On April 25, 2026, just past his one-year anniversary at CHM, CEO and President Marc Etkind kicked off the annual Fellow Awards ceremony. Five new CHM Fellows joined a distinguished group of technology pioneers and the very first Silicon Valley Laureate was honored. In their acceptance remarks, all the honorees attributed their success to teamwork and collaboration.
CHM Trustee Eileen Fagan introduced the Palm Team—Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan—who were being recognized for “development of groundbreaking, commercially successful handheld computers and smartphones, which established the foundation for today’s mobile computing.”
The Palm Team
Rob Haitani, senior UX design manager for Ring and an early Palm and Handspring team member, presented the Fellow Awards to the Palm Team. He credited Jeff with teaching him that creativity is “an act of reduction” to reveal new possibilities, Donna with guiding teams through the precarious startup years with empathy, and Ed with leading marketing with insight, humor, and a “sense of controlled insanity.” Their complementary strengths, he said, drove Palm and Handspring’s success and made people feel they were part of something that truly mattered.
Ed Colligan accepts his 2026 CHM Fellow Award.
Accepting his award, Colligan emphasized the extraordinary teams at Palm and Handspring, who created many of the ideas and core design elements that shaped the mobile devices we use today—joking that it might be their fault if no one makes eye contact at family dinners anymore. He appreciated that the team award pushed back against the industry’s growing obsession with the “lone genius” and invited Palm and Handspring alumni in the room to stand and be recognized.
Donna Dubinsky accepts her 2026 CHM Fellow Award.
Dubinsky reflected on what it truly means to operate at the frontier—intensely competitive, filled with highs and lows. For her, the greatest highs came from seeing their product being used “in the wild” by someone who was not a friend or family member. The lows included technical failures, vendor problems, recessions, and hard decisions. Courage, resilience, persistence, adaptability, and flexibility were the only ways to overcome the barriers inherent in creating something truly new. In the end, she said, the chance to have an impact on people’s lives has been the thrill of a lifetime.
Jeff Hawkins accepts his 2026 CHM Fellow Award.
Hawkins noted that entrepreneurs don’t invent the future so much as they see it coming and "help it arrive a little sooner and a little better." His epiphany in 1991 was the idea of a computer in your pocket that could access information about the world. Technology had to evolve to eventually make that possible, but the human desire for information has always powered innovation. He reflected on the unanticipated consequences that once people had constant access to information, some chose to make it addictive—a problem the world is only now beginning to reckon with. But, he believes the overall impact of these devices has been profoundly positive.
Eileen Fagan introduced John Chowning, who was being recognized “for the invention of audio FM synthesis, which transformed the musical landscape using computers.”
John Chowning
Chris Chafe, professor and chair of the Music Department at Stanford University presented the Fellow Award to Chowning, who he called “an inventor and musician with an insatiable appetite for new ideas.” The experiments on electronic music that Chowning began in the 1960s laid the foundation for entire fields at the intersection of art and science, ideas that are now so embedded in contemporary music that they are nearly ubiquitous. In 1974, he cofounded the Stanford Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), a magnet for extraordinary talent nurtured by Chowning’s deep commitment to mentorship.
John Chowning accepts his 2026 CHM Fellow Award.
Accepting the award, Chowning described how his work and that of others has democratized computer music, starting with a collaboration with Yamaha engineers in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s that produced the first low-cost digital synthesizer. Today, FM synthesis lives on in software embedded throughout digital music production. He noted that technological impact is unpredictable, but in the age of AI, he believes that music resists shortcuts and aesthetics are difficult to quantify. Transcending language and serving as a powerful bond across cultures, music reminds us, said Chowning, of the enduring importance of marrying technology with the humanities.
Before Brewster Kahle received his award, musician and humanitarian Peter Gabriel offered a special recorded congratulations for Kahle's profound and important work opening access to the world’s digital history.
