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I co-founded a startup called DataMi in May 2012 and worked there full-time as the Director of Advanced Research from July 2013 to June 2014. The company grew out of the DataMi research project, which also formed the basis of the Smart Data Pricing (SDP) research initiative. Its overall goal is to increase mobile data access around the world by commercializing smarter ways to price mobile data usage and deploying network-aware mobile marketing products.

 

DataMi has developed "toll-free" sponsored data solutions for content providers to subsidize users' cost of using cellular data. By paying for users' cost of transmitting or receiving mobile data, content providers can increase demand for their apps, giving them an advantage over their competitors. This product has recently received news coverage in several different venues and has been deployed to hundreds of millions of consumers by several Internet service providers, including AT&T in the U.S. and Airtel in India. For a more general analysis of sponsored data's implications for mobile data markets, see my INFOCOM 2015 paper.