Dean Mai

I specialize in identifying disruptive, core technologies and strategic technology trends in early-stage startups, research universities, government sponsored laboratories and commercial companies.

In my current role, I lead sourcing of strategic technology investment opportunities and managing Dyson’s diligence and outreach processes, specifically in the U.S., Israel and China.

I write here (sporadically) on the convergence of science and engineering, with broader adopted interests in novel disruptive technologies, cognitive psychology, human-computer interaction (HCI), philosophy, linguistics and artificial intelligence (AI).

All tagged innovation

Feb 5
Feb 5 Net neutrality laws: A policy perspective

The free and equal exchange of packets of information is at the very heart of the internet. It is this free exchange which made the modern internet possible, and with it the many business, educational, and informational changes it has brought around the globe. For decades, no one questioned or challenged this core concept. The information was there for the taking, and millions of Internet uses reaped the benefits of growing high-speed internet and the many new resources it made available. Ironically, the very thing that made the Internet successful and widespread also gave birth to the very thing that would threaten the Internet’s future: the growth of high-speed Internet during the first decade of this century.

Dec 15
Dec 15 Patents in an era of artificial intelligence

intellectual property, software, innovation

The fuzziness of software patents’ boundaries has already turned the ICT industry into one colossal turf war. The expanding reach of IP has introduced more and more possibilities for opportunistic litigation (suing to make a buck). In the US, two-thirds of all patent law suits are currently over software, with 2015 seeing more patent lawsuits filed than any other year before. Of the high-tech cases, more than 88% involved non-practicing entities (NPEs). These include two charmlessly evolving species who’s entire business model is lawsuits—patent trolls and sample trolls. These are corporations that don’t actually create anything, they simply acquire a library of intellectual property rights and then litigate to earn profits (and because legal expenses are millions of dollars, their targets usually highly motivated to settle out of court). And the patent trolls are most common back in the troubled realm of software. The estimated wealth loss in the US alone is $500,000,000,000 (that’s a lot of zeros).