In March 2013, we announced the launch of the Comcast Technology Research & Development Fund (Tech R&D Fund). We did so because in today’s competitive marketplace, no company can thrive without making significant investments in the future. Many of the future innovations we will deliver to our customers will derive from ideas and research that originate outside of our company. The Tech R&D Fund enables us to support the best R&D talent wherever it may reside.
In 2013, our inaugural operating year, we funded leading and emerging researchers at academic institutions and elsewhere to engage in long-term research into technologies and applications that are of mutual interest to Comcast and the research community, as well as provided funding for interesting open source software development. Today we released an annual report for the Tech R&D Fund with details on our grants in 2013. We are continuing with the Tech R&D Fund in 2014, and are currently accepting grant proposals at http://techfund.comcast.com.