Punit Soni is an engineer, investor and advistor to startups. He is an ex-Googler and the former Chief Product Officer of Flipkart, an Indian ecommerce company. We sat down with Soni to talk about his journey to America from Mumbai, India. What prompted him to pursue a MBA degree after working as an engineer in Silicon… Continue Reading
Michael Price is Chief Technology Officer of Seismic Warning Systems, a Silicon Valley company. We sit down to speak with Price about earthquakes and early warning systems. What happens during an earthquake? How many seconds of warning do you get before the earthquake shock waves hit? How does their technology and signal help facilities like a… Continue Reading
We speak with filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra about his new film Mirzya. “It is a film about love,” shares Mehra. The film is set in two, different time periods he adds. We talk to Mehra on how how the idea for the film was born, the preparation that went into making the film, the music… Continue Reading
We caught up with Zoe Elton, Director of Programming for the 39th Mill Valley Film Festival (Oct 6-16, 2016) to find out what they have in store at this year’s festival. We spoke to her about the film, actors and the new sections they have on Latin America & Culinary Cinema. This is one of… Continue Reading
A kitchen computer, that too a binary one? Yes, way back in the 1960’s Honeywell Corp. made a kitchen computer for home makers. And, the home computer was featured in a Neiman Marcus catalog from 1969. We turned to Chris Garcia, curator at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley to find out about this… Continue Reading
We sat down with Vic Vanni of Solis Winery of Santa Clara Valley to talk about how his family got into the wine business and also taste some wine from his winery. Vani remembers the good old days when they lived in the “Valley of Heart’s Delight,” which is now known as Silicon Valley. His… Continue Reading
Meet Mobot, an autonomous motorcycle-riding humanoid robot that I saw at the RoboBusiness in San Jose. Motobot is a collaboration between Yamaha and SRI International of Menlo Park, CA. Think of it like the motorcycle equivalent of Google’s self-driving car. One of the objectives from the project is to improve safety of motorcycles.
Earlier this week I visited the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. I got a guided tour from Chris Garcia, a curator at the museum. This is the place to see how the “Computing Revolution” started 2,000 years ago. The artefacts range from primitive calculating devices to Napier’s Bones to the Enigma machine and the first… Continue Reading
Meet Amy Love, who along with her parents is instrumental in girls being able to play for their soccer teams in the US. It all started when Love moved back with her family from Brazil to the San Francisco Bay area. She was passionate about baseball and soccer and qualified to play for her soccer… Continue Reading
Here are 3 more picks from me for this year’s 39th Mill Valley Film Festival that runs from Oct 6-16,2016.. These 3 films take you on a culinary and mediation journey across the world. In case you missed it, here are my first 3 selections of films from this year’s film festival. The Last Dalai… Continue Reading
Meet Tom and Sandy Moller of Satori Cellars of Santa Clara Wineries. Tom is a techie-turned-winemaker, while Sandy is a yoga teacher and winemaker. The Mollers started Satori Cellars over 10 years ago and have gone on to win awards for their wines. We spoke to them to find out how they got started with… Continue Reading
Movie lovers are in for a 4-day treat of Vienna And The Movies at the historic Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto. The silent film series is curated by film historian David Thomson. One of the joys of watching silent films at the Stanford Theater is the opportunity to listen to the Wurlitzer organ. Dennis James will play… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Matt Johnson’s Operation Avalanche is set against the space race between US and the USSR during the Cold War period. The film is about the fake landing of Apollo 11 on the moon. The film was part of Johnson’s Masters project at York University in Canada. Johnson directs, acts and co-wrote the film with Josh… Continue Reading
Silicon Valley-based Vinod Dham is an engineer, investor and an entrepreneur. He is perhaps best known as “The Father of the Pentium Chip.” Ever wonder how Dham got that moniker? We were curious to find out about it, and his journey to America and to Silicon Valley, where he initially worked for Intel for many… Continue Reading
Gino Fortino of Fortino Winery in Gilroy talks about Charbono wine, which is made out of an Italian grape varietal. There are only 80 acres of the Italian grape varietal Charbono grown in California and Fortino’s grows some of them. “Cult wine,” is often a phrase used when talking about Charbono. Fortino Winery was founded in… Continue Reading
