Hossein Rahnama

Hossein Rahnama (born 1980) is an academic entrepreneur and an innovator. His research interests are in the field of context aware computing, ambient intelligence and the emergence of the Internet of Things. His work in applying the principles of context aware computing is recognized in the field. He is the Research and Innovation Director of the Ryerson Digital Media Zone (DMZ), where he leads the DMZ’s market-driven research and academic programs. In 2012, Hossein was appointed as an assistant professor in the RTA School of Media at Ryerson University.
He is also the CEO and founder of the MaRS Innovation start-up company Flybits, which has brought the concepts of context aware computing to market. Hossein has more than 15 publications and patents on ubiquitous and pervasive computing.

In 2004, Hossein completed his undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Ryerson University. He continued to attend Ryerson for his doctoral degree and postdoctoral work in Electrical and Computer Engineering. During his studies, Hossein received a number of academic awards and grants for his research, including being a semi-finalist for the business plan competition at Harvard Business School for his innovative research on Flybits in 2008.

As an undergraduate student at Ryerson University, Hossein began his career at Rogers Communications as a wireless applications developer in 2000 under the supervision of Brad Fortner. In 2003, he worked at Alpha Global Labs as a software and knowledge engineer working on medical expert systems and the applicability of mobile devices in medical settings. Prior to his doctoral studies at Ryerson, Hossein was a mobile applications architect at Primus Telecommunications Europe in London, England. From 2007 to 2010, Hossein served as the vice president of research and innovation at Appear Networks located in Kista, Sweden, where he participated in a successful European Research Project (MUSIC). In 2009, Hossein completed his doctoral studies at Ryerson and in 2010, he became the research director at the Ryerson Digital Media Zone.

Under Hossein’s direction, the DMZ’s Research and Innovation team has completed more than 16 funded projects and deployed large-scale projects internationally. Hossein is an advocate of experiential learning and is interested in involving undergraduate students in research and innovation projects from early stages of their careers. Hossein has supervised more than 21 students as of 2012.

In the DMZ, Hossein conducts research that combines context-aware computing, artificial intelligence, and social networking. With special interests in the transit, transport and security industries, Hossein's Flybits team specializes in mobile software solutions that respond to situational factors and personal information. The goal of Flybits is to use mobile devices to enhance interpersonal communications while delivering relevant, location-based information to targeted mobile users.

Hossein is also an advocate for the Canadian-European research collaborations in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, where he has collaborated with more than 14 industry partners across Europe, including companies in Sweden and Norway.

In 2013, Hossein initialized the opening of the Ryerson Centre for Cloud and Context-Aware Computing, where he acts as managing director, leading a team of over 25 researchers and full-time operations staff.

• MIT Technology Review TR35 2012
• ORION Innovation Award 2011
• Isadore Sharp Award for Outstanding Recent Graduate 2011
• Selected as Ryerson University's Top 30 Under 30, 2009
• Selected by Royal Canadian Institute as one of Canada's 25 most influential scientists for 2009
• Ontario Centres of Excellence International Scholarship 2008
• Semi Finalist for Harvard Business School's 2008 Business Plan Competition
• Apple Computers student scholarship at WWDC 2007, 2008
• Ryerson NSERC Innovation Challenge Award 2007
• Best Research Seminar Award – Department of Electrical Engineering, Ryerson University 2007
• Nomination for Canada’s 2006 Governor General Gold Medal Award

• "Top 30 Under 30" (PDF). Ryerson University. June 2009. Retrieved 2012-06-27. 

• Regular Speaker, International Think Tank
• Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Member, IEEE Magnetics Society
• Member, Association for Computing Machinery
• Member, Special Interest Group for Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing
• Member and Advisor, European Consortium in Intelligent Transport Systems
• Member, Canadian Consortium in Intelligent Transport Systems
• Ambassador, Privacy by Design
• Member, Canadian Innovation Exchange