Dr. Tajinder (Taj) Manku is a serial entrepreneur and wireless technology inventor. Experienced in driving ideas to revenue, Taj founded numerous technology companies (e.g., Pravala, Sirific, and Tag-Comm) before the age of 40. The most notable, Sirific Wireless, merged with Icera and then sold to Nvidia for just shy of half a billion dollars. Sirific was the first company in the world to build a cellular chip that used more than one antenna. Today, Sirific’s silicon products can be found in mobile data devices worldwide.
Taj’s educational background tells a story of drive and self-discipline. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in (Quantum) Physics and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo. Taj received his Ph.D. in one year, faster than any other Ph.D. student in the University’s history! During that time, he also published over 10 journal papers in the area of quantum strained semiconductors. Taj has been granted the designation of Professional Engineer (P. Eng.) in Canada. He was honoured to return to school in 2008 to complete an accelerated executive leadership program from Harvard University.
Taj later served as a tenured Professor at his alma mater, the University of Waterloo. He also ran an RFIC consulting firm, working with communications industry giants like Nortel, Motorola, Lucent Technologies and Texas Instruments.
In 2014, Taj co-founded Cognitive Systems Corp., where he is currently the CEO. With this latest endeavour, Taj is passionate about realizing a truly connected, smart home by adding motion sensing to WiFi networks. WiFi Motion™ is software that uses RF sensing and AI to interpret and react to motion in a WiFi-enabled environment.
Taj holds over 150 granted patents, has written over 100 technical papers and has received various technology and business awards for his involvement in Software Defined Radios. Among his many accomplishments, he humbly accepted the Canadian Award of Research Excellence in Radio Technology. Most recently, Taj was recognized as one of the 10 Most Promising Wireless Technology Solution Providers (2019) by CIO Review.