MTL News Archives for 2008

Ethernet inventor to kick off MTL Seminar Series


February 11, 2008

The Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) Seminar Series kicks-off at 4PM on Tuesday, March 4, with a talk by Dr. Robert M. "Bob" Metcalfe, venture capitalist and Ethernet inventor. The seminar will take place at 50 Vassar Street, room 34-101, Cambridge, MA.

Metcalfe will discuss a concept he calls "The Enernet." Metcalfe explains: "Say the Internet got started 50 years ago, with the launching of Sputnik in 1957, or if you want, go back another 10 years to the invention of the transistor at Bell Labs in 1947. Let's ask whether we can learn from the Internet history about how and what to engineer over the next 50 years to meet the world's accelerating needs for cheap and clean energy? By analogy, we are busily engineering an energy network, which, to echo the Internet, let's call 'The Enernet.'"

Metcalfe is most known for inventing Ethernet - he shares four patents on the local-area networking (LAN) standard - and for founding the billion-dollar networking company 3Com. In 2005, he received the nation's highest honor for technical innovation, the National Medal of Technology, for his leadership in the invention, standardization, and commercialization of Ethernet.

Today, Metcalfe is a venture capitalist at Polaris Venture Partners in Waltham, MA. He also serves on the boards of Polaris-backed companies, including Ember, SiCortex, Mintera, Infinite Power, SiOnyx, 1366, and GreenFuel, of which he is also Interim CEO.

Metcalfe graduated from MIT in 1969, with SB degrees in both industrial management and electrical engineering. He went on to receive an MS in applied mathematics (1970) and a PhD in computer science (1973) from Harvard.

The seminar is sponsored by the Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) at MIT. MTL is an interdepartmental laboratory that supports Microsystems research encompassing work in circuits and systems, MEMS, electronic and photonic devices, and molecular and nanotechnology.

MTL Seminar Series Schedule:

All seminars take place at 50 Vassar Street, room 34-101, at 4PM.

March 4 - Bob Metcalfe, Polaris Venture Partners
March 11 - Emilio Bizzi, MIT Institute Professor
March 18 - Larry J. Hornbeck, Texas Instruments
April 1 - Donhee Ham, Harvard University
April 8 - Ali Hajimiri, California Institute of Technology
April 15 - Carl L. Hansen, University of British Columbia
April 29 - Kelin J. Kuhn, Intel Corporation
May 13 - TBA, MTL Doctoral Dissertation Seminar