Viji Raveendran: Inspiration and the Pursuit of Innovation

Viji Raveendran has always had great ideas to match her great aspirations. As a girl in her native India, she was passionate about engineering.

Seventeen years ago, after having earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Bharathiar University in India, Viji Raveendran moved to the U.S. determined to make a difference in the field of engineering. In stark contrast to the U.S., where far fewer females are represented in scientific disciplines, she was used to a 50/50 split between boys and girls in her high school’s science classes or at least 1/3 girls in her undergrad engineering program.

Needless to say, Viji Raveendran wasn’t about to let the American stereotype slow her down. After obtaining her Master of Science degree in Communications and Signal Processing from Iowa State University (where she was one of just two women out of a class of 25), she got a job at Qualcomm, her employer for the past fourteen years. During her tenure as a Qualcomm engineer, she’s had 120 patent applications in her name, making her amongst the top ten patent filers at Qualcomm.

Engineering Innovation

Viji Raveendran began her career at Qualcomm as part of the Digital Cinema Systems team, where she was instrumental in developing new methods to enhance the movie viewing experience by digitally projecting the picture. But most of Viji Raveendran’s patents are for innovations in video processing and communications, which involves creating new ways to enhance the wireless multi-media experience.

What is Viji Raveendran’s favorite patent? Well, there are many from which to choose, but she would have to pick her patent for multiple description coding (MDC) that she received during her early days in digital cinema. When major Hollywood Studio came to Qualcomm with the complex problem of having to store 21 different formats of every movie (theaters, DVD, VHS, digital, etc.) ever created by the studio at its 27-acre warehouse, the studio was desperate to save space.

Viji Raveendran and her team had a plan. Since, her MDC patent enables multi-storage of all formats in one file and makes it available for any use, studios could save precious space and, more importantly, money when it offers movies in 21 different formats.

Improvisation Leads to Inspiration

Viji Raveendran approaches engineering in many different ways, but improvisation plays an important role. “I see how I can use tools at my disposal in different ways,” she says. “All the pieces exist, so how do you combine them in new and different ways? I try to find another application, looking at the problem from a completely different angle.” Viji Raveendran is always thinking, “What else can I do with this?”

Viji Raveendran finds solutions to problems anywhere, anytime—in the middle of the night, while watching a commercial—an inspiration might spark an idea that could lead to another innovation, another patent, another accomplishment for Viji Raveendran.

Viji Raveendran’s mindset continues to serve her well: “Think of the impossible and how you can achieve it.” It’s hard to argue with that. After all, Viji Raveendran has been in the business of engineering solutions for complex problems for most of her life.