Team
Singulos Research Inc. has a highly experienced, and uniquely talented founding team. With experience ranging from fundamental University-level research to startup-based IP commercialization as well as large scale hardware and software product development, Brad Quinton, Trent McClements, Mike Lee and Scott Chin have a combined 77 years of inventing, building and commercializing technology.
The founding team have a long history of building technology together. In addition to jointly founding multiple successful startups, they have also worked together at multiple leading high-tech companies including Qualcomm, PMC-Sierra and Tektronix.
Management
Dr. Scott Chin, CEO
Dr. Scott Chin is a highly experienced researcher and software developer. An Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Dr. Chin is a recognized expert in Machine Learning, algorithmic efficiency, and re-configurable hardware architectures.
Scott’s Ph.D. research focused on computational scalability of computer aided design (CAD) algorithms and won multiple awards. After finishing his Ph.D. at UBC he joined Brad and Trent at Veridae Systems as an early employee, where he developed extremely complex routing and mapping algorithms for Veridae’s flagship Certus product. After leaving Veridae, Scott founded his own highly successful mobile app development company. Scott received strategic development grants from both Microsoft and Nokia. Scott later joined Invionics where he continued to develop complex software and algorithms for Invionics’ leading-edge Invio Platform. Scott’s work on cutting-edge developments continued when he joined Qualcomm to implement unique and proprietary technologies that span hardware and software.
Dr. Chin’s current research is focused on Mixed Reality, Machine Learning algorithms, and highly efficient deep learning implementations. Scott developed and currently teaches CPEN 400D: Deep Learning and ELEC 502: Advanced Topics in VLSI: Deep Learning in UBC’s department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Trent McClements, VP Product Development
Trent McClements is a highly seasoned engineering leader and problem solver. As a veteran startup executive, he has overseen cutting-edge hardware and software products from conception to full deployment. For over 20 years Trent has a proven his ability to deliver high-quality, robust, and scalable technology. Many of the products that he led continue to be used today by the world’s top technology companies in their production-critical applications. Trent’s career has spanned a wide range of semiconductor and software design, development and product management in areas from real-time image processing and low-power architectures for the mobile semiconductors to designing core networking devices, embedded instrumentation technologies, and design-for-test optimizations.
Trent met Brad during the early days of their careers at PMC-Sierra but their close collaboration started when he joined Veridae as an early employee. Their work together continued when Trent joined Brad to co-found Invionics Inc. After Invionics, Trent worked at Qualcomm where he managed engineering development teams and oversaw the company-wide deployment of proprietary hardware and software IP.
Mike Lee, VP Data & Analytics
Mike Lee is a highly experienced developer, innovator and entrepreneur with a passion for implementing new technology, building infrastructure and organizing data. Over the past 19 years he has founded successful startups, managed diverse teams, and built an array of hardware and software technologies used by top-tier companies world-wide.
After starting his career at PMC-Sierra, where Mike and Brad first worked together, Mike jumped into the startup world, taking a lead role at an independent game development startup that saw a successful exit when it was acquired by Big Fish Games. Following his tenure at Big Fish as Lead Developer and Studio Manager, he re-joined Brad and Trent to co-found Invionics Inc. After leading the Invio software development at Invionics, Mike joined market leader Qualcomm where he both managed software development teams and architected a number of critical big data analysis tools that significantly reduced production costs across Qualcomm’s entire product portfolio.
Advisors
Dr. Brad Quinton, Chairman and Advisor
Dr. Brad Quinton has constantly pushed the technology edge both as an entrepreneur and researcher. Having founded and led three successful high-tech start-ups, filed 28 patents and written numerous academic papers, Brad has successfully straddled the worlds of research and industrial development for over 20 years.
Brad received his Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in October 2008. His Ph.D. research led to critical new IP development and the formation of Veridae Systems where he was CTO and co-founder. After Veridae was quickly acquired by Tektronix, Brad led Tektronix’s Embedded Instruments Group as Chief Architect. After leaving Tektronix, he went on to serve as CEO and co-founder of Invionics. Brad later joined Qualcomm as Senior Director of Technology where he successfully drove the productization and adoption of two key proprietary technologies across Qualcomm’s entire IC portfolio.
Alongside his start-up successes and leadership roles in large companies, Brad has continued to be active academically as an Adjunct Professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UBC. His research is focused on mixed reality, machine learning, computer vision and efficient hardware implementations of deep learning architectures. Brad currently teaches CPEN 400D: Deep Learning and ELEC 502 Advanced Topics In VLSI: Deep Learning in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia.
Dr. Don Turnbull, Advisor
Don Turnbull, Ph.D. is a consulting research computer scientist focusing on intellectual property research, analysis and design. His focus is in applied data science (machine learning and AI), Internet technology (including mobile devices), search and recommender systems, computer-human interaction and ecommerce. Don was a professor at the University of Texas at Austin where his teaching and research focused broadly on the organization and utilization of data via information systems including information retrieval, knowledge management systems, analytics, software development and the semantic web. He is the author of numerous publications, including a textbook on Web-based information system use and articles on topics such as software engineering methodologies, collaborative filtering and quantitative behavioral modelling. Among other industry roles, Don was a principal at Outride, Inc., a Xerox PARC spin-off company that specialized in personalized information retrieval applications that was acquired by Google.
Andrew Hughes, Advisor
Andrew is a serial innovator with a track record of delivering innovative, patentable solutions and architectures to meet stringent customer design requirements in both startups and large corporations. He is an experienced System Architect, IP Developer, Software Developer, Engineering Manager with over 20 years experience across technologies including IP development, SoC implementation, embedded software and EDA algorithm design.
From 1998 to 2009 Andrew worked at PMC-Sierra and Teradici Corporation where he was involved in architecting efficient HW/SW interfaces, packetized on-chip interconnect solutions, as well as system-level solutions for high-throughput, low-latency, network devices. Andrew was VP Engineering of Veridae Systems where he was instrumental in the successful development of an embedded instrumentation EDA tool for the FPGA and ASIC markets. Andrew was a co-founder of Invionics Inc. where he worked to developed key software and hardware IP. Most recently Andrew worked on Qualcomm Inc. where he worked to develop complex algorithms for isolating and measuring semiconductor performance in SoCs.
Jim Derbyshire, Advisor
Jim brings a wealth of experience to Singulos from a career spanning 44 years. He has over twenty years of CEO experience, six successful start-up exits and Chair & board experience from over twenty boards. In addition, Mr. Derbyshire has raised over $100M of venture and angel capital, angel-invested for 26 years and worked for two venture capital organizations. He has worked with investment bankers on many exits and personally managed three acquisitions.
In terms of business operations, Jim is a highly strategic thinker with a broad business, market and technical awareness and has extensive partnering and sales experience. Jim has a BSc and several patents, and also is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.