When I, a high school senior, got an invite to be a panelist at a panel discussion on “Engineering The Next Generation”, I was a bit surprised.  I aspire to be an electronics or a computer engineer, but have still not entered College.  My dad, Sunil Kakkar who founded a chip design and verification company SKAK Inc., serves on the technical program committee of DesignCon, told me that electronic design and semiconductor experts from all over the world will come to participate in the conference that will run for 4 days.  The conference would be a high tech affair, so I would have to be technical in presenting my thoughts.  I was somewhat apprehensive.  Will he be able to get their attention – I thought?   Could I speak on topics which will make sense to them?  What will their reaction be, on a high school senior fromCupertinoHigh Schoolparticipating in the DesignCon conference?

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