Friday, July 22, 2011
11 a.m.- noon
Sunriver Resort
Heritage 2 Room
For more information, please call Chris Chandler at 541-961-2566, via email at cchandler@cencoast.com
Dr. Curtis R. Carlson, President/CEO of SRI International (formerly the Stanford Research Institute) will be the keynote speaker at the Pacific Northwest Economic Development Council’s annual conference being held this Friday at Sunriver. Dr. Carlson will address Threats to American and Canadian Economic Development at 11am. The public are invited to attend.
Dr. Carlson started his career with RCA Laboratories (which later became part of SRI). He started and helped lead the high-definition television (HDTV) program that became the U.S. standard, and in 1997 his team won an Emmy Award for outstanding technical achievement. Three years later, another team started and led by Carlson won an Emmy for a system to optimize satellite broadcast image quality. He has helped found more than 12 companies.
“We are really excited to have Dr. Carlson speak at our conference this year,” said Chris Chandler, PNEDC Conference Planning Committee Chair. “He is much in demand as he is a tremendous speaker who is able to share his insight into the current global economy and what’s ahead concisely, but with great clarity. We are pleased to be able to share our great luck with the public in having him come speak to us.”
Dr. Carlson’s Biography:
Carlson is widely sought out as a speaker and thought leader on innovation and global competitiveness. He serves as co-chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Singapore National Research Foundation. He is a founding member of the Innovation Leadership Council for the World Economic Forum and was selected to serve on President Obama’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He advises U.S. governors and prime ministers, economic ministers, and education ministers around the world on innovation, competitiveness, and educational reform.
In 2006, Carlson won the Otto Schade Prize for Display Performance and Image Quality from the Society for Information Display with Dr. Roger Cohen. In 2007, Carlson was given the Medal of Excellence Award by Rutgers University’s School of Engineering. In 2002, he received the Dr. Robert H. Goddard Award from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) for his professional achievements.
He has received honorary degrees from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Stevens Institute of Technology, and Kettering University. He was a visiting distinguished scientist at the University of Washington in 1998, and he is a Kobe ambassador for SRI’s contributions to Kobe, Japan.
Carlson has been on numerous boards, including Nuance Communications, Pyramid Vision, Sensar, and Sarif. He was a member of General Motors’ Science and Technology Advisory Board. He has served on numerous government task forces, including the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, National Research Laboratory Review Panels, the Galvin Naval Research Laboratory Review Panel, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory Technical Assessment Board, and the Defense Science Board task force on bio-chemical defense. He was a member of the original team that helped create the Army’s Federated Laboratories.
He has written a book with William Wilmot called Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want, published by Random House. It was selected by BusinessWeek as one of the Top Ten Business Books for 2006. Innovation describes how SRI’s unique process for innovation can be applied to all types of commercial and nonprofit enterprises, including the government.
Carlson received his B.S. in physics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His M.S. and Ph.D. degrees are from Rutgers University. Carlson has published or presented numerous technical publications and holds fundamental patents in the fields of image quality, image coding, and computer vision.
