Monte Jade Conference on Silicon Valley Renaissance

Mixed messages about the economy put a question mark over Silicon Valley 's future of creating another dot-com miracle or producing the next "big thing." It makes ripe the timing for a group of high-tech minds to gather next week and examine the region’s future at Monte Jade Science and Technology Association’s annual conference.

The conference, chaired by Peter Chu, managing partner of AsiaTech Ventures and a Cupertino resident, will be held at Santa Clara Convention Center March 26, beginning at 1 p.m.

Discussing the latest research direction of the Stanford School of Engineering, of which he is dean, Jim Plummer’s keynote speech, "Innovation in Education and Research to Create Tomorrow's New Industries," will be followed by a panel discussion with Noel Lee, Head Monster (CEO) of Monster Cable, and William Wang, CEO of Vizio. The trio will lead a discussion on "Innovation and Sustainability."

Additional panel discussions include "The Future of Communications," with panelists such as Paul Kempf of BlackBerry and Eric Chu of Google’s Android; "The Future of Human Health and Technology," with panelists Faye Karnavy Sahai of Kaiser Permanente and Peter P. Lee of Stanford University School of Medicine; and "The Future of Living and Moving" with panelists such as Mary Keeling of the IBM Institute for Business Value and Elisabeth Zornes of Cisco's Solutions Design Center.

Following dinner entertainment, executive and film producer Teddy Zee will deliver the keynote speech, “Entertainment and Technology: A Personal Perspective from a Chinese American’s 30 Years in Hollywood.”

ABC7 News reporter David Louie will host the evening program, which features Chinese-American film director Christina Yao, who will talk about how she made her feature film directorial debut with the historical epic Empire of Silver in China after directing more than 30 plays for prestigious companies such as the American Conservatory Theatre and the National Theatre of Taiwan.

The dinner event will also include a ceremony for transitions of Monte Jade officers and a drawing of prizes, as an annual routine of Monte Jade.

Named after the highest mountain in Taiwan, Monte Jade Science and Technology Association was established by a group of high-tech Chinese-American executives in Silicon Valley in 1989 to bring together high-tech experts from the Bay Area and the other side of Pacific.

Since its opening ceremony in 1990, Monte Jade has held countless seminars and conferences to keep the Silicon Valley community updated on the latest high-tech trends. Many of its dinner meetings took place at Hong Fu Restaurant in Cupertino.

For ticket information about the Monte Jade annual conference and dinner, click here.