Digilent, Inc.

Digilent Inc. is a leading electrical engineering products company serving students, universities, and OEM's worldwide with technology-based educational design tools. Based in Pullman Washington USA, Digilent designs, manufactures, and distributes its electronic design tools on a worldwide basis. Since its founding in 2000, Digilent products can now be found in over 2000 universities in more than 70 countries throughout the world. As a multinational company with offices in the US, Taiwan, China and Romania, Digilent is able to provide low-cost, expert quality solutions for a variety of customer needs. In addition to its own products, Digilent has OEM design and manufacturing services for leading technology companies including Xilinx, Analog Devices, and Cypress Semiconductor. 

Mission Statement:

Digilent's mission is to make electrical engineering and design technologies understandable and accessible to all, by enabling educators and students with low cost-fundamental tools and curriculum. 

Today more than ever, powerful tools and technologies exist to accomplish most any task the human mind can conceive. The only limit is in bringing these technologies to the people who will be developing tomorrow's advancements. By making the latest digital technologies understandable and available to all, Digilent will remove existing barriers to technological development. Digilent products and services will make the next generation more tech-savvy, promoting faster and further technological advances. 

History

Digilent was founded in 2000 by two Washington State University electrical engineering professors; Clint Cole and Gene Apperson. Cole and Apperson saw a need for a basic programming board to integrate with their class lectures. Students learn best by doing, so Cole and Apperson developed a teaching method that integrated lecture with hands on learning, by utilizing their boards. Soon, they were producing boards and selling them throughout the world, fulfilling their desire to make technology understandable and accessible to all. 

Bios

Clint Cole, President & CTO, worked at Hewlett-Packard, Physio-Control, and Heartstream. Mr. Cole co-founded Heartstream in 1991, serving as lead engineer until Hewlett-Packard purchased the company in 1997. Mr. Cole co-founded Digilent in 2000, where he serves as President and CTO. Mr. Cole is also on the faculty at Washington State University, where he teaches many different engineering courses. 

Gene Apperson has held engineering positions at Boeing and Microsoft. In his 14+ years at Microsoft, he was a key member of several groundbreaking engineering teams, leading technical development efforts that were key to Microsoft's success. Along with Mr. Cole, Mr. Apperson co-founded Digilent where Gene served for 14 years as VP of Engineering. In March of 2014 Gene retired from Digilent but still contributes on an emeritus status. 

Jim O'Dell, Director of Operations, is responsible for oversight of day-to-day operations and manufacturing of Digilent and OEM products. Mr. O'Dell has 20+ years of logistics and operations management experience gained while serving in the U.S. Army. 

Joe Harris, COO, manages the business operations of Digilent including manufacturing, sales & marketing, and finance. Mr. Harris also manages Digilent's overseas offices and corporate issues. Mr. Harris has worked in the high-tech industry for several years and is a Fulbright Fellow to Albania where he worked with micro-business development issues. He maintains an active law license and is a member of the Washington State Bar. 

Mircea Dabacan, PhD, General Manager Digilent Romania. Professor at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Applied Electronics Department. Mr. Dabacan works in data acquisition systems, digital design and embedded systems, and was formerly a visiting professor at Washington State University.