CITRIS
Receives Strong Endorsement from Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs
The UC Berkeley-centered CITRIS proposal also is supported
strongly by a number of successful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs
and their families, including Dado and Maria Banatao; Pehong
and Adele Chen; David Lee, founder and CEO of Silicon Image
Inc.; Martin Ross; and Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai. The Mayfield
Fund, a Silicon Valley venture capital partnership, also made
a significant financial commitment to the project. This group
has committed over $120 million to CITRIS, contingent upon
approval and funding of the institute by the State of California.
"I
am particularly impressed by the strong interdisciplinary
nature of this initiative," said Dr. Pehong Chen, founder
and CEO of BroadVision Inc. "When the CITRIS plan is implemented,
it will really change the face of engineering education and
research, and the potential impact of this work is huge. Adele
and I are very pleased to be able to support this important
initiative."
"The
lifelong and distance learning aspects of the proposed institute
were what really brought CITRIS to our attention," said Dado
Banatao, founder of Tallwood Venture Capital. "Maria and I
both believe very strongly in bringing the strength and values
of a Berkeley engineering education to students who would
not otherwise have such an opportunity."
"We
are extremely excited that UC Berkeley has embarked on a project
of the importance and magnitude of CITRIS. We believe that
through the success of CITRIS, society in general will benefit
from the years of technological advancement that UC Berkeley
has achieved in the very specific engineering areas," said
Dr. Sehat Sutardja, co-founder, president and CEO of Marvell
Technology Group Ltd. "Weili and I are fortunate to have received
our higher education at UC Berkeley. We are glad to have the
opportunity to support the new generations of very talented
researchers and faculty members, who will tackle the new frontier
of technology applications to better benefit the human race."
The
CITRIS institute also draws strong support from the faculty
members themselves, with UC Berkeley professors Eric Brewer
and Eugene Wong of the Department of Electrical Engineering
& Computer Sciences committing to the project as well.
"The
CITRIS project is critical to a number of programs on the
Berkeley campus. I am very grateful to all of these strong
supporters of the Berkeley College of Engineering and this
major, multi-campus initiative," said professor Paul Gray,
former dean of the College of Engineering and now executive
vice chancellor and provost at UC Berkeley.
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