THE REGIONAL ALUMNI NEWSLETTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Bringing Down the House with Jeff Ma

Your MIT Club of Northern California is turning 100 years old! Sunday, June 15th 11 AM – 4 PM, lunch providedAngel Island

Join us for some summer fun in the sun on Angel Island (http://www.angelisland.org/). Rest, relaxation, and fun with fellow alums are the orders of the day, with biking, hiking, and many other activities available in this well-kept scenic park.

Friends and family members are welcome, and lunch is on us! Bring those frisbees and volleyballs too!

This event is capped at 100 attendees, so hurry up and visit our website to pre-register online:

http://www.mitcnc.org/Events_Single.asp?eventID=1418 (cont. See Page 7)

Also In This issue:MITCNC Hiking and Cycling 2Sacramento Area Events 4MIT On the Road 4Science And Technology 5Semiconductor/ Entrepreneurship 7Video Archive Info. 73C’s Program Event 11

http://www.mitcnc.org Summer - 2008

Save the Date

MITCNC Spotlight

featuring

Nicholas NegroponteOctober 13, 2008

Reception beginning at 6pm

for more info visit

www.mitcnc.org

How do you beat the odds in Vegas?

That question was on the minds of more than 70 attendees on Tues-day, May 6th, who gathered at the Orrick offices in San Francisco to hear about Jeff Ma’s experience with the MIT Blackjack Club. Jeff Ma, a ’94 course 2 (Mechanical Engineering) alum, rose to fame after the book Bringing Down the House – which tells the story of six MIT kids who won millions in Las Vegas by count-ing cards – became a national bestseller. The book, in which the protagonist was based on Jeff, has recently been converted into the smash hit movie “21,” starring Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, and Kevin Spacey. “21” recently opened as the number one box office draw in US theatres.

Jeff shared a number of stories that were not in the book, and he had quite a few funny anecdotes about various celebrities and ath-letes that he had played Blackjack with. He recounted his expe-rience hanging out with Kate Bosworth and Laurence Fishborne while promoting the movie, and how even the star power of Kate Bosworth could not prevent him from being asked by security to kindly step away from the Blackjack tables at the Playboy Club.

Jeff reiterated that winning at Blackjack is all about numbers and reminded everyone that card counting is not illegal (although natu-rally it is frowned upon in Las Vegas). He also learned many les-sons from his card-counting days that are applicable to real-life. (cont. See Page 5)

MITCNC 100th Birthday Event: June 15th - Angel Island

Celebrating100 Years

Jeff Ma ‘94

MIT CLUBof NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

Professor Nicholas NegroponteCo-founder MIT Media Lab, Founder and Chair-

man, One Laptop Per Child Foundation

2 Summer 2008

Upcoming MITCNC Hiking Events:

June 15, 2008, 9:15 AM **SHARP** -- Angel Island (SF Bay) - 6 miles, 800’ elevation

Held in conjunction with our 100th Anniversary Event. Register for the event at www.mitcnc.org and stop by after the hike.

It’s not just a hike, it’s an adventure. We missed this trip last year, but we take a ferry to Angel Island - the large island in the Bay near Tiburon. The top of Mount Livermore has 360 degree views, probably the best anywhere in the Bay Area, and there are a lot of historically interesting sites on the island as well.

July 20, 2008, 11 AM -- Alamere Falls (Marin) - 8.6 mi, 500’ elevation, 4.5 hours

Coastal breezes keep use cool while we hike to a rare 40’ ocean bluff waterfall. Spectacular ocean scenery throughout.

August 17, 2008 11 AM -- Steep Ravine to Stinson Beach (North Bay) - 8 Miles, 1500’, 6 hours

The annual pilgrimage to Jim Reich’s personal favorite site. It’s a bit steep (the trail actually goes up a ladder at one point), but the trees and water are spectacular, and lunch on Stinson beach is very pleasant too.

For more information visit Jim Reich’s webpage: http://mithikes.n3.net/ where details on each upcoming hike are available 1 week prior to each event.

11th Annual Cycling Trip to Tiburon: Upcoming Event September 27, 2008

Alcatraz by Pier 41 11:00 AM - Route Orientation/Waivers 11:30 AM prompt de-pature. Contact Ken Fujimoto ‘88 email: knfemail-bike@yahoo.com Ride one of the most beautiful routes in the country and have in-telligent conversation (it can’t be helped) along the way. But wait - there’s more... Food! We setup the schedule to have a leisurely lunch at Sam’s, a true Bay Area institution. And it’s as easy as riding a bike.

Join us for the 11th Annual MITCNC bike trip for both the ded-icated and the leisurely type bike riders. The route is about 15 miles. We’ll be starting at Pier 41, going through Aquatic Park, Fort Mason, Presidio Park, over the Golden Gate Bridge, down-town Sausalito and then near the water all the way to Tiburon. Just about everyone should arrive in Tiburon by 2:30 leaving time for a leisurely lunch (self-hosted) on the patio at Sam’s before taking the 4:40 ferry back to Pier 41. The ferry ticket for adults is $9.00, for children $5.00.

To accommodate bikers of various skill levels, there will be two groups composed of “weekend warriors” and “recreational” bik-ers. Please indicate with your RSVP if you are interested in the “advanced” group who plan to go up through Corte Madera, Lark-spur and Kentfield.

For those who don’t have bikes, you can rent bikes and helmets at the Blazing Saddles store at Pier 41. Their phone number is (415) 202-8888 and their web page is http://www.bikethebridge.com. The bike rentals run around $28-$48 day depending on what type of bike you want. Relatively inexpensive parking in the area can be found at Pier 29, and Green and Embarcadero.

