| Qualcomm paid homage to some San Diego companies this week as part of its tribute to innovators in its hometown. At an event on Tuesday, Qualcomm and Connect, a regional economic development program for high tech and life science, announced 10 companies to be inducted into the Qualcomm Ambassador Program. The program is an initiative to honor organizations that are pioneering new ways to deliver on the promise of advanced wireless technologies to transform the way people do business and the way consumers interact with the world. This year's ambassadors include Axiom xCell, CardioNet, DriveCam, eMbience, Hands-On Mobile, IntelliDOT, Intercasting, Jitterbug by GreatCall, the San Diego Police Department and Vocel’s The Pill Phone. Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs said Qualcomm started out as a small company that now has a global impact, and it wants to help other companies make the leap. “The business model we built is partnering and bringing other companies into the ecosystem,” he said. Part of the initiative is finding ways to leverage San Diego’s position in both telecom and healthcare, he said. One of the challenges is finding ways to interface healthcare apps with wireless operators. CardioNet, a supplier of mobile cardiac monitoring services via 3G-enabled biosensors, is a pioneer in that area, but it takes longer for the mass market to catch on, especially when liability and privacy are such top concerns in healthcare. At the event, Jacobs also had a chance to show off one of the new Google/Android devices, the G1, which uses the Qualcomm chipset. |
