Wireless Power Consortium Names Four New Board Members

Scottsdale, AZ, October 08, 2024 --(PR.com)-- The Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) is pleased to announce the results of its most recent Board of Directors election. Four new members have been elected to join the WPC Board: Michael Wang of NuVolta Technologies, Lauri Söderbacka of Huawei, Kyungwoo Lee of Samsung Electronics, and Xun (Ken) Liu of ConvenientPower. Biographies of the four new members can be found below. Additionally, Fady Mishriki of Apple, Inc. and Tony Francesca of nok9 have been re-elected as WPC Board Chair and Vice Chair, respectively. WPC would like to thank outgoing board members Bernd Eckert of Bosch and Vamshi Kandalla of Granite River Labs for their service and contributions over the past two years.

Michael Wang
Michael’s career has been deeply interwoven with wireless power since he began his career researching wireless charging for implantable pacemakers.

Michael joined Texas Instruments in 2002 where he served in various engineering and management roles, including overseeing TI’s wireless business when TI became a founding member of WPC in 2008. With a goal of focusing solely on wireless power, Michael co-founded NuVolta Technologies in 2014. Today, NuVolta is one of the leading wireless power global semiconductor and solution providers. Michael continues in his role as CEO and Chairman of the NuVolta Board of Directors.

Michael holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree and a Master of Electrical Engineering degree for power electronics.

Lauri Söderbacka
Lauri has had an extensive career in product management and product development, including work on numerous iconic mobile devices from the first camera phones and smartphones, the first 1MP and 5MP cameras, first with WIFI, and first with GPS.

Throughout his career, Lauri has been active in leading industry forums and standards organizations including as chair and in other leadership positions for organizations such as 3GPP, ETSI, GSMA, TTC/Japan and the ITU, as well as serving six years as Director of the Board of the Global Certification Forum (GCF).

He is currently with Huawei UK, where he is focused on developing mobile device standards and ecosystem development.

Lauri holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Helsinki University of Technology.

Kyungwoo Lee
Since completing his PhD in 2005, Kyungwoo has worked for Samsung Electronics in various research and technical design roles. Kyungwoo’s experience in wireless power dates back to 2008 when he began researching inductive wireless charging in collaboration with Fulton Innovation and Texas Instruments. From 2010, he participated in resonant wireless charging including RX circuit design and amplifier design. He began working on protocols for wireless charging in 2012 and became a founding member of the team responsible for the resonant wireless charging standard. In 2018, he became involved in energy harvesting projects for the design of plugless systems. He began work on RF charging system design in 2020.

Kyungwoo holds over 150 published patents worldwide, including 81 U.S. patents.

Kyungwoo has a BS degree from Hanyang University and MS and PhD degrees from Texas A&M University.

Xun (Ken) Liu
After completing his PhD research on wireless charging in 2007, Ken joined ConvenientPower in Hong Kong where he worked as CTO and led the innovation, R&D, and standardization of wireless power technology. Under his leadership, ConvenientPower has launched multiple world firsts in wireless charging technologies, as well as innovative products including the first Qi Certified product in 2010 and the first in-car wireless charger in 2012. Ken is now the Chief Technologist of Wireless Power at ConvenientPower. In addition to technology management, he has also taken on the roles of leading IC applications and business development.
Ken is an IEEE Senior Member and holds more than 30 patents.

About the Wireless Power Consortium
The Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) is the prevailing standards organization for wireless power applications worldwide, representing more than 300 member companies. Since its founding in 2008, the WPC has provided consumers and manufacturers with a vision of wireless power that is convenient, safe, and efficient while ensuring standardized testing offers products that are certificated and interoperable. The WPC’s Qi standard is the global standard for wireless charging mobile, handheld electronic devices. The WPC is continuously exploring new applications of wireless power including the recently announced Ki standard for cordless kitchen appliances. The WPC’s Board of Directors include representatives from the industry’s leading manufacturers, including Apple, Google, Huawei, Samsung and Philips.