Norman Winarsky, vice president of SRI Ventures, is responsible for creating SRI's highest-value venture and license opportunities. He is a founder of SRI's venture process, which includes venture and license incubation, seed funding, an entrepreneur-In-residence program, and the nVention venture capital forum. 

Winarsky was co-founder and board member of Siri, which spun out from SRI in January 2008. Siri has now been incorporated into all Apple iPhones. He is also a board member of SRI spin-off companies Desti and Tempo. 



Winarsky helped found more than 30 ventures in areas ranging from artificial intelligence, natural language, and computer vision to medical devices, robotics, and nanotechnology. He has published approximately 50 papers, and holds three patents, with several pending. His particular focus is on natural language, computer vision, and artificial intelligence technologies (Related: "A Technology Innovator's Mobile Move," The New York Times, 6/27/10)
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His specialty areas include development of ventures and licensing opportunities from concept through market development, team building, seed funding, identification of investors, and launch.

Winarsky was a visiting scholar at Stanford University, chairman of the University of Chicago's Visiting Committee to the Division of the Physical Sciences, and a member of the National Academy's Committee on Forecasting Future Disruptive Technologies. He was also a National Science Foundation Fellow, an invited member of the mathematics department of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and an assistant professor at University at Albany, State University of New York.



In 2011, Winarsky received the University of Chicago's Alumni Service Award. In 2000, he and his team at Sarnoff Corporation (formerly RCA Laboratories, now part of SRI) received an Emmy Award® for outstanding achievement in technological advancement. He also received RCA's highest honor, the Sarnoff Award.



He graduated with a B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago, and was awarded summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors. He was also awarded the Paul J. Cohen Award for the outstanding student in mathematics.

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