless, in helping young companies turn ideas into globally successful, commercialized businesses. Steeped in wireless expertise, the advisory board includes local, national and international leaders in the wireless industry: Frank Hanzlik, managing director of the Wi-Fi Alliance, Cheré Heintzmann, COO of SeaMobile, Stephanie Keller-Bottom, director of Nokia Innovent, Liz Maxfield, former senior vice president of CTIA, Richard Schwartz, CEO of SoloMio, Ben Scott, venture partner at Austin Ventures and former CEO of PrimeCo Personal Communications, and Moris Simson, former VP of Nortel Networks.

ATI Wireless companies will also have access to technical guidance from industry leaders such as Dr. Jim Lansford, CTO of Alereon, Dr. Theodore (Ted) Rappaport, esteemed wireless academic, and the team within the Wireless Networking and Communications Group (WNCG) at the University of Texas.

“The wireless advisory board has strong leadership coupled with technology and business expertise that will increase the benefits, support and reach of this organization,” said Erin Defossé, acting director of ATI and director of the new ATI Wireless business accelerator. “As part of ATI’s new strategy to provide deep industry-specific resources helping member companies accelerate their time to revenue and success in the marketplace, we have gathered a group of influential business leaders with phenomenal expertise and contacts in the sector. We believe their combined efforts will catapult member companies to great global success.”

“ATI Wireless is attracting top talent that will generate successful businesses that create jobs and wealth for our region and its growing wireless community,” said Ben Scott, venture partner, Austin Ventures. “I am pleased and excited to be included in this group and look forward to aiding the promising companies within ATI Wireless.”

ATI has worked with over 150 companies that combined have created over 10,000 jobs, raised over $720M in capital, and generated over $1.5B in revenue. Four of these have reached the public markets.

ATI’s advisory board members have deep experience in the industries that matter for ATI Wireless portfolio companies. Some key accomplishments include the following:

