Monday 12th April - 1st day of visits

In the morning we start our busy schedule of visits in Silicon Valley with a welcome from Enterprise Ireland, followed by meetings organised by Jack Kissane from EI with venture capitalist Phil Wickham and Burton Lee, Stanford University academic and member of the Taoiseach's innovation task force.

Later in the afternoon we visit Gigoptix, a leading provider of electronic engines for the optically connected digital world.

In the evening we will split between attendance at a talk in San Jose University by John Hall, Managing Director, Horizon Ventures, a venture capital firm in the Valley, and a public presdiential lecture at Stanford University by Mary Robinson.