As well as providing the stage for Max Zorrin and his dastardly deeds back in the 80s, this southern San Francisco Bay area has fuelled the technological advances of the modern world, and a new era of engineering has emerged.
Stanford University was founded in 1885, and opened its doors to students in 1891. Forward thinking even then, it opened as a coeducational and non-denominational institution. This university has played a major role in the development of the Silicon Valley area. During the 1940s and 50s, Frederick Terman was Stanford's Dean of engineering and provost. He is credited with encouraging faculty members and graduates to start their own companies, and as these emerged, what is now termed Silicon Valley grew up around the Stanford campus. One of these was Hewlett-Packard.
Hewlett and Packard graduated with degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford and set up their company in a garage in nearby Paulo Alto. Their success with the precision audio oscillator, and later with semiconductor devices, has led them to be viewed as the founders of Silicon Valley.
The term came from the large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers in the region, but the area is now the home to many of the world's largest high-tech corporations. Google have their own 'town' for want of a better word, and Facebook is here too, not to mention countless others that are now part of our everyday lives.
Stanford has engineering at the heart of it (literally, unlike some other universities that built engineering buildings out in the sticks away from main campus!) and it was great to walk about and see what was going on.
If you're into tech, electrical and electronic engineering, or any design of that ilk, this place is for you! I wonder how it felt to be involved at those early stages, and to see how this world developed!