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The Cockrell School of Engineering has received $1 million from Qualcomm Incorporated, furthering the company’s support of Texas Engineering over the past two years. This latest gift will provide funding for the construction of the new home of UT Austin’s Wireless Networking and Communications Group (WNCG), which will be housed within the Engineering Education and Research Center (EERC), opening in 2017.

Yesterday, state legislators and University of Texas leadership joined Cockrell School Dean Sharon L. Wood and hundreds of alumni, friends, corporate supporters and members of the Texas Engineering community to celebrate the groundbreaking of the Engineering Education and Research Center (EERC).

Recent years have radically changed the way people socialize; in parts of the developed world that have good broadband and cellular penetration, the average person now spends more time on online social networks than on physical meetings with acquaintances outside their immediate family.

When studying Social Networks, the public mind does not often consider the enormous impact the field of Electrical Engineering has on the development of these networks. “Many tools that traditionally belonged to applied mathematics and electrical engineering have proven to be very useful in social networks,” WNCG Prof. Constantine Caramanis states.

Recent years have radically changed the way people socialize; in parts of the developed world that have good broadband and cellular penetration, the average person now spends more time on online social networks than on physical meetings with acquaintances outside their immediate family. “We were socializing before social networks,” Prof. Sujay Sanghavi states. “But now we can automatically capture fine details of social interaction, such as when someone views a photo and how they share and interact with the image.” The problem now is the issue of information overload.

On April 16, 2014, representatives from Qualcomm visited the Cockrell School's Wireless Networking and Communications Group, which will have a new home in the Engineering Education and Research Center when it is completed in 2017. The WNCG also received $2 million from Qualcomm to support continuing wireless communications research. Click the image below for a slideshow of the event:

The Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin has received a $2 million donation from Qualcomm Incorporated to create a new home for UT Austin’s Wireless Networking and Communications Group (WNCG). The new space will be located within the Cockrell School’s Engineering Education and Research Center (EERC), which is slated for completion in 2017.