Steven Woods

Steven Gregory Woods (born June 16, 1965) is a Canadian entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Quack.com, the first popular Voice portal platform, in 1998.

For other people named Steven Woods, see Steven Woods (disambiguation).
Steven Gregory Woods
Born (1965-06-16) June 16, 1965
Melfort, Saskatchewan
OccupationGoogle site director in Waterloo, Canada. Former Quack.com Co-founder and NeoEdge Co-founder & Director.

Career

Born in Melfort, Saskatchewan, Woods holds a Ph.D and M.Math from the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo[1] in Canada and a B.Sc. from the University of Saskatchewan. He was the first Ph.D student of Professor Qiang Yang. Woods' Ph.D was published in 1997 as a book co-written with Alex Quilici and Qiang Yang entitled "Constraint-Based Design Recovery for Software Reengineering: Theory and Experiments"[2] He then worked for Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute[3] on product line development and practical software architectural reconstruction and analysis.

In 1998 Woods co-founded Pittsburgh-based voice-portal infrastructure company Quackware with Jeromy Carriere and Alex Quilici. Quackware became Quack.com in 1999 and moved headquarters to Silicon Valley.[4] It was funded September 1, 1999, and acquired August 31, 2000 by America Online.[5] Quack.com claimed to be the first Voice Portal, and held patents around interactive voice applications, including "System and method for voice access to internet-based information".[6]

Woods was vice president of voice services for America Online and Netscape after the acquisition of Quack.com in September, 2000.[7]

He founded NeoEdge in 2002 under the name Kinitos[8] along with former America Online, Netscape, and Quack.com colleagues including Jeromy Carriere. He served as an officer and on the board of directors from 2001 through 2010 in Palo Alto, California.[9]

As of 2013 Woods was engineering director for Google in Canada.[10]

Achievements

While at the University of Waterloo, Woods captained the varsity Waterloo Warriors golf team and in 1995 was co-winner of the Ontario University Athletics "Len Shore Trophy" for top individual performance.[11] During 1991-1992 Woods was a member of the Canberra Knights semi-professional ice hockey in the Australian Ice Hockey League. Woods was awarded the J.W. Graham Medal for Computing and Innovation by the University of Waterloo in 2010.[12][13]

gollark: There's one nearbyish. It worries me that there's seemingly sensitive data being sent unencrypted over pagers.
gollark: I've got an RTL-SDR, which is pretty neat. It can receive stuff on basically any frequency between 30MHz and 1.7GHz, although not particularly well without optimized antennas and amplifiers and stuff.
gollark: I was vaguely interested in getting a license, but COVID-19 came along.
gollark: No, I just know a bit about it.
gollark: You "verified" your bot!? Totally apioformic.

See also

References
  1. "University of Waterloo - notable companies started by alumni". 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
  2. "Constraint-Based Design Recovery for Software Reengineering: Theory and Experiments". 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
  3. "SEI Architecture Practices Propel Successful Startup". 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
  4. "Risking it all for dot-com gold in California". 2008. Archived from the original on August 6, 2007. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
  5. "Voice: The Killer App". Andrew Seybold's Outlook. 2000-09-30. Retrieved 2008-03-13. Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
  6. "System and method for voice access to internet-based information". 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
  7. "Jefferson Partners' Investment in Quack.com Pays Off, as Voice-to-Web Innovator is Acquired by AOL". 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
  8. "Steven Woods - P.G. Sorenson Distinguished Graduate Lecture". 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-02-24. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
  9. "Dr. Steven Woods, Ph.D". Company web site. Archived from the original on December 27, 2010. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  10. "Steven Woods's public LinkedIn profile". Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  11. "OUA Golf Len Shore Trophy". Retrieved 2008-03-13.
  12. "J.W. Graham Medal and past recipients".
  13. "Recipients of the J.W. Graham Medal in Computing & Innovation". University of Waterloo. Retrieved 2015-09-25.
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