About the Contributors

Omar Abdon is a product-focused growth-hacker working with successful startups in Silicon Valley with 15-plus years of experience in building and growing B2B4C products. He founded, grew, and successfully exited three startups in mobile software and digital growth marketing spaces across a wide range of industries like manufacturing, banks, telecom, financial institutions, and more. Currently, Omar is the head of innovation and customer success at Atollogy Inc., a platform to connect, collect, and leverage valuable enterprise big data through machine vision (MV) and to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to digitize business operations and achieve the highest possible efficiency and end-user experience.

Narendra Agrawal is the Benjamin and Mae Swig professor of supply chain management and analytics in the department of information systems and analytics of the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. He has conducted extensive research on problems related to supply chain management in the retail and high-technology industries and conducted numerous management development seminars on these topics internationally. His research has been published in leading academic and practitioner-oriented journals. Previously, he served as the interim dean as well as the associate dean of faculty at the Leavey School. Naren holds an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the Institute of Technology, BHU, India, where he received the Prince of Wales Gold Medal; an MS in management science from the University of Texas at Dallas; and an MA and PhD in operations and information management from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Jae-Won Choi received his BS, MS, and PhD in mechanical engineering from Pusan National University, Busan, Korea, in 1999, 2001, and 2007, respectively. He is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering at The University of Akron. He has authored more than 50 articles and secured five patents. His research interests include additive manufacturing, 3D-printed smart structures including sensors, actuators, and electronics; 3D-printed rubbers for insoles and tires; and bio fabrication and low-cost binder-coated metal/ceramic for 3D printing. He is currently serving as an associate editor of the journal Additive Manufacturing and editorial board member of the International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing - Green Technology.

Steven Herman builds useful artificial intelligence to solve real-world problems. He is currently a software engineer at Atollogy Inc., leading the development and deployment of novel computer vision models to solve problems in manufacturing and yard management. He holds a BS in computer engineering from Santa Clara University.

Rui Huang received her BS and MS in mechanical engineering from the North China University of Technology and Syracuse University in 2014 and 2016, respectively. She is currently a PhD candidate in the department of mechanical engineering at The University of Akron. Her research interests include additive manufacturing, 3D printing of ceramic materials, conformal printing, and 3D printing of proximity sensor packaging for harsh environments.

Jeff Little is an electrical engineer with 40-plus years' experience in design, engineering management, and technical program management. His areas of experience and expertise include CPU design, voice and network telecommunications, software, microcode, power engineering, compliance, systems engineering, and highly reliable systems design.

Companies and organizations he has been involved with over the years include major corporations such as Intersil, AMD, IBM, Siemens, ROLM, Cisco Systems, and Tandem Computers as well as startups such as Procket Networks, Maple Networks, S-Vision, and RGB Labs. He is currently enjoying retirement while occasionally consulting.

Craig Martin is a seasoned operations and supply chain leader with more than 30 years' experience in the technology sector as the senior executive (VP/SVP) driving global initiatives through all stages of corporate growth. He is currently a senior consultant for On Tap Consulting and an adjunct professor at the Leavey School of Business: at Santa Clara University.

Craig helped establish a new company as cofounder, ramped global operations for a private security firm from startup to a successful IPO, scaling to $800 million, and managed global operations for two multibillion-dollar industry leaders. He has extensive experience in supply chain design and operations, hardware development and manufacturing, managing multiple international factories, commodity management, global facilities, and real estate. Technologies he supports range from simple, high-volume electronics to full cabinets with infinite combinations of highly complex electrical and electromechanical assemblies.

Alex Owen-Hill works with business owners and technology companies that want to stand out in their industries, helping them to create a unique voice for their business that feels authentic to them and attracts the people they most want to work with. He earned his PhD in robotics from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid with a project investigating the use of telerobotics for the maintenance of particle accelerators at CERN and other large scientific facilities. His regular blog articles on the use of robotics in industrial settings are often shared throughout the online robotics community. Details of his work can be found at CreateClarifyArticulate.com.

Thomas Paral received his doctorate in mechanical engineering and applied computer science from the University of Karlsruhe in 2003. His career began in 2003 as director of R&D engineering for electromechanics at Aichele GROUP GmbH & Co.KG. After various functions in Germany, China, and the United States, he developed as CTO the Aichele GROUP into a global market and technology leader in its rail and automotive markets. From 2014 to 2018, as director of technology of industry solutions at TE Connectivity, he was responsible for new markets and smart factory technologies with a focus on industrial robotics.

From 2018 to 2020, as executive vice president of strategy and business development and GM of cobots and new markets at Schunk he was responsible for the reorganization and realignment of structures including the robotic gripping components and gripping solutions business units. He successfully established and managed the new business unit cobots and new markets. Since 2020 he has been chief business development officer at OnRobot, the leading robotic end-of arm solutions provider for collaborative robotic applications.

Aaron Pompey received his PhD from the University of California at Los Angeles. With several years' experience in executive management across both the corporate and public sectors, he has leveraged smart technologies to achieve efficiency, satisfaction, and growth with major brands across multiple industries, including education, government, healthcare, manufacturing, quick-service restaurants, and transportation. Aaron is based in the Bay Area and currently leads the Pan America region of AOPEN Inc., a global technology company specializing in small form factor hardware solutions for commercial, industrial, and medical environments.

Frank Poon is an enterprising and intuitive business and product leader with over 20 years of experience in growing both multinational companies as well as startups with successful exits. His focus is on business strategy, growth hacking, general management, product strategy, business transformation, operations strategy, and supply chain management. He has an MBA from the University of Chicago and master's and bachelor's degrees in industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan.

Miles Schofield is a professional engineer, dancer, musician, speaker, teacher, designer, artist, entrepreneur, and IT specialist with 10 years of experience in application engineering for the semiconductor industry in metrology, where he wrote qualification and control procedures for a number of processes in addition to integrating unique optical and phase imaging tools into global production flow. He has 10 years of application engineering experience in global hardware and IoT computing solutions for leading brands in retail, healthcare, hospitality, and transportation.

Vatsal Shah leads the management and engineering team as co-founder and chief executive officer of Litmus. He has extensive experience with industrial engineering, electronics system design, enterprise platforms, and IT ecosystems. Vatsal earned his master's degree in global entrepreneurship from Em-Lyon (France), Zhejiang University (China), and Purdue University (United States) jointly and his bachelor's degree in electronics engineering from Nirma University in India.

Bowen Shi, aka Randy, from Santa Clara University received dual BS degrees in Mathematics and Sociology in 2016 and a MS degree in Business Analytics in 2019. In 2016, he spoke at the 43rd Annual Western Undergraduate Research Conference with his Witold Krassowski Sociology Award winning research Success of Digital Activism: Roles of Structures and Media Strategies. Published in Silicon Valley Notebook Volume 14, 2016, the data analytical research investigated how different forms and purposes of digital campaigns affected their success. His expertise is analytics in IT, finance, and manufacture world. He initiated a series of successful analytic projects as the Sr. Data Analyst at...