Vanguard Award for Science and Technology
by K.C. Neel -- Multichannel News, 5/19/2008 2:00:00 AM
Paul Allen
Chairman, Charter Communications
Chairman, Vulcan Inc.
Everything Paul Allen gets involved with is designed to change and improve the way people live, learn, conduct business and experience the world. It’s with this mission in mind that he began cobbling together cable systems in the late 1990s to create Charter Communications and it’s that goal that also led to the development of Digeo’s Moxi box.
Allen’s dedication to the development and advancement of cable industry technology led the National Cable & Telecommunications Association to honor the entrepreneur and philanthropist with its Technology Vanguard Award this year.
“I would say Paul’s biggest achievement — and he has many — is his ability to foster invention and new ideas,” said CableLabs president Dick Green. “He pushes the envelope and not in a crazy way. He takes a path where, through investment and ideas, he pushes the boundaries of conventional thinking. And he’s done that successfully in so many areas.”
Allen’s interest in broadband technology has led to several innovations and collaborations. He’s been instrumental in serving as the middleman between cable and Microsoft in the development of the Open Cable Unidirectional Receiver, which enables digital video, including high-definition TV, to be displayed on Media Center PCs driven by Microsoft’s Vista Operating System.
Allen said he’s pleased to be participating in the development of next generation breakthrough technology including CablePC. “Responding to and creating and anticipating what consumers want is what makes this industry exciting,” Allen said via e-mail.
“When it comes to our industry, Paul is always forward thinking and ahead of the curve technologically,” said Charter Communications’ chief technology officer Marwan Fawaz. “And Charter, as well as the industry as a whole, has benefited from that.”
Allen began talking about simulcasting — or as he referred to it: simultrans — long before other cable operators, Fawaz said. Charter was the first operator to build and launch a simulcast headend in Long Beach, Calif., in 2004, and Allen is particularly proud of the Charter’s technology advancements. He strives to anticipate what’s beyond the horizon and he likes to hasten its arrival in a way that’s meaningful to people.
“Paul is a true visionary in the way he looks at the world,” Green said. “He looks at something and rather than say, 'We can’t do that.’ He says, 'Why can’t we do that? 'Let’s figure out a way to do that.’ ”
“Visionary” is a term often associated with Allen. He may be best known for co-founding Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975 (he left the company’s day-to-day operations in 1983). But his Vulcan Inc. umbrella firm has been instrumental in the development, seed money and leadership for numerous and varied projects that include Charter, Digeo, Dreamworks, FlipStart Labs, SpaceShipOne and Submersible Music, among others.
His insatiable curiosity and interests led him to buy a submarine (yellow, naturally) to explore the undersea world, create a company to send people into outer space, go to Antarctica to learn about global warming and establish the interactive Experience Music Project in Seattle. He’s the leader of a rock band, owns the Seattle Seahawks football team and Portland Trail Blazers basketball team and is the primary owner of Seattle’s new Major League Soccer team that will debut in 2009.
One of the world’s wealthiest people, Allen has given away nearly $1 billion through his Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. In 2003, he committed $100 million in seed money dedicated to brain research and unveiled the creation of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. The Institute completed its first project in 2006: the Allen Brain Atlas, a Web-based, three-dimensional map of gene expression in the mouse brain.
“Now that the Atlas is complete, we’re turning our focus to three new projects — mapping the human brain, mapping genes in the developing mouse brain and understanding and mapping the mouse spinal cord,” Allen wrote. “Hopefully over the next several years these projects will similarly propel the field of neuroscience forward and lead scientists to new insights into the understanding of neurological disease and disorder that affect more than 50 million Americans each year. We are just beginning work on the genetic database for the human brain.”
Allen’s seemingly unquenchable curiosity and love for technology has driven him to be on the cutting edge of offering cable consumers the latest products and services, Green and Fawaz said. But as much as he appreciates the technology that delivers voice, video and data services via coax and fiber cable, he also knows that one of the cable industry’s strongest assets are the people who work in the business.
“They have embraced change and thrive on the rapid pace that brings new products and services for consumers,” Allen wrote. “I think that is a real change in the industry from a few years ago when the pace of innovation was slower.”
Allen is intricately involved at the strategic planning level working together with the cable industry’s leading technologists to boost cable’s competitive differentiation, Green and Fawaz said jointly in their letter to the NCTA. And he continues to challenge the industry, they added.
Allen recognizes that although cable has a lot of advantages, it also faces challenges. He has organized and hosted meetings with top technologists many times to help create a backdrop and structure for advanced planning, Green and Fawaz said.
“Ours is a joint nomination of Paul because, as the chief technology officer for Charter and as president of the industry’s technology development laboratory, both of us have been witness to his accomplishments on behalf of our industry,” Green and Fawaz wrote in their nomination letter to the NCTA.
He’s also a great dinner host, Green said. “He is so interesting to talk to and his interests are so varied that conversation is never dull,” he said. “Paul is interested and knowledgeable in so many areas — telecommunications, space, deep sea immersibles, global warming, and neuroscience. He listens to people and stimulates conversation.”
Allen’s vision for broadband connectivity and transforming the industry into what it is today has been instrumental for the whole industry, Fawaz and Green agreed.
“I think there is a tremendous opportunity in different disciplines to push the envelope in solving important problems and improve people’s lives,” Allen said.
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