Meet Ashwin Rao, CityU of Seattle adjunct professor and CEO of the Seattle technology company TravellingWave. Rao's business specializes in speech recognition for mobile devices, such as cell phones. Watch the video to learn about Rao's CityU background and check out a demonstration of the speech technology.

From CityU’s Alumni Director

Have you seen Princess Leah?

I had no idea asking such a simple question about my beloved (now missing) cat would lead to such innovative answers to help me in my search.

This month’s Velocity, themed “Innovation,” contains parallel examples within our City University of Seattle community of human ingenuity and technology that has led to solutions that may otherwise have seemed impossible only a few years ago.

Thankfully, technology at its best can expand our options and increase our productivity. I know it has accomplished this for me in my quest to bring Leah home.

Did you know there are a half a dozen free Web sites to place a lost pet advertisement? Just enter the location, animal type, and – voila! – a query result emerges of lost or found animals in your region. For me, this is a welcome option for reaching many people since I’m checking the animal shelters three times a week. There’s also the ubiquitous www.craigslist.org. With so many categories, it can be a bit overwhelming at first.

The animal experts tell me I have to keep this up for eight weeks. The kind suggestions and words of encouragement I’ve received from friends and coworkers have been surprisingly heartwarming. I’m just thankful that there are modern tools to help me in my search. What an amazing world we live in!

All the best,