Kurt Uhlir
| Kurt Uhlir | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| 🎓 Alma mater | University of Alabama |
| 💼 Occupation | Inventor, entrepreneur, investor |
| Known for | Navteq patents, Sideqik |
| 🌐 Website | kurtuhlir |
Kurt Uhlir is an inventor, entrepreneur, and angel investor. He was the leading inventor at Navteq and created the patent "Geographic data collection using game play" and other widely used patents. Uhlir co-founded Sideqik, an influencer platform for marketers.
Life and career[edit]
Uhlir studied Biomedical and Electrical Engineering at Vanderbilt University and graduated from University of Alabama with a BS in Corporate Finance and Investment Management in 1999. He obtained his MA in Banking and Finance from the University of Alabama.[1]
Uhlir ran Navteq’s skunkworks projects for years, along with board-level projects. He filed patent No. 7,628,704, "Geographic data collection using game play", in 2006. It was granted in 2009. As a method for collecting geographic data using gameplay to update navigation databases, it provided the fundamental technology behind encouraging users to collect spatial data without paying. After Navteq was acquired by Nokia in 2007/2008, the company became the basis of the mapping company Here. Moreover, Facebook, Foursquare, Garmin and Motorola are believed to have licensed this and related patents, which are also said to be at the core of Waze. Uhlir's patents are used for a number of video games including Microsoft Flight Simulator X.[2][3]
He stayed at Navteq for three years after the sale to Nokia, and then worked at IT companies Vitrue and Oracle. Together with his colleague Jeremy Haile, Uhlir founded Sideqik, a cloud-based influencer platform for marketers, in 2013. Sideqik was one of the three finalists of the 2013 TAG Business Launch competition.[4][5]
Uhlir is chairman of the Made in America Movement, an organization promoting American sourced companies.[6] He is a mentor at Flashpoint, a startup accelerator program at Georgia Tech.[7]
External links[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ "Kurt Uhlir". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
- ↑ Lunden, Ingrid (June 14, 2013). "With Waze, Google Gets Access To Social Mapping Data — And Possible Patent Legal Heat From Nokia". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
- ↑ "Patents: Geographic data collection using game play. US 7628704 B1". Google. December 8, 2009. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
- ↑ Schmidt, Will (November 19, 2013). "For Sideqik, Healthy Communications Are Central to Success". Tech.co. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
- ↑ "2032 TAG Business Launch Competition Announces Finalists" (PDF). TAG. 2013. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
- ↑ "Who are we?". Made in America Movement. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
- ↑ Péralte, Paul C. (October 21, 2014). "In Startup Funding Search, Not All Investors Are Created Equal". ATDC Georgia Tech. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
This article "Kurt Uhlir" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Kurt Uhlir. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