The 39th Mill Valley Film Festival (Oct 6-26,2016) is packed with so many wonderful films that it is going to be a challenge to figure out which ones to watch. For the next couple of weeks I will share a few of the films that caught my eyes. Here are my first 3 films that had me… Continue Reading
Meet Dhruv Khannna, a lawyer and owner of Kirigin Cellars, the oldest winery in Santa Clara Valley. 2016 marks the centennial year of Kirigin Cellars located in the oldest wine growing region in California. Khanna combines the tech and agriculture strands of Santa Clara Valley, once known as “Valley of Heart’s Delight,” and now known as “Silicon… Continue Reading
Meet Rasika Kumar, who has learnt the fine art of balancing her twin interests in technology and dance. You could say Kumar combines the professional interests of her parents – her father is an engineer and her mother is a dancer. And growing up in Silicon Valley she was surrounded by cutting-edge technology and tech… Continue Reading
The annual Mill Valley Film Festival, which is one of the last film festivals in California before the Oscar season starts is back this year with a fantastic mix of films. Next year marks the 40th anniversary of the festival that started the same year the first Star Wars film was released. The 39th Mill Valley… Continue Reading
Mythili Kumar is the founder, choreographer and artistic director of Silicon Valley-based Abhinaya Dance Co. This year marks the 35th anniversary of the award-winning dance company that is recognized for teaching Indian classical dance & innovative dance dramas. Besides teaching dance, Kumar also teaches classical Indian dance forms at the University of California in Santa… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Jason Cohen’s Silicon Cowboys traces the rise and fall of Compaq, the personal computer (PC) company. Compaq was the company that challenged IBM and changed the PC landscape in the 1980s. Compaq was founded by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto in Houston, TX. The founders were partially inspired by Silicon Valley’s culture. At one point Compaq was the… Continue Reading
Tula Goenka teaches film production and multimedia storytelling at Syracuse University, NY. A few years ago Goenka started a first-of-its-kind Bollywood internship program for under graduate students. As part of the internship program students spent time in Bombay or Mumbai, the entertainment capital of India and home to Bollywood film industry. Some students went on… Continue Reading
Justin Tipping directed and co-wrote Kicks, a coming-of-age film set in the San Francisco Bay area. The film revolves around a young teenager Brandon (Jahking Guillory), who dreams of owning a trendy pair of sneakers or kicks. He owns an old and frayed pair of sneakers, while all his friends sport brand new, funky shoes. And… Continue Reading
Meet Gene Guglielmo, a third generation winemaker from Santa Clara county, the oldest wine growing region in California. Guglielmo Winery is the oldest continuously family owned and operated winery in Santa Clara Valley. We sat down with Guglielmo to find out the history of his family’s winery and taste a couple of Guglielmo wines. Guglielmo shares how… Continue Reading
We are celebrating California’s wine month with a series of audio, video and blog posts. In the San Francisco Bay area we are surrounded by wineries and vineyards from Sonoma, Napa, Livermore to the wineries of Santa Clara county. Santa Clara Valley is home to the oldest wine growing region in California. Tucked away in Silicon… Continue Reading
We sat down to talk with Master Sommelier Richard Dean of San Francisco’s Taj Campton Place. There are less than 240 Master Sommeliers in the world. He was the youngest in the world and the second American to become a Master Sommelier in the world. He became a Master Sommelier about 40 years ago when California was not… Continue Reading
Nachiketa Yakkundi is a musician and an engineer, who has the rare distinction of being associated with the same Silicon Valley company for over 2 decades. Music is his central passion and we talk to him to find out what propelled him to study engineering and put his music on the back-burner? Yakkundi studied with Pandit… Continue Reading
Morris From America is a coming-of-age film about a young American teen in Germany. The movie is told from a 13-year old boy’s perspective and how he tries to fit in with his German school mates and falls in love with an older teenager. The film screened at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival… Continue Reading
Ever wondered how Vinod Dham got the moniker “The Father of The Pentium Chip?” Well, we did and got an opportunity to talk to Dham on how he got this moniker. We were also curious to find out how he developed his interest in science and technology. What brought him to America? How did come to Silicon… Continue Reading
What happens when you bring two engineers together to talk about a desktop milling machine? Excited is a mild understatement to describe how they geek out over product. Watch how Danielle Applestone and Vinod Dham geek out over Other Machine’s desktop milling machine in this video interview. They discuss how this desktop milling machine changes… Continue Reading
The Kamla Show 