The MIT Club of Northern California and organizers do not as-sume any responsibility for any personal injuries or property dam-age suffered during this event. Cycling is a sport that has inherent risks. Each participant is entirely responsible for being aware of these risks and taking necessary precautions.

Every cyclist must wear a helmet. The following items will be useful during the bike ride: water bottles, sun block, snack food, money to spend along the way (e.g., at restaurants), sweater (to wear on the ferry ride back).

Celebrating100 Years

Top: Mt. Tam Hike. Below: 10th Annual Tiburan Cycling trip.

President’s Message New OfficersWe are pleased to welcome two new officers to the leadership team: Shuja Keen ’99 and John Velasco ’05. Shuja is our newly cre-ated Director – Angel Investments. Shuja has been managing our partnership with Keiretsu Forum and is looking to build the com-munity of MIT entrepreneurs and angel investors in the Bay Area.

John currently already serves MIT as VP for the Class of 2005 and as class representative for MIT10. As Director – Sacramen-to Area Events, John will be building on the efforts of Antho-ny Pelosi ‘01 to organize more great events in the Capitol area.

IT ProjectI’m happy to report news on a project to enhance the club’s IT system, as we have signed a contract with Kintera as the plat-form for our new system. The genesis of this project precedes my term as President, as we began down this path over a year ago when Catherine Calarco G’06, Ben Matteo, and a core IT project team began the heavy lifting. The deficiencies in our current IT system are felt most acutely by officers and event or-ganizers; however, we hope you will all notice improvements when you visit our website after the new system goes live. This project has involved extensive internal team discussions, coordination with and support from the MIT Alumni Associa-tion in Cambridge, consultation with our Executive Committee, and drawn-out contract negotiations to arrive at the final solu-

3 Summer 2008

- Nelson Lin G ‘91 MITCNC President

Celebrating100 Years

-tion. I cannot overstate the perseverance and patience exhib-ited by the IT team during this process, to say nothing of thecountless vol-unteer hours they have invested. The IT team, led by Catherine Ca-larco, includes Ed Tau ‘95, Javed Samuel ‘04, and Dick Clayton ‘62. We now are moving on to the implementation stage, with Ja-ved Samuel and Monika Gorkani leading the way. We are still mapping out the time-line for when we will migrate to the new system, but our intention is have the new website function-al during the summer. If you are interested in joining the ef-fort, please contact Javed (javed@alum.mit.edu) or Monika (moji1993@alum.mit.edu). We are specifically looking for one person to lead the web design part of the project and another per-son to define processes for managing the new web site. This is an exciting time for the club, so please join us on this key effort.

Volunteer Spotlight I would like to take this opportunity to express thanks to all of our volunteers who organize events, lead programs, and sup-port internal club operations to make our club so successful. I would also like to highlight and thank two of our officers who have made special contributions to the club. (There is a long list of such contributors, so we have plenty of material for future newsletters!) Please join me in thanking Ben Matteo ’96 and Bill Reenstra ’72. You will all recognize Ben, as he is our Immedi-ate Past President, and Bill’s name may be familiar to many of you as well. What you may be less familiar with are some of the specific ways in which they have helped make the club a success.

Thank You Ben!

Ben Matteo ’97 Ben began his service to the club in 1999. He moved quickly from organizing individual events to serving as program director for the Growing Companies Lecture Series, and then assumed co-leadership of the entire Entrepreneurship program as VP of Business Events. He served as Executive Vice President from 2004-2005, President from 2005-2007, and currently serves on the Board of Directors.

Throughout his time with the club, Ben demonstrated a talent for recruiting and mentoring new volunteers and an eagerness to lead new initiatives to improve club operations and to extend the scope of club activities. Along with Sramana Mitra G’95, Ben rejuve-nated the Entrepreneurship program, organizing the group into a cohesive series of successful programs with an army of volunteers.

As President, Ben helped initiate the project to upgrade our IT system, a long needed enhancement, and it was with his efforts that the club incubated the California Clean Tech Open (CCTO), a state-wide competition that focuses on clean technology and re-newable energy. The first competition, held in 2006, featured 44 finalists and over $500 thousand worth of prizes awarded. CCTO has been enormously successful, generating tremendous public-ity, and establishing itself as a key catalyst for environmental sustainability in California. In recognition of the club’s accom-plishments regarding CCTO, MITCNC received the Presiden-tial Citation Award from the MIT Alumni Association in 2007.

Thank You Bill!

Bill Reenstra ’72 Bill’s service to MIT and MIT alumni predates his joining the MITCNC. Prior to his return to the Bay Area in 2005, Bill served on the Board of Directors of the MIT Club of the Dela-ware Valley for nine years and as President for two years. He has since served as our VP of East Bay Events and Faculty Speaker Series, and he is also an officer of the Class of ’72.

Bill has made great efforts to bring a variety of events to our East Bay alums: social events, evening lecture events featuring lu-minaries such as Nobel Laureate Prof. George Smoot, and many other activities. Bill has also spearheaded the Faculty Speaker Series, in which the club brings MIT faculty to the Bay Area to audiences. This includes formal programs, such as the 100th An-niversary Lecture Series and MIT on the Road, and ad hoc op-portunities when faculty are passing through the Bay Area and may be willing to take time to speak with an alumni audience.

