2020 Inventor of the Year award winners
For over 20 years our annual Inventor of the Year award has recognized Ericsson researchers and engineers for their outstanding contributions to our growing patent portfolio. With over 57,000 granted patents, our inventors have established Ericsson as a technology leader in the telecommunications industry. The revenue from the licensing of these patents allows us to keep investing in research to further shape the future of global networks. Meet this year’s winners.
2020 Inventor of the Year award winners Sebastian Faxér, Yufei Blankenship and Vesa Lehtovirta
Sebastian Faxér
Sebastian’s work has been instrumental in establishing global standards for Massive MIMO, a technology which greatly increases the network capacity of 5G systems by incorporating many controllable antennas into base stations. His career so far has enabled him to create and take active part in the life cycle of his inventions, from their inception when he was a researcher, to facilitating their success at 3GPP standardization meetings, and their implementation into customer solutions with his current role as a product manager.
Yufei Blankenship
Much of Yufei’s extensive set of inventions are within the realm of the physical layer of mobile networks and their radio interfaces. One area she has spent a considerable time with is the development of error correction codes, which remove inaccuracies from data that has travelled through those radio interfaces, to ensure that this data reaches its destination with minimum distortion and loss. Yufei’s inventions also help with keeping power consumption low, a major challenge at times of increasing data usage and speeds.
Learn more about Yufei Blankenship
Vesa Lehtovirta
Vesa specializes in mobile network security, a key enabler in making 3GPP technology the preferred choice globally for secure and robust connectivity. Having joined the security research team in 2002, initially focusing on application layer security, he soon became a very inventive delegate, championing Ericsson contributions and inventions in 3GPP standards meetings. Eventually becoming leader of this delegation, he currently coordinates the overall network security standardization efforts within Ericsson, focusing on the challenge of securing 5G networks and their new and varied use cases.
