Origins of Silicon Valley: How It Happened & Predictions for the Upcoming Years

Why did Silicon Valley come into being, why is it successful, and where is it going? The story goes back to local Hams (amateur radio operators) trying to break RCA's tube patents, early Stanford engineers, the sinking of the Titanic, early "angel" investments, Fred Terman and Stanford, local invention of high-power tubes (gammatron, klystron), WW II and radar, new approaches to running companies, and the SF Bay Area infrastructure that developed â€" these factors pretty much determined that the semiconductor and IC industries would be located in the Santa Clara Valley.

Paul Wesling, an IEEE Life Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer, will give an exciting and colorful history of device technology development and innovation that began in Palo Alto with some Stanford grads, moved down the Peninsula, and spread across the Santa Clara Valley during and following World War II. You'll meet some of the colorful characters â€" Cyril Elwell, Lee DeForest, Bill Eitel, Charles Litton, Fred Terman, David Packard, Bill Hewlett, William Shockley, Jean Hoerni, Gordon Moore and others â€" who came to set leadership patterns for worldwide electronics industries through their inventions and process development and allied management techniques. This explosion of innovation continued through analog design, to digital, then to software, biotech, the graphical user interface, the Internet, mobile, Big Data, virtual reality, and now autonomous transportation. He'll end by telling us about some current local organizations and movements that keep alive the spirit of the radio Hams and the Homebrew Computer Club â€" ACM/IEEE, Maker Faire, MeetUps, and the other entrepreneurial groups where geeks gather to start new companies that invent the future â€" and his thoughts on technology developments expected in the next few years.