Texas Tech Hosts Innovator and Inventor Bob Metcalfe
March 25, 2014
He invented Ethernet in 1973 and founded billion-dollar networking company 3Com Corp. in 1979.
WHAT: Texas Tech University System Office of Technology Commercialization hosts Bob Metcalfe.
WHEN: 11 a.m. Friday (March 28)
WHERE: Room 359, College of Media & Communication, 3003 15th St.
EVENT: Metcalfe, professor of innovation at the University of Texas, is an Society Pioneer Hall of Famer for his work beginning in 1970 at MIT, Harvard and Stanford. He invented Ethernet in 1973 and founded billion-dollar networking company 3Com Corp. in 1979.
Today, more than a billion wired and wireless (WiFi) IEEE 802 Ethernet ports ship annually, and 3Com, after going public in 1984 and reaching $5.7 billion in sales in 1999, is now part of Hewlett-Packard.
Metcalfe’s discussion topic is “Startupery Out of Research Universities.” Startupery (entrepreneurship) is using the machinery of Free Enterprise to innovate. And, he says, research universities produce some of the best startups, because they graduate students, among the most effective vehicles of innovation, even not counting exceptional “drop-out” startups like Apple, Microsoft, Dell and Facebook.
Metcalfe was a publisher-pundit at IDG/InfoWord in the 1990s and a venture capitalist at Polaris Venture Partners in the 2000s. He is a trustee of MIT, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and recipient of the National Medal of Technology.
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CONTACT: Eli Velasquez, associate vice chancellor and director, Office of Technology Commercialization, (806) 834-22481, or eli.velasquez@ttu.edu.