Sonny Vu

Sonny Vu is a seasoned entrepreneur who focuses on building companies with groundbreaking solutions with a global impact, particularly in the fields of materials science and biotechnology for clean energy and food production.

With a background in mathematics, linguistics, and technology, Sonny has a well-rounded education including studying at Budapest University of Technology and Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Beijing Normal University.

Sonny's impressive career includes roles such as President and CTO at Fossil Group, Inc., where he led the Connected Devices division, utilizing fashion and design to enhance technology's aesthetics and functionality.

He is the brains behind several successful startups: Misfit Wearables (acquired by Fossil for $260m), AgaMatrix (specializing in biosensors for diabetes), Elemental Machines (focusing on IoT solutions for complex processes), and FireSpout (acquired by Ask Jeeves, specializing in natural language processing).

Prior to his entrepreneurial ventures, Sonny worked as a researcher at Microsoft Research, delving into natural language processing under Kai-Fu Lee, and pursued a doctoral degree in Linguistics at MIT under the guidance of Noam Chomsky.

Currently, Sonny serves as the Founder of Alabaster and remains dedicated to mentoring and supporting startup founders with innovative ideas. He welcomes networking opportunities and is always ready to extend his expertise and guidance to aspiring entrepreneurs.