Kahle was honored “for pioneering roles in online search engines, and in digital preservation and open access to knowledge provided by the Internet Archive.”
Brewster Kahle
Mitch Kapor, founding partner at Kapor Capital and 1996 CHM Fellow, presented the Fellow Award, noting that Kahle’s work reflects a clear and consistent belief that knowledge is a public good that should be open and accessible. That commitment was already evident in the 1980s at Thinking Machines, where his work anticipated many of the core functions of today’s web and helped lay the conceptual groundwork for our contemporary information ecosystem. His vision expanded dramatically in 1996 with the founding of the Internet Archive, now one of the world’s most important digital repositories. And, with the launch of the Wayback Machine in 2001, Kahle made it possible to preserve a historical record of the web that would otherwise have vanished. Beyond preservation, his efforts have continually advanced digital rights.
Brewster Kahle accepts his 2026 CHM Fellow Award.
Accepting the award, Kahle explained that he has found meaning in his life by following the advice to do something that matters, even if you know you’ll never finish it. For him, that meant pursuing the dream of universal access to human knowledge. He has pursued technology that made people smarter, more capable, and more informed, as well as open systems that people could trust and build on. He believes that one of today’s great challenges is figuring out how to harness new AI capabilities in an environment that’s increasingly dominated by monopolies. The question, he says, is whether the ecosystem stays open enough to benefit everyone.
Eileen Fagan introduced the new Silicon Valley Laureate Award, which honors leaders who have made an enduring and positive impact on the entrepreneurial ecosystem that has enabled Silicon Valley’s leadership in today’s digital age. Venture capitalist Mark Stevens received the award "for early and enduring investments in transformative technology companies, and for shaping the entrepreneurial ecosystem that powers the modern digital economy and era of artificial intelligence."
Mark Stevens
Presenting the award, Fagan noted Stevens's early investments in Google, YouTube, Yahoo, and Nvidia while a partner at Sequoia Capital and his mentorship of entrepreneurs at S-Cubed Capital today.
Mark Stevens accepts his CHM award for the 2026 Silicon Valley Laureate.
In 1989, when he began his career in venture capital, said Stevens, it was still a tiny corner of the global financial system. Don Valentine and Pierre Lamond at Sequoia Capital took a chance on him and subjected him to an intense—and unforgettable—tutelage. Looking back over his 45-year career in technology, he believes we haven’t seen anything yet. Although he has been deeply involved in AI, the speed and magnitude of its growth have been astonishing, and the world will be largely unrecognizable a decade from now. Silicon Valley will continue at the forefront of this technological shift as it has for every other. But leadership brings responsibility, and we cannot afford complacency or arrogance, said Stevens. We must actively nourish entrepreneurship, protect the ecosystem that enables it, and earn the right to continue to be the place to build the future.
Marc Etkind closed the evening by launching the public phase of CHM’s capital campaign, Power On: Decoding the Past, Igniting the Future. With the help of generous donors, the Museum has already been able to make an impact with funds from generous donors. Learn more and contribute by June 30, 2026, to support CHM as a trusted voice during this time of ever-accelerating change.
Colligan-Burns Family Fund
Yogen and Peggy Dalal
Donna Dubinsky and Len Shustek
Eileen Fagan and Andy Cunningham
Ken Goldman and Susan Valeriote
Jeff Hawkins and Janet Strauss
Meredith and Ray Rothrock
Stephen S. and Paula K. Smith
John and Maureen Chowning
The Cismas Foundation
Rob and Yukari Haitani
Franklin P. Johnson, Jr.
Mary Meeker
Paul and Antje Newhagen
Greg and Laurie Papadopoulos
Harry and Carol Saal
Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Diane L. Souvaine
Marty and Sandy Tenenbaum
Jan and Sylvia Uddenfeldt
House Family Vineyards
Allegra Entertainment & Events
Catered Too, Inc.
Global Gourmet Catering
2026 CHM Awards Celebration | April 25, 2025