Beyond his role within the MITCNC, Bill has taken the initiative on a nation-wide MIT effort – the Inspirational Teacher Awards – which began in 2007. This program was created to recognize and honor those teachers who inspire excellence in their students and thereby make a positive difference in the world. Award win-ners are nominated by current MIT students and selected by the MIT Alumni Association. In the inaugural year, 30 teachers na-tionwide were recognized, including three from the Bay Area.

MIT On the Road in San FranciscoOn the Ides of March, as part of the club’s 100th Anniversary Lecture Series, the MIT Alumni Association brought “MIT on the Road” to San Francisco. MIT on the Road is the Alumni Association’s pro-gram which brings selected MIT faculty to cities across the country.

A capacity crowd of over 200 attendees converged on the Fair-mont Hotel for a full day of faculty lectures in three research ar-eas where MIT faculty are leading the way: on how the brain learns sequences of behavior, global climate modeling, and our ability to meet human consumption needs with limited re-sources. The program also provided ample opportunity for al-ums to re-connect and to make new acquaintances, with lunch, breaks and a cocktail reception interspersed throughout the day.

Michale S. Fee from the Department of Brain and Cognitive Scienc-es discussed research with songbirds in which single neurons in the birds’ brains are monitored to identify circuits that perform key functions of vocal production and learing. Based on these experiments, Profesor Fee proposed a model for vocal con-trol and learning based on ideas of reinforcement learning.

John C. Marshall from the Department of Earth, Atmo-spheric, and Planetary Sciences discussed different ways of modeling climate change and the possibility that an-thropogenic forces may trigger abrupt climate change.

John E. Fernandez ‘85 from the School of Architec-ture discussed the environmental impact of the built en-vironment – particularly urban environments – in terms of energy and material resource consumption. Professor Fernandez also discussed options, both in design and technol-ogy, which could bring enormous energy and material savings.

Thanks to Lou Alexander and the MIT Alumni Association for mak-ing this event possible. Thanks to Lightspeed Venture Partners for sponsoring the entire 100th Anniversary Faculty Lecture Series.

4 Summer 2008 Celebrating100 Years

Sacramento Area Events

Left: Two generations of MIT alums enjoy MITOR. John Chisholm ‘75 and Elda Chisholm ‘49. Right: Harbo Jensen ‘74, Presi-dent of the MIT Alumni Association and member of the MITCNC Board of Directors, makes a point during MIT on the Road.

Bodies Revealed Event March 8thThanks to the initiative shown by Anthony Pelosi ’01, Sacramen-to area alums gathered on March 8th for what hopefully was the first of many more events near the state capitol. The day began with a trip to the Bodies Revealed exhibit, featuring preserved human bodies and body parts in a variety of dissections and posi-tions, to gain insight and appreciation into the complex biological human system. Those who were new to cadavers learned a lot and those who were old hands enjoyed teaching and exploring further.

After leaving the exhibit the group went to Bucca Di Beppo for a family style Italian dinner to share experiences from the day and to learn more about each other. There were 16 in attendance, 11 alumni plus family, including Jim and Joan Shewbridge ’76 who came all the way down from Oroville and Kimberly Kempadoo ’05 and Kevin Richardson ‘01 who made the trip from San Fran-cisco! The group had a wonderful time and vowed to meet again.

Trip to see the Movie “21” Following up on the Bodies Revealed exhibit, roughly twenty alums and guests – including a few recently admitted students -- gathered for a “21” movie outing. Jeff Ma ‘94, the inspiration behind the story, was happy to hear that he had a positive affect on school pride and the decision making process of a few young aspiring students. Thanks to John Velasco ’05 for organizing this fun event.

Anthony Pelosi moved to San Francisco in April but plans to stay active in the Sacramento community. John Velasco ‘05, who did a great job organizing the “21” outing, has graciously assumed responsibility for now. To make this role more official, we have designated John the new Director of Sacramento Area Events.

If you are interested in participating in events in the Sacramento area please email John at jvelasco@alum.mit.edu.

On January 29th alums and friends gathered at Google for a pre-sentation by Dr. Larry Rosenstock, CEO and Founding Principal of High Tech High, a public charter school in San Diego. Dr. Rosenstock described a high school where there are no textbooks, schoolwork is all done by computer, and where the students learn by working on projects designed by their teachers. Faculty se-lection is highly selective, as only 2% of teaching applicants are brought on board. Of note, students themselves are involved in the selection process. Moreover, many of the teachers have Ph.D.s and High Tech High has been approved, and has its own, teacher credentialing program where it offers a Masters in Educa-tion.

Graduates of High Tech High have been very successful. Since its first graduating class in June 2003, all 236 graduates of the school have been accepted into colleges and universities. High Tech High students have authored two books on San Diego Bay, both with forwards by Jane Goodall.

Another aspect of the school is the strong internship and mentor-ing focus. Students complete internships with local businesses and non-profit organizations, with over 800 internships having been completed at roughly 200 organizations. For mentorship, older students work with and coach younger students, and new students are mentored as well.

Acceptance to High Tech High is by a lottery, which has resulted in a diversified student body. The school operates a “village” for K-12 of three small high schools, two middle schools, and an elementary school in Point Loma in San Diego. Two other High Tech High schools have been started in other parts of San Diego County with the goal of anchoring similar “villages.” The move-ment is catching on, as High Tech High has received a Gates Foundation award to establish High Tech Highs in 10 other loca-tions in California.

5 Summer 2008Celebrating100 Years

Science and Technology Series Upcoming Event : High Tech High with Larry Rosenstock

Missed an event? Want to go back and view the video? Thanks to Hank Magnuski ’73 (Course VI), selected MITCNC events have been recorded in high-resolution video -- courtesy of equipment lent by NCast Corporation -- and are archived on the web.

