A superstar cast has been assembled for this year's plenary. Starting with Larry Kazmerski, the plenary will grab your attention with the timeliness and breadth of topics. Larry, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, will provide a comprehensive look at the state of photovoltaics and the key contributions required to tip them into widespread use. Bill Ott, IBM's Vice President of eServer xSeries and IntelliStation Development, will then present the challenges of digital power management from an end user's perspective. If after Bill's presentation your mind starts to drift to your pocketbook and the price of gasoline, Ray Ridley (yes the creator of the magazine Switching Power) will bring you back into focus with his vision of the future of electric vehicles. After viewing the opportunities in vehicular applications, Milan Jovanovic will describe what he sees as the technology drivers for power supplies in the computer/telecommunications field.

The technical opportunities posed by Milan, Ray, Bill, and Larry may whet your appetite to start your own business. We thought that might happen and so we invited Marty Schlecht, who left a very successful career as a Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT to start SynQor Inc., to describe his experience in building a business in the power electronics industry. Whether you start your own business or continue in your existing company, Bob White'sreport on the PSMA 2006 Power Technology Roadmap Workshop (held just days before APEC) will ensure you have a clear vision of the future of our field.

Remember - at APEC the plenary session is FREE with conference registration or an exhibitor's badge.