Speaker: James Truchard
Cofounder, President, and CEO
National Instruments

Topic: "Founding and Growing into a Billion Dollar Technology-Driven Company"

Abstract: Dr. Truchard will discuss both the history and the technology behind National Instruments. NI continues to be a technology-driven company, developing over 200 new products per year and serving over 25,000 companies in test, control, and embedded design applications. LabVIEW is NI's graphical programming language, which has evolved into an integrated development environment incorporating multiple computational models including data flow, C code, UML compatible statecharts, dynamic system simulation and control, as well as .m file textual math and analysis. The resulting programs can be written as inherently parallel applications, and are easily mapped to parallel hardware architectures such as multicore processors and FPGAs for optimal performance.

Speaker Bio: James Truchard

Dr. Truchard cofounded the company in 1976 while working at The University of Texas at Austin. Under his leadership, National Instruments pioneered the development of virtual instrumentation software and hardware that has revolutionized the way engineers approach measurement and automation applications. He has grown NI from a three-man team to a global organization with more than 4,600 employees in 40-plus countries that has experienced 30 years of growth in its 31-year history.

In 2007, Dr. Truchard was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering, what is widely considered to be the highest honor given in the engineering profession. He was also named The University of Texas Distinguished Engineering Graduate in 2004 and was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 2003. In 2001, Frost & Sullivan, a global market consulting firm, honored him as the CEO of the Year for the test and measurement industry. In addition, Worth magazine named him one of the best CEOs for three consecutive years, emphasizing his focus on long-term growth and innovation.

Dr. Truchard is an active supporter of the NI LEGO