The Silicon Valley Engineering Council (SVEC) proudly presents the 34th annual Engineers Week Banquet and Hall of Fame Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, February 20, 2024. The SVEC honors outstanding individuals for their contributions by welcoming them into its Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame ceremony recognizes local engineers for their outstanding professional achievements, both in engineering and technology, and for significant contributions to the community. The banquet will also feature a distinguished keynote speaker, education/scholarships awards to students for academic excellence and the Keeper of the Flame Awards.

Meet the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame 2024 Inductee: Dr. Ronjon Nag, PhD

Dr. Ronjon Nag, PhD is the founder of R42 Group, an inventor and Adjunct Professor in Genetics at Stanford School of Medicine.

Dr. Nag is a renowned inventor, entrepreneur, and educator, building AI systems for over 40 years. He has founded and advised companies that have been sold to Motorola, RIM/BlackBerry, and Apple, pioneering speech and handwriting recognition, and mobile app stores. More recently, as Founder of R42 Group, he has been inventing and investing at the intersection of AI and medicine, creating Superbio.ai (an AI life science app store) and Agemica (a vaccine for aging).

Additionally, he provides free AI education through the R42 Institute.In 2016, he became a Stanford Interdisciplinary Distinguished Careers Institute Fellow and teaches courses on AI, genes, ethics, longevity science, and venture capital.

Ronjon is a Fellow and Trustee of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), a Lifetime Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and a Senior Member of the IEEE. He has received the IET Mountbatten Medal, the Verizon Powerful Answers Award ($1 million prize), the 2021 IEEE-Santa Clara Valley Outstanding Engineer Award, and the 2023 COGX AI Lifetime Achievement Award. Ronjon received a PhD from Cambridge, an MS from MIT, a BSc from Birmingham University (UK) and was a Stanford Harkness Post-Doctoral Fellow. He is Chairman of Ecrio (5G systems) and Bounce Imaging (throwable cameras). Ronjon is also part owner of some 100 AI and Biotech start-ups. His current focus is on using AI to solve the problem of aging.

Keynote Speaker – Val Miftakhov is Founder and CEO of ZeroAvia

Val Miftakhov is Founder and CEO of ZeroAvia, Inc, a California company developing the world’s first practical zero emission aviation powertrain. Val is a serial cleantech entrepreneur who knows how to scale technology for use by existing transportation industries. His previous company eMotorWerks has developed the World’s leading platform for EV battery aggregation to provide grid services, and was acquired in 2017. Prior to that, Val held a number of senior business and product positions at Google and McKinsey & Company, and was a nuclear researcher at Stanford Linear Accelerator. Val holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University, Masters in Physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and was a two-time winner of Russian Nationwide Physics competitions. In his spare time, Val makes good use of his airplane and helicopter pilot licenses.