Advisors

Tim Chang is a Principal based in the Silicon Valley office of Gabriel Venture Partners, and leads the Wireless sector team. Prior to joining Gabriel, Tim was a Product Manager and Business Planning Manager at Gateway, Inc., and also brings to Gabriel his experience as a development engineer for General Motors. Tim brings to Gabriel a background combining operational, technical, and international business experience.

Tim is a board member of the Wireless Communications Alliance (WCA), as well as on the advisory boards of the San Diego Telecom Council, VC Task Force, Silicon Valley China Wireless Technology Association, and the Wireless Venture Forum.

Tim has a MBA from Stanford Business School and earned his MS and BS in Electrical Engineering respectively from University of Michigan.

Andy Chen
Senior Vice President
MINO Wireless

As Senior Vice President at MINO Wireless, Andy is responsible for Business Development and Strategic Partnership. Prior to joining MiNO, Andy led the industry wide WiFi and mobile device ecosystem partnership at Skype and helped catapult Skype beyond the PC platform onto the mobile device market, and attributed to the eBay acquisition of Skype in 2005.    

Andy’s career also includes senior executive positions at Motorola, Cisco, HP, Novell and Banyan. As Senior Director of Business Development at Motorola, he led strategic partnerships on several key initiatives, including seamless mobility, mobile payment and intelligent network management. Andy was also one of the early VoIP pioneers while at Cisco, from 1997 to 2001, where he launched and led Cisco's VoIP ecosystem partnership and created the industry-first softswitch platform based on a joint collaboration with HP, which attributed to Cisco’s #1 position in VoIP today.  

Before Cisco, Andy worked at Banyan Network, the leading NOS (networking OS) company whose famed StreetTalk NOS revolutionized Local Area Networks (LAN) at the Fortune 1000 enterprises. Andy spearheaded Banyan’s entry in Asia where he led Banyan's Marketing and Sales in the region.  Before Banyan, Andy worked at Novell as a channel Sales, Marketing manager and contributed to Novell’s 65% NOS market share position when Novell’s Netware revolutionized the entire PC networking market.  Andy started his career at HP where his last role was head of program management managing HP’s legendary company-wide transition from CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing) to RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) architecture which later became HP-UX.    

Andy is a graduate of Jiao-Tong University, and earned an MS from Stanford University.

Mr. Cummings served as the founder and managing partner of enVia, and was the founder and initial CEO of Morphics, SkyCross, and RFco. Mr. Cummings organized the Software Defined Radio Forum (an international industry association with over 120 member companies). He served as the Chair of the Organizing Committee, first Technical Committee Chair, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Small Company Board Member. He also serves as a Member of the Special Committee (equivalent to the Board of Directors) of the IEICE (Japanese equivalent of the IEEE) Software Radio Study Group. He is the principal inventor on the earliest patent granted on the use of reconfigurable logic for software defined radio.

Mr. Cummings developed the technique of employing standards organizations to develop markets over a long and distinguished career in the communications and computing industries. He participated in the creation of the X.25 standard and designed the first international X.25 network. He was an early member of the IEEE 802 Committee and designed and deployed the first architecture integrating PC's and LAN's for the Bank of America. He sat on the Board of Directors of the Smart Card Industry Association and designed the first "Super Smart Card." He helped found and sat on the Board of Directors of PCMCIA and worked with major companies on cards, computers, etc. around the standard at Stanford Research Institute (SRI International) where he organized and managed the Pocket Intelligence Program.

Mr. Cummings holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business in Conjunction with the Moore School of Engineering and the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Communications from San Francisco State University. He has done post-graduate work at NYU, New School For Social Research, Stanford University, and Tohoku University.

He holds three patents, and has published over 200 papers, articles and Book chapters.

Kamil Grajski directs SnapTrack's corporate vision, managing the functional areas of strategic planning, technology and product development, sales, marketing, and finance. Prior to leading SnapTrack, Dr. Grajski had provided SnapTrack's technical leadership and management as VP, Engineering, in support of rapid transitioning of advanced technology research & development into commercial products, systems and solutions principally in the area of high-precision wireless position location and advanced services.

Dr. Grajski has previously held technology research, architect and management positions at Apple Computer, Inc. and Octel Communications, Inc. He earned his doctorate in Biophysics at UC Berkeley and his BA in computer science at New York University.

For the last 20 years, George has been working with high tech companies across the Pacific. He advises clients on strategic issues preparatory to establishing a local presence and assists in cross-cultural communications and negotiations.

