I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Bob Metcalfe – inventor of Ethernet, internet pioneer, 3com founder and many other pretty remarkable things. Mr. Metcalfe has now started his fifth career as Professor of Innovation in the Electrical Engineering department at the University of Texas. I had the opportunity to talk with Mr. Metcalfe about his upcoming panel @ SXSW “The Future Enernet: A Conversation with Bob Metcalfe” on March 13th @ 12:30 p.m. Be sure to check it out!

To give you a little background about the panel, Mr. Metcalfe and Joel Greenburg will be discussing how energy innovators can compete against the status quo. I think the main goal of this discussion is figuring out how to apply the analogies Mr. Metcalfe and his colleagues used to create the internet to produce efficient energy as well.

In addition to chatting about his panel, Mr. Metcalfe also told me a little bit about his experience in Austin and provided some insight about what innovation means to a man who is an inventor and creator of sorts!