Over 2,000 viewings have been logged to date!

The archives currently contain video of the following events:

- Dr. Peter Karp “What Do Biofuels and Anti- Bacterial Drug Discovery Have in Common? Bioinformatics analysis of metabolic net- works” April 10th, 2008

- Nobel Laureate Professor George Smoot dis cusses “The History and Fate of the Universe.” Oct 3rd, 2007

- MIT 100th Anniversary Celebration featuring Professor Pawan Sinha: “Learning to See in Late Childhood.” Sept 23rd, 2007

- MIT Inspirational Teacher Awards Ceremony. Sept 23rd, 2007

- Spotlight MIT 2007 featuring Institute Professor Robert Langer. May 31st 2007

To access these videos, please go to the following website:

http://www.vimeo.com/MITCNC

Thank you, Hank!

MITCNC Video Archive

Bringing Down the House (from page 1)His work with other team members really taught him the value of teamwork and that setting common goals was vital to their success.

In keeping with the theme of the evening, five copies of the book Bringing Down the House, autographed by Jeff himself, were raffled off to those attending the sold-out event.

Special thanks to the Emerging Companies Group at Orrick for generously sponsoring this event.

6 Summer 2008

Semiconductor Entrepreneurship Series: Energy and the FutureOn February 12th, the Semiconductor Entrepreneurship Series sponsored an event featuring Dr. Amit Kumar, CEO of Com-bimatrix, who has conducted photovoltaic research at Caltech, Stanford and Harvard. Dr. Kumar compared and contrasted vari-ous energy sources using a very analytical approach, providing both technical and economic perspectives and presenting a great overview of the global energy picture. He reviewed the cur-rent state of the art as well as some of the technical challenges related to broad acceptance and use of solar energy. Dr. Kumar also discussed opportunities for developing technologies, mak-ing investments, and developing policy.

The event was sold out and the enthusiastic audience posed sev-eral interesting questions. The audience and Dr. Kumar himself posed several interesting questions.

Dr. Kumar feels that oil prices will continue to trend up in the future with some fluctuations as in the past decades. He fur-ther expects energy usage to double worldwide in 30 to 50 years from 15TW (Terawatts) to about 30TW. With fossil fuels as a primary source, cost goes up and carbon emissions increase with several complications.

Solar energy provides a very viable way to address the whole energy issue, but several issues such as cost, storage and invert-ers have to be addressed with technological advances. The ulti-mate solution may be a combination of solar, hydro, wind and nuclear (fission and fusion). But, the effort required is bigger than the Manhattan or Apollo projects to effect serious change. Opportunities exist in solar in several areas - silicon supply or other materials, new types of cells, thin films, storage, catalysts for hydrogen evolution, inverters and electric vehicles.

Dr. Kumar sees plenty of employment opportunities in the Val-ley and beyond with the push for alternative energy, for both fresh graduates and experienced professionals.

The MITCNC Semiconductor Entrepreneurship Series would like to acknowledge the event sponsors for their generous sup-port: Cooley Godward Kronish, LLP Doll Capital Management

Celebrating100 Years

Visit www.MITCNC.org For More Information

Emerging Technologies: Be Proactive, not CautiousOn April 29th Dr. Max More presented an interesting philo-sophical discussion about how we face change, particularly in regards to technological advances. Dr. More discussed how people’s freedom to innovate technologically is highly valu-able – even critical – to humanity. However, he feels that this implies a range of responsibilities for those considering whether and how to develop, deploy, or restrict new technologies.

Among the issues discussed were the need to assess risks and opportunities using an objective, open, and comprehensive decision process based on science rather than relying upon col-lective emotional reaction. Dr. More also emphasized the need to account for the costs of restrictions and lost opportunities as fully as direct effects. He favors endeavors that are proportion-ate to the probability and magnitude of impacts and that have the highest payoff relative to their costs. Finally, Dr. More places a high priority on people’s freedom to learn, innovate, and advance.

The substantial group of attendees gathered around the podium with Max and the long discussion that ensued even after the formal event ended was indicative that attendees were truly engaged by Dr. More’s talk and ideas.

Thanks to Google for hosting and sponsoring this event.

Dr. Max More

A solar cell, made from a monocrystalline silicon wafer

7 Summer 2008

MITCNC Life Sciences Forum: Dr. Peter Karp on BioinformaticsOn April 10th, the Life Sciences Forum hosted a talk by Dr. Peter Karp, Director of the Bioinformatics Research Group at SRI In-ternational’s Artificial Intelligence Center. Roughly fifty alums, guests, and students attended the event. Dr. Karp discussed how bioinformatics can be applied to such disparate topics as drug discovery and biofuels development.

Having authored more than 90 publications on bioinformatics and computer science, Dr. Karp is a significant contributor to the field of bioinformatics. Over the past 15-years Dr. Karp and his bioinformatics research group have endeavored to develop soft-ware and databases for metabolic pathway information. One of the many products of this research is BioCyc, a collection of 371 Pathway/Genome Databases. Each Pathway/Genome Database in the BioCyc collection describes the genome and metabolic pathways of a single organism (with the exception of the Meta-Cyc database, which is a reference source on metabolic pathways from many organisms). Within the BioCyc collection are da-tabases that fall under three varying levels of curation, ranging from computationally-derived databases with no manual curation to moderately and intensely curated databases.

