INNOSYS INC.

May 5, 2015 

Innosys won the 2015 Utah Innovation Award for the following: 

CLEAN TECHNOLOGY AND ENERGY

Highly Effective Controlled Solid-State Lighting Drivers by Innosys, Inc

InnoSys combines high-efficiency LED lighting with sensor-rich energy management for monitoring, control and analytics with its iLumens lightingncontrol and management system that reduces energy consumption by up to 90% while giving users full control over the system's use, control and interactions and even how it expresses light.

May 30, 2013

National Association of Women Business Owners Salt Lake City Chapter, NAWBO SLC,  today announced the two winners of the Women Business Owner of the Year and two Rising stars this year, a first in NAWBO SLC history.

Jennifer Ruy-Jen Hwu, Ph.D., owner of InnoSys, Inc is being awarded Women Business Owner of the Year. Hwu started InnoSys, Inc. twelve years ago. InnoSys is now one of the very few companies in the world that offers affordable W-band (100GHz) high power devices for the next generation satellite communications. Hwu personifies exactly what immigration advocates espouse, encouraging bright immigrants to stay in the U.S. and start businesses here, especially manufacturing businesses. “I think the most exciting part of being a women business owner,” she says, ”especially a high tech business is to have the access to the  industry leaders to understand their technical needs and as a result devise technical direction and lead technical development in the company to become a part of the industry solution.  I am very proud that InnoSys offers industry those solutions that our customers cannot get from our competitors.”

September 2013

Jennifer Hwu, CEO of Innosys, knows her business well and acts as a role model both for aspiring young people and for her employees. But that doesn’t mean her success always comes easily. 

Hwu discovered a love for physics while still in high school. She got her bachelor’s degree in physics in Taiwan, taught high school physics for two years, then received her Master’s and PhD in electrical engineering from UCLA. She taught in the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Utah for several years before leaving to start her own business. Currently, at InnoSys, her business provides power modules and power system to the military as well as to the consumer electronics market. She’s received multiple awards for her work, including the Woman Business Owner of the Year from the National Association of Women Business Owners. 

Yet, even with all that expertise, she still encounters people who underestimate her. She says, “Making myself heard correctly as a woman in my field of work where a woman is almost rare…is one very big challenge.” 

While she does deal with discrimination, it’s much more common that people don’t know how to respond to her since her knowledge is so specific and her field is so unfamiliar to the people she encounters. “I try to be concerned with not making people feel more intimidated and lost because that could turn them further away from physics or electrical engineering.”

Believing that people like her (a woman physicist and engineer) should try even harder to make themselves understood, Hwu uses her knowledge and opportunities to act as a role model. “When it comes to the role of a high tech business owner, I am performing both of my previous roles,” Hwu says. “that is, being the role model and encouraging imagination and creativity of the employees of the company. In addition, I do these roles by establishing and providing [the employees] with the environment, the goal, and the rewards.”

For Hwu and her employees, the rewards are tangible. She loves that her work in engineering can solve real-life problems. Though her company is already environmentally conscious, she hopes to reduce energy consumption in the future. In recent years, the company has invested in a new product line that offers high-efficiency, high-performance LED and general lighting power supplies. Soon, Hwu hopes to consolidate her two product lines so the company can become a total solution provider, using cutting-edge technology with improved energy usage and applications.

For Hwu especially, the rewards are also personal. While establishing her business, her children were young, and she had to travel much of the time in order to ensure the business’s growth. There were times when the extreme stress caused Hwu to question whether or not she would make it. A few years later, her daughter let her know she had done just fine.

“My daughter and I were chatting with the President of the University of Utah, David Pershing,” Hwu recalls, “and when he asked my daughter, Kelly, what she planned to do in the future, she told President Pershing she knew her mom was an all-right business woman since her mom taught herself how to become a business person. Kelly wanted to become a very good woman business owner, watching how much her mom could do."  

April 28, 2011

Dr. Ruey-Jen Jennifer Hwu is invited to present "Opportunities and challenges in Green Business and transition from a scientist to a successful entrepreneur" to Business and Engineering Schools of University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) on April 28.