Prior to founding International Strategic Alliances in Mountain View and Bear Stearns China Trade Advisors (New York), he was Vice President and co-director of Chase Pacific Trade Advisors of Chase Manhattan Bank.

He received his S.B. and S.M. degrees in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sc.D. from Stevens Institute of Technology and a M.B.A. from Santa Clara University.

He is a former Chairman of Asian American Multi-technology Association and has been chairman of several past conferences on Asian financing and alliances sponsored by the AAMA and held in Silicon Valley.

Dr. Koo is a frequent speaker in various public forums on how American business can succeed in Asia. He writes for Pacific News Service on issues relating to Asia. He is also a vice chairman of the Committee of 100, a national organization of prominent Chinese Americans, and he served as the chairman of their national conference held in May 2002 in San Jose.

Dr. William C.Y. Lee serves as Chairman as well as Chairman of the Board of Directors for LinkAir Communications, Inc. In this position, Dr. Lee provides strategic counsel to LinkAir's senior management team. His years of telecommunications and business experience are invaluable as LinkAir works to ensure that LAS-CDMA becomes the new standard for the third-generation (3G) and fourth-generation (4G) wireless industries.

Regarded as a world-class scholar in wireless communications, Dr. Lee is renowned for his leading contributions in making analog and CDMA technologies commercially viable. As part of this effort, he has published more than 200 articles and several books on CDMA theory and technology. His latest book—"Lee's Essentials of Wireless Communications" —has just been published by McGraw-Hill. An expert in developing marketable communications technologies, Dr. Lee also invented and patented a new microcell system that increased radio capacity by 2.5 times over the conventional microcell model. He holds more than 25 US patents, with 11 more pending.

For 15 years, Dr. Lee was one of the pioneers in developing the advanced wireless technology—AMPS—for Bell Labs. He then joined the ITT Defense Communications Division, where he headed the advanced mobile communications system. During his subsequent tenure with Vodafone Airtouch—the world's largest mobile telecommunications company—Dr. Lee was instrumental in conducting key CDMA research and the initial trial of the technology. A leader in personal communications network (PCN) technology, Dr. Lee led the team that won the PCN license in the UK in 1989 for Vodafone. Dr. Lee also headed the application of PacTel's PCS experimental trial in 1993, and under his leadership, the first CDMA commercial system was completed in Los Angeles in 1995.

Dr. Lee has been elected as an IEEE Fellow and has served as a member of numerous councils, including the California State Council on Science and Technology, the US Council on Competitiveness and the FCC Technical Advisory Council. He has earned many prestigious industry awards, including the IEEE VTS Avant Garde Award, the CTIA Award, the CDMA Industry Achievement Award, the SATEC Award, a Bell Lab Service Award and, most recently, the IEEE Third Millennium Medal Award.

Dr. Li Shihe is respected as “the Father of Chinese 3rd generation standard”. He was born in Chongqing in April, 1941, graduated from Chengdu University of Electrical Engineering in 1963, Nanjing University with MS degree in 1966, and Montreal University with PhD degree in 1982. In 1985 Li Shihe was awarded the title of “Young Expert with Outstanding Contributions” and the special government allowance. He was the engineer, the chief engineer and the president in succession of the Fourth Institute of MPT from 1968 to 1993, and was assigned as vice president of China Academy of Telecommunications Technology of MPT from 1994 to 1996. He was the board chairman of Beijing Xinwei Telecom Technology Co., Ltd from 1995 to 1999, and Deputy General Engineer of Datang Telecom Technology & Industry Group from 1999 up to the present. In 2000 he was awarded the first prize of Science & Technology Progress. Li Shihe is a senior member of IEEE. He has been engaged in researches on microwave theories and technologies and the R&D of microwave communications and satellite communication earth stations. In recent years he has been involved in researches on mobile communication, the standard design and product development of TD-SCDMA system within the area of the 3rd generation mobile.

Bob is the co-founder of Acorn Campus and Acorn Angels, two of the most reputable investment organizations in Asian American community. In addition to having extensive angels and corporate investment expertise with multiple IPOs, he also has more than 20 years of international business start-up, marketing, and management experiences. He is very well known for being the first launching investor of Avanti (IPO ‘95), AltiGen (IPO ‘97) and LightLogic (Sold to Intel for $400M ’01). He is an early investor in Vertex Network (Sold to Mitel for $200M ’99). He is also the co-founder of Pine Photonics (sold to Hitachi/Opnext ’03). With Acorn, Bob was also an investor of AFOP (IPO ’00) and Rapidstream (M&A, ’02).

