Dr. Curtis Carlson, CEO of SRI International to speak on Innovation
Dr. Curtis R. Carlson, President and Chief Executive Officer of SRI International, will give the lead-off lecture in the Princeton-Jumpstart Lecture Series on Technology Entrepreneurship at 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13, in the Friend Center Auditorium.
Titled "The Journey from Invention to Innovation", Dr. Carlson's talk will be followed by a question-and-answer session and a reception.
Dr. Carlson has written a book with William Wilmot of The Collaboration Institute called Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want. In the book, Dr. Carlson describes how a disciplined approach to innovation --- the successful creation and delivery of a new or improved product or service --- will provide value for customers and organizations alike.
Curtis R. Carlson became president and CEO of SRI International in December 1998. Previously, he spent more than 20 years with Sarnoff Corporation, a wholly owned SRI subsidiary.
In 1973, Carlson joined RCA Laboratories, which became part of SRI in 1987 as Sarnoff Corporation. As head of Ventures and Licensing at Sarnoff, he helped found more than 12 new companies. He started and helped lead the high-definition television (HDTV) program that became the U.S. standard and in 1997 won an Emmy(R) Award for outstanding technical achievement for Sarnoff. Another team started and led by Carlson won an Emmy(R) for Sarnoff in 2000 for a system that measures broadcast image quality. In 2007, Carlson was named chairman of Sarnoff's Board of Directors.
He has been on numerous public and private boards, including Nuance Communications (computer speech recognition), Pyramid Vision (computer vision), Sensar (iris biometric identification), and Sarif (LCD displays). He is a member of General Motors' Science and Technology Advisory Board, and serves as co-chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Singapore National Research Foundation.
Carlson received his B.S. in physics from WPI and was named in Who's Who Among Students. His M.S. degree and Ph.D. degree in atmospheric physics are from Rutgers University. In 2006, he received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from WPI. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Sigma Xi, and Tau Beta Pi. Carlson played the violin professionally at 15, and it remains his primary avocation.
The event is free and open to the public. Future events in the series will include the third annual Innovation Forum, to be held in April, and a third event scheduled for May 2008.