FORA.tv Speaker - Eric Schmidt

Eric Emerson Schmidt, Ph.D is a member of the board of directors of Apple, Inc. and was the CEO of Google, Inc. from 2001 - 2011. He continues as the executive chairman of Google and acts as an adviser to co-founders Page and Brin. He also sits on the Princeton University board of trustees.

Since coming to Google, Schmidt has focused on building the corporate infrastructure needed to maintain Google's rapid growth as a company and ensuring that quality remains high while product development cycle times are kept to a minimum. Schmidt shares responsibility for Google's day-to-day operations.

Schmidt's Novell experience culminated a twenty-year record of achievement as an Internet strategist, entrepreneur, and developer of great technologies.

Prior to his appointment at Novell, Schmidt was chief technology officer and corporate executive officer at Sun Microsystems, Inc., where he led the development of Java, Sun's platform-independent programming technology, and defined Sun's internet software strategy.

Before joining Sun in 1983, he was a member of the research staff at the Computer Science Lab at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and held positions at Bell Laboratories and Zilog.

Schmidt has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University and a master's and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2006, Schmidt was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, which recognized his work on "the development of strategies for the world's most successful Internet search engine company."

Schmidt was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a fellow in 2007. He is also chairman of the board of directors for the New America Foundation.