Founding Supporters

Mark Cuban

Pioneering Internet Entrepreneur, Investor and Philanthropist

Mark Cuban is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, the 2011 NBA World Champions and one of most valuable franchises in sports. Cuban is also chairman and CEO of AXS tv, one of ABC’s “Sharks” on the hit show Shark Tank, and an investor in an ever-growing portfolio of businesses. Mark has been a natural businessman since the age of 12. After graduating Indiana University and moving to Dallas, he created MicroSolutions, a computer consulting service, which he sold in 1990 to CompuServe. In 1995, he co-founded Broadcast.com- streaming audio over the internet which was soon sold to Yahoo for $5.6 billion dollars.

Venky Harinarayan

Partner, Rocketship.vc

Venky Harinarayan is an entrepreneur and investor. He was a founder of Junglee—a pioneering shopping search engine that was acquired by Amazon.com, a founder of Kosmix—an innovative search and categorization company that was acquired by Walmart Stores, Inc., and a founding investor in Efficient Frontier—a leading search and social media marketing company that was acquired by Adobe

Tetsuya Nakamura

Itabashi Medical Systems Group, Inc.

My name is Tetsuya Nakamura from Tokyo, Japan and I am the CEO of Itabashi Medical Systems Group. We have over 25,000 employees who are dedicated to helping the health and well being of others. I am a supporter of the UCLA Connection Lab and look forward to seeing it become the premier research lab in the world.

Eric Schmidt

Former Google CEO, Tech exceptionalist

Eric Schmidt served as Google’s Chief Executive Officer from 2001-2011, and Executive Chairman 2011-2018, alongside founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Under his leadership Google dramatically scaled its infrastructure and diversified its product offerings while maintaining a strong culture of innovation.

Schmidt serves on the boards of the Mayo Clinic and the Broad Institute, among others. His philanthropic efforts through The Schmidt Family Foundation focus on climate change, including support of ocean and marine life studies at sea, as well as education, specifically cutting-edge research and technology in the natural sciences and engineering. He is founder of Schmidt Futures which works to improve societal outcomes through the development of emerging science and technology.

The Shen Family

Cloud Computing Groundbreaker and Industry Statesman, CloudMosa

Dr. Shioupyn Shen founded CloudMosa and created the “wicked fast” Puffin Web Browser to bridge the digital divide. By sharing the massive power of the cloud to millions of users on demand, the “Cloud Avatar” technology enables Puffin phones under $35 to outperform Android phones over $350. Shioupyn has keen interest in moonshot projects. Shioupyn is an early employee of Google and a veteran of Microsoft. Shioupyn holds a PhD degree in CS from University of California, Los Angeles, two MS degrees in CS and EE from University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a BS degree in EE from National Taiwan University.