Facebook’s shadowy Building 8 research team needs help from academia to invent futuristic hardware. But today’s pace of innovation doesn’t allow for the standard 9-12 month turnaround time it takes universities to strike one-off research partnerships with private companies.

Enter SARA, aka Facebook’s “Sponsored Academic Research Agreement.” It’s a deal forged by Building 8 head Regina Dugan with 17 top universities to get collaboration on new projects started in just weeks or even days. SARA eliminates the need for time-consuming further negotiation and faculty approvals.

In return for their labor, the universities will be paid a fee by Facebook. They’ll also gain a focus for their research that will actually become a reality rather than staying theoretical.

Dugan tells TechCrunch, “With the SARA, B8/Facebook has created a universal agreement with terms that are project-by-project and designed to be fair and appropriate for universities. All university partners sign the same agreement, allowing Facebook to build the relationships quickly, and at scale.”

The full list of universities on board is: Stanford, MIT, Harvard University, Caltech, Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Rice, UC San Francisco, UC Berkeley, Northeastern, Princeton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Arizona State University, Texas A&M, Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech, plus Canada’s University of Waterloo.

Facebook refused to say what these schools will help it work on. But some of the company’s advanced hardware projects include the Terragraph Wi-Fi nodes, Project ARIES antenna, Aquila solar-powered drone and its own connectivity-beaming satellite from its internet access initiative. There’s also Oculus’ wired and mobile VR headsets, and the Surround 360 camera. And in back-end infrastructure, it’s building an open rack network switch called Wedge, the Open Vault storage solution and sensors for the Telecom Infra Project’s OpenCellular platform.

https:// www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/10/southern-california-family-en-route-to-san-jose-missing/

>>1010131

sry wrong link;

https:// techcrunch.com/2016/12/21/facebook-sara/

>>1010134

oshi

>>1010134

Dr. Regina E. Dugan

President & CEO (2005-2009)

Founder

From 1996 to 2000, Dr. Dugan directed a diverse $100 million portfolio of R&D programs at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Her primary program was aimed at developing new trace chemical sensors. In this capacity, Dr. Dugan led an interdisciplinary team of more than 100 academic, industrial, government, and military participants. Her program was successful in the creation of several revolutionary technologies and, most importantly, in their follow-on transition to multiple commercial and military products through private capitalization activities and follow-on acquisition programs.

Most recently, Dr. Dugan spearheaded the development of a strategic plan and marketing approach for a $15 million pre-seed venture capital fund and served as a "technology scout" for multiple organizations.

Dr. Dugan has been widely recognized for her leadership in technology development. She has appeared on the Discovery Channel, National Public Radio, and the AAAS Science Report and her projects have been the subject of articles in The New York Times Science Times, The New York Times Circuits, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Chemical and Engineering News and Science News, among others. Dr. Dugan and her program were featured in an article entitled "Pentagon Agency Thrives on In-Your-Face Science", Science, 1999.

She has received numerous awards, including the DARPA Program Manager of the Year Award, the deFleury Medal, the most prestigious Award of the Army Engineer Regiment, for her commitment and success in leading the effort to develop a land mine detection system, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Service.

Dr. Dugan obtained her PhD in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology and her master's and bachelor's degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She is the co-author of Engineering Thermodynamics. Additionally, Dr. Dugan is the sole inventor on a patent for refueling satellites in orbit, and she has several additional provisional patents filed.

Mr. John Dugan

Founder

Until April 1997, John Dugan was the CEO of North America for Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC) and a member of the SBC Group Executive Board. During his tenure as a managing director, he also served as a member of the board of SBC Warburg. In 1992, Mr. Dugan was managing partner of The O'Connor Partnerships, a leading derivatives trading and financial risk management firm in Chicago, when SBC purchased various O'Connor businesses and integrated them into its global Capital Markets & Treasury organization. Mr. Dugan joined O'Connor in 1981 as controller, was named general partner in 1983, and became managing partner in 1989.

Before his tenure at O'Connor, Mr. Dugan served as executive vice president and chief financial officer at Purcell, Graham & Company. Prior to that he was vice president and controller at Bear Steams & Company, and vice president, operations and chief financial officer at Baker, Weeks & Company. He began his career in financial services at Brown Brothers Harriman & Company.

Mr. Dugan is currently a general partner with the O'Connor Partners Investment Office, headquartered in Chicago. O'Connor manages private capital for the O'Connor partners. Mr. Dugan holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Pace College. He also attended the U.S. Naval Academy.

Mr. Vince Dugan (watch out for this guy)

President & CEO (2009- present)

Founder

Vince Dugan's career spans 35 years in the telecommunications and data communications industries, including 20 years with AT&T and four years with Northern Telecom. Most recently, Vince served as the CEO of a high-tech start-up, Net-HOPPER Systems, Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia. He led Net-Hopper from a team of seven in January 1995 with $150,000 in revenues through six years of growth and expansion to a team of 42 and $6 million in revenues, culminating in a successful merger and acquisition in November 2000. During this time, Net-Hopper won the Best New Software Product of the Year Award at the COMNET 1999 Trade Show, and several new products were successfully launched. Mr. Dugan is currently president of the Net-HOPPER Division of Spirent Communications.

Mr. Dugan has held officer-level positions in the marketing and operations departments with Tekelec, Inc., and Computer Consoles, Inc. Mr. Dugan received his bachelor's degree in economics from Hofstra University in Hempstead, LI, New York, USA.

Vince and John Dugan are identical twins.

>>1010192

Dr. Dugan obtained her PhD in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology and her master's and bachelor's degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She is the co-author of Engineering Thermodynamics. Additionally, Dr. Dugan is the sole inventor on a patent for refueling satellites in orbit, and she has several additional provisional patents filed.

>>1010219

>the sole inventor on a patent for refueling satellites in orbit