• Frank Hanzlik is managing director of the Wi-Fi Alliance and a 17 year veteran of the wireless industry. Hanzlik was vice president of marketing and product management at Mobilian Corporation, a fabless semiconductor start-up company. As an early member of the executive team, he built the marketing and sales organization, successfully positioning Mobilian as an early leader in multi-standard wireless chipsets, and launching the world's first chipset to support the simultaneous operation of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Hanzlik was also a senior manager at Dell Computer Corporation, where he built a communications product marketing organization to support Dell's $11 billion dollar consumer and small business product lines. There, he launched several market leading products in wireless, home networking, and broadband, including the industry's first Wi-Fi product in 1999. Hanzlik started his career with 11 years at Motorola in a variety of positions in the sales and marketing of cellular and land mobile radio products.
• Cheré Heintzmann is currently the chief operating officer of SeaMobile, Inc., a company delivering wireless and data communications services as sea. Heintzmann’s 20 years of experience includes numerous executive roles with companies such as McCaw Cellular Communications, AT&T Wireless Services and Qwest Communications. She was also a co-founder of a broadband start-up company that raised $100 million in Series A funding. Heintzmann has proven ability to lead start-up companies and large organizations through periods of rapid growth and radical change to achieve company goals and objectives. During her 12 years at McCaw/AT&T Wireless, she consistently led her regions to achieve operating metrics and be ranked among the best in the nation.
• As leader of the Innovent team, Stephanie Keller-Bottom draws upon over 17 years of executive leadership roles in creating new marketplaces for Fortune 500 companies like Hewlett Packard, Citibank/Citicorp and Visa. Keller-Bottom joined Nokia's venturing organization in 1998, the entity charged with corporate renewal and innovation. In 2000, she established Innovent, the entrepreneurial innovation unit within Nokia that explores emerging markets and the opportunities they create. Keller-Bottom's solid understanding of e-commerce, consumer behavior, digital/electronic marketplaces, and financial services provides a unique and invaluable perspective into the potential diffusion of new technologies and applications in the marketplace, and the role of innovation and renewal in major corporations.
• Dr. Jim Lansford is CTO of Alereon, one of the pioneers in UltraWideband personal area networks. He has over 25 years of experience in communications system analysis and design as well as digital signal processing. Lansford is heavily involved in a number of standards, trade group and regulatory activities and is currently co-chair of IEEE802.15.3a, the High Rate WPAN Task Group, and was formerly the chair of 802.19 (Wireless Coexistence Technical Advisory Group) within IEEE 802. Prior to Alereon, Dr. Lansford was CTO of Mobilian Corporation, a wireless system architect with Intel Corporation and the co-chairman of the technical committee for the HomeRF Industry Working Group, a wireless technology industry consortium of over 100 companies.
• Liz Maxfield has worked in telecommunications for 25 years, starting her career at the FCC. Maxfield worked at Becker, Gurman, Lukas, Meyers, O’Brien and McGowan, a communications law firm, where she participated in the application and licensing process for the first cellular systems in the top 90 markets. She was the number two hire and held executive positions including acting president and senior vice president for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) and formed CIBERNET Corp., a CTIA subsidiary providing financial settlement services, and the Wireless Data Forum as an independent entity under the CTIA umbrella.
• Dr. Ted Rappaport is an active teacher, researcher, and entrepreneur. He joined the University of Texas in 2002 as the William and Bettye Nowlin Chair in Engineering, and is the founding director of the WNCG at UT’s Austin campus. He has over 100 US and international patents issued or pending and has authored, co-authored, and co-edited numerous books in the wireless field. Rappaport currently serves on the Technological Advisory Council for the FCC, and has served on National Academy of Science panels pertaining to telecommunications research in the US.
• Richard Schwartz is president and CEO of SoloMio, a global software company that delivers call management network applications to cellular and fixed-line carriers. Schwartz has repeatedly created and led new organizations to innovate and develop software that significantly impacted the market. Schwartz acted as senior vice president of technology at Vignette after the company acquired his company, Diffusion. He was CTO of Borland International during a period of revenue growth from $30M to $650M, which he joined after the company acquired Ansa Software, another venture of Schwartz. He was also the co-creator of Paradox, the first relational database software widely used by business professionals.
• Ben Scott joined Austin Ventures in 2002 as a venture partner and focuses on hardware investing. Previously, Ben was a partner in Quadrant Management, where he was involved in early-stage investment for the telecom industry. From 1997 to 1999, he served as chairman and CEO for IXC Communications. Before IXC, Ben was president and CEO of PrimeCo Personal Communications, COO of Bell Atlantic’s U.S. wireless business and CEO of its international wireless business. Earlier, Ben spent 20 years at AT&T, ending his tenure as president and CEO of AT&T Canada.
• Moris Simson has a proven record of leadership in commercializing technology applications for over 25 years with companies ranging from large multinationals to pioneering technology start-ups. Simson is currently the president of WaveNET, a strategic business advisory firm. He was previously senior VP at Mitel where he directed the successful corporate restructuring of a $1.5 billion business portfolio, including the spin-off of a start-up in photonics of which he became the president and CEO. His experience includes 18 years with Nortel Networks as well as work with two industry leaders in high-speed wireless communications: BCE, Canada’s largest carrier, and Japan’s DoCoMo, the world’s largest mobile communications company.

ATI Wireless is the one of the first of many sector specific accelerators under the umbrella of ATI. The ATI Wireless advisory board convened for the first time on Sept. 28 to meet member companies in the wireless field.

About ATI

The Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) is a nonprofit organization that harnesses local business, government and academic resources to provide strategic counsel, operational guidance and infrastructure support to its member companies to help them transition from early stage ventures to successful technology businesses. ATI enables its members to successfully compete in the global marketplace by linking them with ATI's worldwide network of industry leaders, experts from academia and professional service providers. ATI companies have raised more than $720 million in capital, generated more than $1.5 billion in revenue and created more than 3,000 jobs. The ATI is a key program of the IC2 Institute at The University of Texas at Austin.

For more information please visit http://www.ati.utexas.edu

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Kari Hernandez
INK Public Relations for ATI
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