Stuart M. Lefkowitz joins InStream Media as CEO

HOBOKEN, N.J. ― Stuart M. Lefkowitz, a communications industry veteran and former Vice President of Technology and Engineering for Viacom, has assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer of the Technogenesis start-up company, InStream Media LLC, founded in 2007 by two members of the Electrical & Computer Engineering faculty at Stevens Institute of Technology, in collaboration with the Stevens Office of University Research & Enterprise Development.

Lefkowitz comes to InStream Media with a long and distinguished record as an accomplished senior-level management and operations executive, broadly experienced in the communications industry, with demonstrated skills in company and divisional start-ups, project team leadership, business planning and contract negotiations, operational systems development and identification and implementation of new technologies and products.

“We are pleased that an experienced professional of Stuart’s caliber has joined the InStream Media team,” said Stevens’ Vice President for University Research & Enterprise Development, Dr. Helena S. Wisniewski, who also sits on the board of the company. “Stuart has the track-record, the expertise and the sheer business and technology know-how to take InStream to the next level of commercialization, and to gain for the company a profile that stands out in the media and technology marketplace.”

InStream Media LLC’s product has the potential to disrupt the way advertising is delivered to consumers via digital media. It provides non-invasive, unobtrusive embedded advertising using advanced steganography. This is an interactive, consumer-initiated approach that also provides instant feedback to the advertiser. It is also a method that does not increase the need for bandwidth.

The company is an outgrowth of research conducted in the Media Security, Networking and Communications (MSyNC) Lab in Stevens’ Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. The founders, along with Dr. Wisniewski, are Professors R. Chandramouli and K. Subbalakshmi, two experts in the field of streamed digital media, who are also founders of the MSyNC Lab.

The company is an outgrowth of research conducted in the Media Security, Networking and Communications (MSyNC) Lab in Stevens’ Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. The founders, along with VP Wisniewski, are Professors R. Chandramouli and K. Subbalakshmi, two experts in the field of streamed digital media, who are also founders of the MSyNC Lab.
“In a first approach of its kind, InStream Media uses techniques of streaming digital steganography – digital information embedded within other digital information – to revolutionize the world of interactive media, including product advertising, home shopping and educational media,” said Chandramouli. “For example, our technology can embed advertisements directly into the digital video scene imperceptibly, with the advertisement based on the context of the video scene.”

“The embedded media can be on the order of a video ad, audio ad, text ad, or informational URL,” said Subbalakshmi. “With the click of a mouse, or even a specialized TV remote, the consumer watching a video scene of, say, a James Bond film, can click on the particular car being driven by the title character, or the suit jacket he’s wearing, and without interruption in the viewer’s enjoyment of the movie, information about that product will be transmitted to his or her e-mail, or sent directly to a connected printer.”
This simultaneity of transmitted messages holds the attractive prospect of multiple product placements, while giving the viewer a greater measure of interactive control and selection over which product placements they would like to learn more about, as well as how to retrieve the information.
Additional secure features can be added (e.g., unique decoding keys to extract coupons by an individual user) to provide an added dimension of service.

Benefits to advertisers include the ability to receive instant marketing feedback that a viewer has read the ad, plus the ability to gather data regarding user click-through behavior.
The company and its products have already drawn interest from major media organizations in the US and internationally. CEO Lefkowitz had previously consulted for TerreBand Wireless, LLC, and SES Americom. Previous to that he served as Chief Operating Officer of World Satellite Network (WSNet), as Senior Vice President Operations and Engineering of Vulcan Programming II, and as Chief Operating Officer of TelQuest Satellite Services. In addition to serving as Vice President, Technology and Engineering, for Viacom, Inc., Lefkowitz also held senior positions with Lifetime Television, WNYC-TV New York, and Cable Health Network.
Lefkowitz holds a bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Communications from San Francisco State University.

About Stevens Institute of Technology

Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.

Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,040 undergraduate and 3,085 graduate students, and a worldwide online enrollment of 2,250, with a full-time tenured/tenure-track faculty of 140 and more than 200 full-time special faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.  

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