Computing: Its History, Foundations, and Lead in to the SystemX Seminar Series

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Topic: 
Computing: Its History, Foundations, and Lead in to the SystemX Seminar Series
Thursday, September 29, 2016 - 4:30pm to 5:30pm
Venue: 
Allen Extension Building, Auditorium: 101X
Speaker: 
Rick Bahr, Executive Director of the Stanford SystemX Alliance
Abstract / Description: 

From Colossus and Eniac to the present world of iPhone and Nest, machine computation has reached from military use, to scientific pursuits, to commercial applications, to office automation, to home use/entertainment, all the way to a continued presence in our daily lives.   This evolution has been propelled by technology advances in semiconductors, but also by advances in mechanical assembly, in communications methods, in sensing capabilities, as well as development practices and the supporting business models.    This talk will trace the arc of these developments, and do so in the spirit of introducing the focus areas of SystemX.  The conclusion of the talk, with its summary of challenges ahead, shapes the organization of the seminar series to follow.

Bio: 

Rick Bahr is the Executive Director of Stanford’s SystemX Alliance.  Prior to Stanford, Rick could be spotted as Sr VP of Eng at Qualcomm, chartered with driving Wi-Fi technology.  Rick joined Qualcomm through the 2011 Atheros Communications acquisition, a Wi-Fi product company he joined in 2000 to head engineering.  Prior to Atheros, Rick held multiple leadership positions in companies such as HP, Prime, Apollo and SGI (where he last was responsible for both MIPS processor and Cray supercomputer hardware engineering).  Rick’s first 2 decades of professional life were devoted to processor design and architecture.  The last decade and a half to communications. 

Rick holds a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering, both from MIT.