Among the intensely curated Pathway/Genome Databases is Eco-Cyc. Dr. Karp highlighted EcoCyc as an exceptional scientific database for the bacterium Escherichia Coli K-12 MG1655. Eco-Cyc can be described as a very comprehensive online review arti-cle that tracks our evolving knowledge of the E. Coli genome and E. Coli cellular networks. Through extensive literature-based cu-ration, EcoCyc contains 16,300 citations through a collaborative effort between Dr. Karp’s group at SRI International and groups at UCLA, New Mexico, and Australia.

Dr. Karp further elaborated how algorithms and software can be used to predict the metabolic network of an organism. Behind BioCyc’s Pathway/Genome Databases is the Pathway Tools soft-ware, developed by Dr. Karp and his group. Pathway Tools is an innovative multiplatform software that allows for the trans-formation of a genome into a Pathway Tools schema and the computational creation of a new Pathway/Genome Database.

With the tools of the trade identified, Dr. Karp dove into the working relationship between bioinformatics and anti-bacte-rial drug discovery. Evidently, knowledge of metabolic path-ways inferred through bioinformatics and predictive software can be used to identify small molecules that bind and inhibit crucial pieces of cellular machinery. Identifying the target site is as important as identifying the small molecule and Dr. Karp revealed that an ideal target would not have a backup system and would be essential for growth in a human host.

In a different fashion, knowledge of metabolic pathways is utilized in Biofuels research to modify input-output proper-ties. Rather than using predictive knowledge of metabol-icpathways to eradicate bacteria, this knowledge is used to leverage or modify the metabolic network to utilize a speci fied input and to produce a desired output, namely biofuel.

Dr. Karp closed his talk with an invitation to visit BioCyc.org, with database files freely available online. In addition, Path-way Tools software is freely available to non-profit organiza-tions. Video recordings of Dr. Karp’s talk can be found online at:

http://www.vimeo.com/MITCNC

The Life Sciences Forum would like to thank Google for hosting and sponsoring this event.

Celebrating100 Years

Dr. Peter Karp

Ticket prices are as follows:Online registration:MITCNC members: $5 Non members: $10

Walk-in (space-permitting):MITCNC members: $10 Non members: $15

For more information please contact: Daphne Lin ‘04: daphnepihan@alum.mit.eduAbdallah Jabbour ‘04: ajabbour@alum.mit.edu

Thank you to our sponsors!Platinum, corporate sponsor: The Revere Group (http://www.rev-eregroup.com)Bronze : Artists’ Vocal Ensemble (http://www.ave-music.org/)Bronze : TechShop (http://techshop.ws)

Directions: ------------------To get to Angel Island, you will need to take the ferry from either SF, Tiburon, Alameda or Oakland. We recommend the Tiburon ferry because it’s the fastest and has the most flexible schedule:

1) From SF, take the Blue and Gold ferry from Pier 41. Details at http://www.blueandgoldfleet.com/Ferry/Angel/index.cfm

2) From Tiburon, the ferry leaves every hour starting 10am. De-tails at http://angelislandferry.com/modules.php?name=Ferry_Schedule&month=06&year=2008

3) From Alameda and Oakland, you can take the Alameda/Oak-land Ferry. Details at http://www.eastbayferry.com/when/angel.html.

Once you get off the ferry, head towards the Platform Group Pic-nic Area. This site contains 24 picnic tables and is located near the front right of Ayala Cove, overlooking the harbor.

Angel Island: (cont. from Page 1)

8 Summer 2008

MITCNC Membership: Thank you for your supportDear Alumni:

On behalf of the entire MIT Club of Northern California, I would like thank all of our members and volunteers for their generous support of the MITCNC during our centenary year.

Thanks to all of your support and participation, we have had a number of fantastic events this past year, and we have many valuable events slated for the upcoming 2008-2009 year. We look forward to another great year with your involvement and enthusiasm. Please be on the lookout for renewal details over the summer. Warm Regards, Manjari C. Bhatia ‘98VP of Membership & Volunteer Integration MIT Club of Northern CaliforniaManjari@alum.mit.edu

The MITCNC would like to thank the generous support of our Patron Members. Patron Members contributed $100 in membership fees during the 2007-2008 year.

The MITCNC would like to thank the generous support of our Sustaining Members. Sustaining Members contrib-uted $50 in membership fees during the 2007-2008 year.

Celebrating100 Years

Mr Nobuo N AkihaMr Allen D BallMr Roger J BamfordMr Richard W BobergMr Thomas G BurnsMr Tom ChangDr Paul W Chin JrDr Earl T CohenMr David L desJardinsDr John A DracupMr Bradley A EdelmanMr Keith M FergusonMr Bert E ForbesMr James W GiffinMr Arthur A GlecklerMs Dong Joo HaMr James J HeegerMr Stephen D HesterDr Karin HollerbachDr Samuel HoltzmanMr John W JarveMr. Matthew Philip JennisonDr Harbo Peter JensenMs Charlene C KabcenellMr Dirk A KabcenellDr John S KeenMr Ronald B KooDr Frederick W Lam

Mr Reynold H LewkeDr Nelson P D LinMr Evan D MatteoMr Robert A MuhDr Mehdi NamazianMr. Barry A NewmanMr Walter C Price JrMr Gerald S RauMr David W. RiceDr Albert D RichardsMr Gerard J RudisinDr Vincent SalmonMr Charles M SalterMr Chet SandbergMr. Michael P SantulloMs Libby SeifelMr Howard ShaoMr Ben H ShihMs Megan J SmithDr James E Spencer Ms Joanne E SpetzMr Edward F TauMr Harry B TierneyDr Paul A SwartzMr Augustus O TaiDr Robert B TelferDr Chuxin ZhouDr Arnold M Zwicky Jr

