The Origins of Silicon Valley: Why and How It Happened Here

WARNING – In-person

Pre-order your tickets here! $10/person. Invite your friends! Plenty of free parking.

Register here – https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/in-person-lecture-the-origins-of-silicon-valley-why-and-how-it-happened-here

The next ACM meeting is co-sponsored with the Saratoga Historical Foundation and will begin at 7 PM on Tuesday, March 25th in Saratoga. ACM member, IEEE Life Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer Paul Wesling is our guest speaker. Following his extensive research on our Bay Area history, he brings us back to the 1910’s — to angel investors in new technology, the sinking of the Titanic, local ham radio operators trying to break RCA tube patents, Fred Terman and Stanford University, local invention of high-power tubes, WWII and radar, William Shockley’s mother living in Palo Alto, and the San Francisco Bay Area infrastructure that developed. These factors determined that the semiconductor and IC industries would also be located in the Santa Clara Valley and that our Valley would remain the world’s innovation center as new technologies emerged — computers, then software, mobile, biotech, search, virtual reality, autonomous vehicles, and now artificial intelligence — and we would become the model for innovation worldwide.

Come find out about the “secret sauce” that permeates our Valley, and some of the colorful characters — Cyril Elwell, Lee De Forest, Bill Eitel, Charles Litton, Fred Terman, David Packard, Bill Hewlett, Bill Shockley and others – who came to define our worldwide electronics industries through their inventions and process development.

Tickets will also be sold at the door for $15.00 (cash or check, please). The lecture is sponsored by the Saratoga Historical Foundation, ACM, AAUW and Stanford and MIT Alumni. All proceeds go to the Saratoga Historical Foundation and ILC youth scholarships.