Steven Gregory Woods (born June 16, 1965) is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding '' Quack.com'', the first popular Voice portal platform, in 1998. Woods became the head of engineering for

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

Canada where he was until 2021, when he joined Canadian

Venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

firm iNovia Capital as partner and CTO, following in the footsteps of Patrick Pichette, Google's CFO who also joined iNovia after leaving Google.

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 The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

and a B.Sc. from the

University of Saskatchewan The University of Saskatchewan (U of S, or USask) is a Universities in Canada, Canadian public university, public research university, founded on March 19, 1907, and located on the east side of the South Saskatchewan River in Saskatoon, Saskatch ...

. 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" He then worked for

Carnegie Mellon Carnegie may refer to: People *Carnegie (surname), including a list of people with the name **Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist * Clan Carnegie, a lowland Scottish clan Institutions Named for Andrew Carnegie * ...

Software Engineering Institute Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1984, the institute is now sponsored by the Uni ...

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 Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

. It was funded September 1, 1999, and acquired August 31, 2000 by

America Online AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo! Inc. The service tra ...

. 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". Woods was vice president of voice services for America Online and

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was o ...

after the acquisition of Quack.com in September, 2000. He founded NeoEdge in 2002 under the name Kinitos along with former

, 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 Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. Woods was the engineering director for

in Canada from 2008 to 2021, where he joined Canadian

firm iNovia Capital as partner and CTO.

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 Ontario University Athletics (OUA; ) is a regional membership association for Canadian universities which assists in co-ordinating competition between their university level athletic programs and providing contact information, schedules, results, ...

"Len Shore Trophy" for top individual performance. During 1991-1992 Woods was a member of the Canberra Knights semi-professional ice hockey in the

Australian Ice Hockey League The Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) is Australia's top-level men's ice hockey league. Established in 2000, the AIHL is sanctioned by Ice Hockey Australia (a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation). The AIHL is a Semi-professional ...

. Woods was awarded the J.W. Graham Medal for Computing and Innovation by the

in 2010.

References

External links

Research Publications by Steven Woods
{{DEFAULTSORT:Woods, Steven University of Waterloo alumni University of Saskatchewan alumni Canadian businesspeople Software engineering researchers People from Melfort, Saskatchewan Living people 1965 births J.W. Graham Medal awardees Google employees

Career

Achievements

See also

References

External links