Bob is the co-owner and board director of several medium-size manufacturing companies in Asia with a combined number of employees near 4,000. Bob also serves as the Chairman of Mobile Radius, a wireless platform company in California, and on the board of Pine Photonics and Luxnet in Fremont, California, as well as Atonics, a SoC Semiconductor company in Taiwan, plus EPIN Wireless System in Beijing.

Bob is also the author of an inspiring book “Pursuit of Success & Happiness” and has been asked to write several more books for the next few years. In the past, he had been the lead guitarist and pianist of the rock band “Southern Breed” in Taiwan.

Bob has been very active in generous community services. He was the Chairman twice in Chinese Association of International Trade (CAIT), Board member of Monte Jade Association, Board member of Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce. He has also served both as the Commissioner and the Chairman of Santa Clara County – HsinChu County Commission. Bob has a MSEE degree from University of California at Santa Barbara. He has been very active in community services.

Jason Ma is CEO at Congruent Partners (CEO, VP, and Board Services) and Sr. Advisor at SVCWireless since 2001. Ma has 21 years of experience in new media, wireless, Internet/IP, e-payment, and networking sectors, seasoned in strategy, international sales, marketing, and general management. Ma has built and managed high-performing teams and hundreds of corporate relationships with wireless and Internet service providers/carriers, portals, OEMs, channels, enterprises, and VC firms (numerous Global 2000s) -- across Asia Pacific (Greater China, India, Japan, Korea, ASEAN, Australasia) and the US.

Ma has served as Board Member, Advisor, Chair, acting CXO, Co-Founder, or Angel Investor at PRCDirect/AaaHaa! (UTStarcom spinoff in greater China), an Indian new media service venture, Pacific Epoch, Strategic Alliance WorldGroup, YeePay (China), ASVC Charter Members Committee, others. He is part of the affiliated Faculty & Expertise Team at UC Berkeley's China-US Think Tank. As Managing Director of Asia Pacific and Japan, Ma was central in successfully building iPass (global virtual VNO, Nasdaq: IPAS). Earlier, he was Head of International or Asia Pacific Sales/Marketing for Celcore (acquired by Alcatel/DSC), Peninsula Engineering (with a high-performing China Office), and Cylink. Previously, he held management, sales, or technical positions at Digital Microwave Corp., Fujitsu America, DCA/Cohesive, and Tymnet.

Ma is a frequent spokesman with top media properties and a dynamic speaker. Ma earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from UC Berkeley in 1984.

Henry H. Wong founded Diamond TechVentures, a China-Focus Venture Fund. He brings more than two decades of experience creating and establishing successful companies that have included SS8 Networks, Inc., IP Communications, XaQti Corporation (merged with Vitesse Semiconductor, S&P 500), CNet Technology, Inc. (multi-million-dollar public network hardware company), and Combinet (ISDN systems, sold to Cisco Systems at an estimated $165 million value). Mr. Wong had advised or invested in Gabriel Venture Partners, Onset; and Garage Technology Venture, Authosis Semiconductor Fund, Woodside Fund. Wong will work closely with Diamond TechVentures partners in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, China, Palo Alto, California, to identify solid, discontinuity technology investments that will include enabling technology, infrastructure and communications, and vertical applications with focus in China. Mr. Wong and his partners will look specifically at companies that demonstrate trans-Pacific operational, development or market opportunity.

Mr. Yang is the president of China Academy of Telecommunication Research (CATR), Ministry of Information Industry (MII) since 2001. From 1982 to 2001, he has been the chief engineer, director, deputy president, and president of the Institute of Telecommunication, Ministry of Post and Telecommunication (former CATR).

Mr. Yang graduated from the University of Post and Telecommunication in 1982, and obtained his Master degree at University of Surrey in England in 1991.

Xiaomang Yu is former Executive Vice President and Member of the Board of Directors of China Unicom. Mr. Yu was responsible for many different areas at China Unicom including planning, finance, wireless, data and long distance communications. In 1997, Mr. Yu helped found Unicom Medium Company (Hong Kong), where he served as the Chairman of the Board. In 1996, Mr. Yu helped found Unicom-Sparkice Corporation and he served as the Chairman of the Board.

Prior to joining China Unicom, Mr. Yu was President of China Railway Signal & Communication Corporation. During his tenure at CRSC, Mr. Yu helped found the first joint venture of the railway system CASCO Communication Corporation (Shanghai), where he also served as the Chairman of the Board. Mr. Yu received his degree in Automatic Control Systems & Engineering.

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