Sweldens worked as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the
University of South Carolina from 1994 to 1995. He invented the wavelet
lifting scheme in 1995, an algorithm used both in the
JPEG 2000 image compression standard, as well as for compressing 3D polygonal meshes. He worked at
Bell Labs from 1995 to 2009 and later served as President of
Alcatel-Lucent’s Wireless Division from 2009 to 2012. At Alcatel-Lucent, he led development of a cell tower technology called lightRadio, which reduced the size of transmission equipment. The equipment could be placed indoors and linked to
optical fiber, cables saving mobile network power usage. In 2013 Sweldens co-founded
Kiswe Mobile with
Jeong Kim and Jimmy Lynn. Kiswe developed interactive
livestreaming technology for live events, including multiview streams and audience interaction features. The company worked with
Big Hit Entertainment on
BTS online events and produced the virtual
Tour of Flanders during the 2020
COVID-19 lockdowns. Sweldens holds 28 US patents. He was entrepreneur in residence at
Columbia University from 2013 to 2017. He is a fellow of the
IEEE, member of the
Royal Belgian Academy of Sciences, and a member of the
International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (Emmys). He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Leuven. == Awards and honours ==