Mr Sumit AgarwalMs Antonella I AlunniDr Eric H AndersonDr Edward M Barrall IIMr Michel B BaylocqMr Charles H BenetMr Douglas B BermanMr Ralph R BestockDr Richard A BlanchardMr Nathan A BrookwoodMr Alan B CasamajorDr Franklin F K ChenDr Chee-Yee ChongMs. Christina S ChuMr George H ChuMs Joyce A ChungMr Richard J ClaytonMr. Thomas CornelyMr James R DeasyMr Robert D DrescherMr Eric EliasMr David R EmbersonMr Jesse D EricksonMr Andrew FillatMr Edward E FreyDr Inez Y FungMr Terence M GarveyMr Keith D GilbertDr Lance A GlasserDr Mateo Go JrMr Carl A GowanDavid L GreenspanMr Ping-Shun HuangDr Malo Andre Hutson Mr Harold E JandebeurDr Stevan JovanovichMr Kirpal S KhalsaDr Edouard KujawskiDr Paul J KuzmenkoMr Michael W Lardner

Dr Raymond W LaTonaMr Eugene H LeeDr Donald M LevyMr Donald S LevyMr Mark S LinskyMs. Kei-Lee Kelley LiuMrs Angeli S ManeyMr Alan M MarcumDr Roger L McCarthyMr Nimish MehtaMr Peter S MenellMs Jane E MermelsteinMr Tim MontgomeryDr William E Murray JrMr Christopher J NeilMr Benjamin F NicholsonMr Donald W OlechowskiMr Gerard A PalmeriMr Thomas E. Pare JrMr Raymond PestalozziMr Stephen C PetersMr Kirk L ReistrofferMr Nicolas Saint-ArnaudDr Hiroshi H SaitoMr Constantine P SapuntzakisMr Brian D. SchumacherMr David L SimsonMr Steven R SommerDr Frederick A StawitckeMr Richard M TavanMs Vandana UpadhyayMr. Murali Srinivasan VajapeyamMr Ronald J L Van VeenMr Hai Dinh VoMr Brian G WarshawskyMr Scott D WilliamsMr Thomas K WongDr Joanne W YunMr L Gene Zellmer

Manjari C. Bhatia ‘98

9 Summer 2008

MITCNC Presents Leadership Awards to High School JuniorsFor the past several years, MITCNC has awarded the MIT Lead-ership Award to area high school juniors to recognize and encour-age outstanding student leaders who have interests in science and technology. In addition to recognizing deserving students, the award serves to raise awareness of what MIT has to offer. Re-cipients receive an engraved clock and a one year subscription to Technology Review.

Thanks to Patricia Cheng ’98 for working with the various teach-ers and administrators to coordinate this year’s awards.

This year we are proud to announce the following recipients:

Abhimanyu Belani H.M. Gunn High Palo Alto

Ashley ChouSaratoga High Saratoga

Dylan Dullea Tamalpais High Mill Valley

Jean Feng Monta Vista High Cupertino

Justin HisPalo Alto High Palo Alto

John Chisholm, ‘75 Chairman of the Board

Thomas Burns ‘62 Consultant, Environmental & EnergyJohn Chisholm ‘75, G’76 Chairman/CEO of CustomerSat, Inc.Dick Clayton ‘62 Partner, Sycamore Venture CapitalMark Gorenberg ‘78 Partner, Hummer WinbladKarin Hollerbach ‘88 Taku GroupHarbo Jensen ‘74 Manager, Chevron CorporationJohn Keen G’94 Juniper NetworksRonald Koo ‘89 Maxim Integrated Products, Inc.Fred Lam ‘89 Molecular Diamond TechBen Matteo ‘97 Matteo IndustriesEvan Matteo ‘ 94 Big Tree PropertiesRoger McCarthy ‘77 Chairman Emeritus, ExponentFred Middleton ‘71 Managing Director, Sanderling VenturesBill Murray ‘67 Compensics

Barry Newman ‘79 NeoCarta VenturesMichael Sarfatti ‘76 HIA ConsultingElizabeth Seifel ‘78 President, Seifel Consulting, Inc.Joanne Spetz ‘90 Professor, UCSFGus Tai ‘91 Trinity VenturesEdward F. Tau ‘95 LinkedIn

(H) Paul Cook ‘48 Agile TV Corp(H) Christian Matthew ‘43 (H) Denman McNear ‘48(H) Bob Muh ‘59 CEO, Sutter Securities(H) Paul Shepard ‘53 Land Manager, Cargill Salt(H) David Weitz ‘87 VP Intellectual Property, Syrrs, Inc.

(H) Honorary Board Member

MIT CLUB OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Parsia Keynejad Aragon High San Mateo

Eric LawCarlmont High Belmont

Mariam MartirosyanLos Altos High Los Altos

Sung Jin ParkLynbrook High San Jose

Shajee RizviWoodside Priory School Portola Valley

Celebrating100 Years

Be part of MIT10 and volunteer! MIT10 refers to alums who have graduated within the last 10 years. Our pro-grams are designed for the young (and young at heart) al-ums. Our most popular events are joint alumni club mix-ers, held in conjunction with other area alumni clubs. About 200 Bay Area alums from Harvard, Princeton, Stan-ford, and MIT mingled with each other at Blue Chalk in February, and we’ll have another one coming up in June.

