Cathy Edwards, Co-Founder and CTO, Chomp, Inc.

Cathy Edwards is a mobile app search pioneer with expertise in machine learning; natural language processing and information retrieval technologies. In 2009 she co-founded mobile app search company Chomp. Chomp produces the leading mobile app search engine.

Edwards created Chomp’s proprietary algorithm which understands the function of each app, allowing you to search for mobile apps based on what they do rather than what they’re called. The company has filed for eleven patents based on Edwards’ app search technologies. During her tenure at Chomp, she has built a team of some of the top minds in search, including PhD’s from MIT, U.C. Berkeley, and alumni of Google, Cuil and Powerset (the Microsoft-owned natural language search company). She has also recruited world-renowned advisors Dr. David Blei, Princeton University professor and machine language expert, and Dr. Don Metzler, USC Information Sciences Institute PhD and information retrieval scientist.

Prior to Chomp, Edwards lead mobile product development at Friendster, launching a key revenue share data plan with carriers in South East Asia; and 3jam where she launched a converged SMS-IM mobile messaging product. Before moving to America, Edwards was based in Australia, where she worked for Telstra, the leading telecommunications carrier. She began in Telstra Labs (akin to Bell Labs in the U.S.) where she worked on machine learning and natural language processing research. She then joined the Office of the CTO, leading a team dedicated to conceptualizing, prototyping and incubating new product ideas. She identified app stores, tablet devices, the disposable mobile phone, and streaming radio as important technologies years prior to their widespread awareness and adoption. She also organized the first Twitter meetups in Sydney and Melbourne.

Edwards holds degrees in pure mathematics, linguistics and computer science from the University of Western Australia.