SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Sept. 15, 2004 -- Speedera Networks Inc., a leading global provider of on-demand distributed application hosting and content delivery services, today announced that Co-Founder and Vice President of Engineering Eric Swildens is one of four graduates along with a former faculty member and department head of the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) who will be inducted into the school's Academy of Science and Engineering on Oct. 1 of this year.
"The College of Science and Engineering created the academy to honor outstanding graduates who have distinguished themselves in their fields and to show other students how far they can go with a UMD education," said James Riehl, dean of the College of Science and Engineering at UMD. "Eric Swildens epitomizes the successful UMD graduate."
The Academy of Science and Engineering has been established to give public recognition to distinguished alumni and special friends of the College of Science and Engineering, who have brought distinction to themselves through their participation, commitment, and leadership in their chosen profession.
Swildens received his bachelor's degree in Computer Science from UMD in 1990. He is well known in Silicon Valley as a high-tech software entrepreneur and as a specialist in user-interface design. Together with Speedera co-founders Ajit Gupta and Richard Day, he is the co-author of two Speedera patents for technology that merges content delivery and global traffic management.
"We are proud of Eric's well-deserved recognition. It's because of his outstanding leadership talents, his vision, his dedication, and his business and technical prowess that Speedera Networks has become one of the fastest growing private companies in Silicon Valley," said Ajit Gupta, president and CEO, Speedera Networks. "Eric's design of the architecture and management tools for Speedera's distributed global infrastructure has enabled Speedera to serve world-class organizations such as NASA, Fox Broadcasting, and Sony Music Entertainment, enabling these Web sites to dazzle their site visitors."
Swildens has more than a dozen years of experience in engineering management and general management, with a broad background in software development. Before co-founding Speedera, he was an engineering manager at Resonate. Previously, he was the founder and CEO of Microline Software, a software company with products that included Java development tools. He led this company through a successful acquisition as Microline was sold in 1997 to Blaze Software. He also worked in management and engineering positions in various companies around the world, and possesses deep expertise in software architecture and user interface design.
"I am extremely honored be included in this distinguished list of past graduates who have been inducted into UMD's Academy of Science and Engineering," Swildens said. "These people are leaders with towering stature in the information technology field, and I am humbled to be part of this 'dream team' of UMD movers and shakers."
As an engineer, Eric Swildens has developed everything from CAD/CAM and 3D graphics systems to bond trading systems, network servers, user-interface frameworks, interactive gaming, developer tools, and more.
He was executive producer of the documentary "Wild@Start", capturing the ups and downs of Silicon Valley startup life. He has also served as a business advisor to eXtropia, helping to define the company's business model and direction. In 1998, he co-authored a book with Selena Sol entitled "Programming with Microsoft Afc."
The 2004 inductees include:
Dr. Odin Christensen, BS Geology 1970
Dr. Paul Helquist, BA Chemistry 1969
Dr. Rolf Peterson, BA Biology 1970
Dr. Sylvan Burgstahler, Mathematics and Statistics Faculty from 1961-1997
Mr. Eric Swildens, BS Computer Science, 1990
About Speedera Networks
Speedera Networks, Inc. is a leading global provider of distributed application hosting and content delivery services. The company's SpeedSuite family of services provides on-demand services that cost-effectively solve the performance, scalability, availability and security problems of distributed applications and Web sites. Speedera's edge delivery network is deployed in the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, with connectivity to over 1000 carrier networks, controlled by a patented global traffic management system.