We also planned a Lunar New Year brunch where more than 40 alums gathered to enjoy dim sum at the Hong Kong Flower Lounge in Millbrae. Attendees mingled and won cash and priz-es in a modified version of “Deal or No Deal” with traditional “red envelopes” containing various amounts of cash. We are also bringing back the Dine-Arounds, where group of alums join together for culinary adventures around the Bay Area.

If you have program ideas or would like to help lead an event, please contact Elizabeth Lin ’00 at elizabeth.lin@alum.mit.edu.

MIT10

Leeann SawSan Ramon Valley HighDanville

Tse-Yin “Ingrid” TuR.L. Stevenson High Pebble Beach

Kartik Venkatraman The Harker School San Jose

Albert Wong Homestead High Cupertino

At 9AM on the morning of March 29th there were already three people waiting at the door of Help for the Elderly Technology Information and Empowerment (TIE) Center (www.www.selfhel-pelderly.org/) in San Francisco’s Chinatown, waiting for the doors to open at 10AM. They brought their old computer CPU’s and laptops to the first Chinatown Computer Help Day where certified ReliaTech technicians (www.Reliatech.org) and SF Connect vol-unteers (www.SFConnect) diagnosed their problems and helped them get their computers running again.

By 11AM, there were more than 100 people in the Center, waiting for repairs, receiving one-on-one computer training or learning from one of the workshops on Interent Safety and Security, how to make phone calls using Skype or how to purchase a low-cost computer.

Many of the people at the event were recent immigrants or mono-lingual Mandarin or Cantonese speakers. Fifteen enthusiastic young volunteers helped to translate the technical language - both into the participant’s native language and to help make the terms easier to understand.

In four hours, 52 computer problems had been diagnosed, ex-plained and, often, repaired. Six ReliaTech Technicians and SF Connect volunteers such as MIT alumnus Kenneth Fujimoto, ‘88, were able to provide RAM upgrade; install Wireless NIC (WiFi); fix software and Internet issues; and remove viruses. 52 people left the event and joined the online community - now 52 people will

10 Summer 2008

Chinatown Computer Help Daybe able to find confidential health information online, search for housing, read their hometown newspapers, email their families and view videos of their grandkids.

Additionally, ten severe hardware issues and four OS corruption problems were referred to the ReliaTech store with offers of dis-count on services

These free, public events are increasing Internet use in low income communities by providing information, training and technical sup-port directly to the people who need the help.

Emy Tseng’01 works with community groups, local businesses and government agencies to bridge the digital divide in San Fran-cisco.

Celebrating100 Years

MIT CLUB OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA LEADERSHIPOFFICE NAME PHONE EMAIL ADDRESSPresidentTreasurerSecretarySloan CNC PresidentAMITA LiaisonImmediate Past PresidentVP - Membership & Volunteer Integration Director - Volunteer Integration Executive VP Director - Sponsorship Director - MSB Nanotech Forum Director - Career Development Director - Life Sciences Forum Director - Science Lecture Series Director - IT InplementationVP - Social Communities Director - Sports and Recreation Director - MIT10VP - Entrepreneurship Director - Entrepreneurship Mentoring Program Director - Convergence, Community and Commerce Director - BoomerTech Director - Renewable Energy & Clean Tech Director - Semiconductor Entrepreneurship Director - Angel InvestmentsVP - Communications WebmasterVP - East Bay Events and Faculty Speaker Series Director - Sacramento Area Events Chair Spotlight MIT Administrative Assistant

Nelson Lin G‘91Michael Sarfatti ‘76Elizabeth Reierstad ‘02Patricia Erickson ‘65Radha Nayak G‘93Ben Matteo ‘97Manjari Bhatia ‘98Alison Chaiken G‘89Catherine Calarco G‘06Elizabeth Reierstad ‘02Wasiq Bokhari ‘92Alice Moy ‘02Elizabeth Ng ‘78Charles Zhou G‘91Javed Samuel’04Ben Skolnik ‘04John Keen G’94Elizabeth Lin G’00Richard Rabbat G‘98Jennifer Wang ‘92Vandana Upadhyay G‘92 Michael Sarfatti ‘76Anna Halpern-Lande G‘98Alissa Fitzgerald ‘90Shuja Keen ‘99Monika Gorkani G’93

Bill Reenstra ‘72John Velasco ‘05Brad Schneider ‘00

Ethan Merrittt

nplin@alum.mit.edusarfatti@alum.mit.eduerzsi@alum.mit.edutriciaerickson@alum.mit.eduradhanayak@sbcglobal.netbcmatteo@alum.mit.edumanjari@alum.mit.edualchaiken@gmail.comccalarco@alum.mit.eduerzsi@alum.mit.eduwasiq@alum.mit.edualycem@alum.mit.edueng@alum.mit.educharleszhou@alum.mit.edujaved@alum.mit.edubenskolnik@gmail.comjohn.keen@alum.mit.eduelizabeth.lin@alum.mit.edurabbat@alum.mit.eduyjenwang@alum.mit.eduvandana.upadhyay@sloan.mit.edusarfatti@alum.mit.edu anna.halpern.lande@alum.mit.edusalissa.fitzgerald@alum.mit.edushuja.keen@alum.mit.edumoji1993@alum.mit.eduwebmaster@mitcnc.orgreenstra@berkeley.edujvelasco@alum.mit.edubschneider@pa-investors.com

baybizsupport@gmail.com

(650) 320-8472(415) 885-2293(415) 846-0868

(650) 279-5600

(408) 936-2548

(415) 850-5494

(415) 637-6396

Volunteers help fix computers

11 Summer 2008

MITCNC 3C’s Program: Me Myself and I - The challenge of Idenity on the WebThe MITCNC Convergence, Community and Commerce Pro-gram hosted an event on identity management on April 24th at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati in Palo Alto entitled “Me, My-self and I: The Challenge of Identity on the Web”.

