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

The Saratoga Historical Foundation is sponsoring this lecture by Paul Wesling on "The Origins of Silicon Valley: Why and How It Happened Here" on March 25 at 7:00 PM. The story goes back to local ham radio operators trying to break RCA tube patents, angel investors, the sinking of the Titanic, Fred Terman, 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 be located in the Santa Clara Valley and that the Valley would remain the world's innovation center as new technologies emerged -- computers, then software, mobile, biotech, virtual reality and now autonomous vehicles -- and it would become the model for innovation worldwide.
   Paul Wesling has observed the Valley for decades as an engineer, executive, resident and educator .  this is a non-technical presentation and provides the colorful history of technology development that began in Palo Alto, then spread across the Santa Clara Valley during and following WWII.  He is a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE, giving talks around the world. 

Post-talk reviews submitted by Stanford Historical Society members:

-- Excellent speaker!! Great grasp of materials and breadth of his knowledge.

-- The speaker was clear, the information was very interesting. It gave connections to companies’ origins that I previously did not know about.

-- This was one of the best speakers we have heard in a long time. He covered the "Silicon Valley" lecture with a perfect timeline and lots of good details.

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.

More information: www.saratogahistory.com.