Steve Wozniak to Keynote ESC Silicon Valley Conference

UBM Electronics announced Thursday that Apple cofounder and inventor of the Apple I and Apple II computers will be delivering the keynote address for ESC Silicon Valley 2011. The conference takes place from May 2nd through May 5th in San Jose, CA, and The Woz will be delivering a “Fireside Chat” keynote at 9:00 AM on May 2nd.

“We are delighted that Mr. Wozniak will be helping to kick off what is sure to be the electronics industry’s most interesting event in 2011,” David Blaza, vice president of UBM Electronics, said in a statement.. “Attendees will have the opportunity to hear a unique, unforgettable talk delivered by one of the most influential pioneers of the technology industry.”

ESC stands for Embedded Systems Conference, a conference aimed at developers for and manufacturers of embedded systems (where the OS is embedded into a chipset). This is a growing market as processing power and storage has shrunk in size, and embedded systems today can be quite sophisticated.

Mr. Wozniak’s history isn’t in the embedded system world, but the quote offered by legendary inventor emphasized his connection with engineers, one of the prime targets for the conference.

“I have attended ESC and have relied on the design ideas published in EE Times during my Apple Computer Inc. days when we were all just learning about embedded computing,” Mr. Wozniak said. “It will be good to reconnect with the engineering community that still drives so much electronics industry innovation.”

Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak