Stephen Hou, J.D.

Vice President & COO

Stephen has practiced patent prosecution for law firms in Boston and San Francisco, where he counsels tech startups on patent portfolio development, patent drafting, and patent prosecution. He has taught seminars on patent law and strategy at Cornell University, Harvard Medical School, the London School of Economics, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), New York University, and the Wharton School, as well as at premier universities in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. He advises university startups through the Cornell Crit program, the Harvard Innovation Labs, and the MIT Venture Mentoring Service, and has been appointed an expert in residence at various incubators and accelerators. He has been involved in three award-winning startup companies, serving as co-founder, chief engineer, and software engineer.

Stephen graduated Phi Beta Kappa with four undergraduate and graduate degrees in physics and electrical engineering (EE), all from MIT, where he conducted master's and doctoral research in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and taught courses in digital signal processing. He earned the President Paul E. Gray Award for Excellence in Research and the Goodwin Medal, MIT's highest honor for excellence in teaching by a graduate student. Stephen received his law degree from the New York University School of Law, where he was a Dean's Award Scholar and an InSITE Fellow, advising startup companies and venture capitalists on patents, technology, and entrepreneurship.