The event featured experts in the web identity management space - Mr. Gerry Gebel, VP and Research Director of The Burton Group, an enterprise IT research and advisory services firm, Mr. David Morin, Senior Platform Manager at Facebook.com, one of the leading social application and social networking companies in the world, an Mr. Ajay Madhok, a global pioneer in identity technology and CEO of Equals.com, a hot new Silicon Valley and India startup that provides a user-centric trusted identity plat-form for managing communications.

The moderator, Mr. Gerry Gebel, set the discussion quickly by explaining the need for a web relationship layer, as opposed to a strict identity layer.

Identity on the web remains a problem because all of the identity tokens - email addresses, URLs, and so on, are too public and permanent. If one were to publish one’s email address online, one quickly finds his/her address becoming the target for spam, or worse, finds that email address harvested and submitted by email referral companies to unknowing legitimate third party companies looking to increase their electronic mailing lists.

While no one has demonstrated how solving the web identity problem could be a financially viable business plan, such a busi-ness, called an identity oracle, is conceptually straightforward. An identity oracle is a company whose sole asset is its database of personal information and whose business plan is primarily to act as a transaction broker, and, secondarily, to serve as a vendor of minimal consumer identities. Because a user’s personal infor-mation is its primary asset, it will only provide user information to a vendor only if the vendor signs a non-disclosure and limited use agreement backed by stiff penalties against the vendor if the user information is mis-used.

Mr. Gebel explained further that, surprisingly, even an identity oracle is insufficient for the needs of the web because identity in-formation often needs to be used within the proper relationship“context.” It is these contexts that are weakly defined by social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. How these relationships can be captured in a uniform fashion is thus the billion dollar question of identity on the web. Both Facebook and Equals.com are well-situated to tackle the problem of web identity because both see identity and relation-ship as key ingredients in each company’s business plan.

Celebrating100 Years

Mr. Morin explained that Facebook is very careful with Facebook identities and the relationships that amongst these Facebook iden-tities (i.e, the Facebook social graph). For example, while it does not prevent a user from disclosing personal identity tokens like phone numbers and email addresses on his/her Facebook page, it does not force the user to provide that information up front. Indeed, Facebook acts as a communication intermediary between Facebook users, allowing two different Facebook users to com-municate without either party knowing how to contact the other party outside of Facebook. Facebook frowns on zombie or false Facebook identities and actively cracks down on violators of its account policy.

Similarly, Facebook seeks to preserve the integrity of both the Facebook social graph and each user’s application and personal metadata. Thus, while an application could leverage the social graph to spread itself virally, it only has a limited view of a user’s social graph. The application would also have limited access to a user pictures, “Wall” writings, and personal information, and no access at all to a user’s private information.

As a provider of user-centric identity tools, Equals.com also sees relationship and identity as going hand in hand, Equals CEO, Mr. Madhok, explained. Equals sees that it does not own the user’s identity. Instead it provides the user with tools to control how he can assert and share his identity, and to define how he can com-municate with friends and others.

Central to the Equals story is the i-name, a form of abstract iden-tifier that is compatible and congruent with uniform resource identifiers (URI) and internationalized resource identifiers (IRI). A user could obtain an i-name and use Equals to associate his i-namewith his personal and work email addresses, phone num-bers, and so on. He could then present the i-name safely to online companies, digital acquaintances and the like. None of the re-cipients would have access to his email or phone number, though, thanks to Equals, these recipients would still be able to reach the user because it could ask Equals to establish contact with the user on their behalf. On the other hand, if the user wishes to block a digital acquaintance from reaching him, the user could inform Equals to do so.

Equals allows its user to maintain multiple relationship contexts. A user could for example maintain two relationships with anoth-er user, one as a friend, and one as a business associate. Equals could then allow certain types of transactions between these two users to go through only if the correct relationship context was in effect; for example, the two users could communicate with each other through Equals as friends or as business associates but may only be able to transfer money to each other as business associ-ates.

Mr. Gebel, Mr. Morin and Mr. Madhok agreed that the questions surrounding identity and relationships on the web were by no means answered. However, everyone agreed that the only solu-tion that could succeed in the long term is one which puts the user first.

12 Summer 2008 Celebrating100 Years

NON-PROFIT ORGUS POSTAGE PAIDRedwood City, CA

Permit No. 688

MIT77 Massachusetts AvenueBuilding 10 Room 110Cambridge, MA 02139

MIT Club of Northern California Newsletter

Bicycle Repair EventSix MIT alumni joined the Silicon Valley Bicycle Exchange on March 8th in Mountain View to fix donated bicycles for kids. The recipients of the donated bicycles were Big Broth-ers and Big Sisters and Samaritan House. Alumni got a chance to socialize as they munched on pizza and picked up maintenance pointers from the experienced long-term SVBE volunteers. SVBE has donated over 100 repaired bikes to local charities this year. The Bicycle Repair Event was the second of an occasional recurring series.

Megan (left) and Jon (Right) focus on repairing bicycles to be donated to the Big Brothers and Sister Samaritan House

For information on MITCNC Volunteer Opportuniites - contact

Alison Chaiken G ‘89alchaiken@gmail.com

orvisit www.mitcnc.org for more info