The Drive for Innovation – a year-long, cross-country road trip created to celebrate electronics innovation, is making a stop at DESIGN West and bringing 20 students along for the ride. The University Grant Program, sponsored by Avnet Express, the e-Commerce engine of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT) and UBM Electronics, the daily source of essential business and technical information for the electronics industry’s decision makers, will cover the attendance cost for students from San Jose State University’s College of Engineering Mechatronics to attend DESIGN West, March 26-29, 2012 at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, CA.
DESIGN West builds on the rich engineering education foundation of the well-established Embedded Systems Conference (ESC), which is now combined with popular electronic design summits (Android Summit, Black Hat Summit, DesignMED, Multicore DevCon, EDN’s Designing with LEDs, Sensors in Design) in one venue for the first time. The DESIGN West University Grant Program has been developed to provide college and graduate school professors with a mentorship opportunity for their engineering students to attend the conference program at UBM Electronics events. The grant will cover conference registration fees; plenary sessions; breaks; lunch; full access to the exhibition floor; technology demonstrations; and show floor receptions.
“The University Grant program is an important initiative – it provides an opportunity for the next-generation of design engineers to attend DESIGN West, which ensures continued growth and vitality of our industry,” said Brian Fuller, editorial lead, Drive for Innovation. “The Drive for Innovation is focused on uncovering innovation in the electronics industry. By sponsoring this program Avnet Express continues to inspire future technologists and engineering rising stars.”
“Throughout the past year, the Avnet Express Drive for Innovation has crossed the U.S. exposing the very best of American ingenuity,” said Ian Basey, vice president, Avnet Electronics Marketing Americas. “As we continue this program, the University Grant will expose young engineers to technology experts, mentors and leaders in our industry, to hopefully keep fueling the future of innovation.”
The Electrical Engineering Department at San Jose State University is a leading provider of engineering talent to Silicon Valley’s high-tech industry. Ranked by US News and World Report among the best BS/MS universities in the country, the Electrical Engineering Department provides more EE graduates to this region than any other college or university in the nation. Most of its EE graduates are employed in diverse areas of hi-tech engineering, including internet technologies, semiconductor electronics, analog and digital systems and wireless communication technologies.
“We are honored that UBM Electronics and Avnet Express are supporting our students to attend DESIGN West,” said Burford J. Furman, professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, San Jose State University. “The conference is an outstanding forum for our students — who are working toward engineering degrees — to learn and network with industry leaders. I am confident that this opportunity will help inspire innovation in our students as they progress through their course of study and begin to work in the electronics and related industries.”
