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Home > News > Hats off
Weili Dai at commencement

Hats off

Berkeley Engineer Spring 2012
May 1, 2012 by Kap Stann
This article appeared in Berkeley Engineer magazine, Spring 2012

“Graduates are always told to follow your passions. Most of the time I find that people follow their enthusiasms—until they run out. Passion is a very different thing. Following your passion means a willingness to give everything you have every day. Anything you aren’t truly committed to—night and day—is not really your passion.”

– Weili Dai


Marvell co-founder Weili Dai (B.S.’84 CS) delivered the commencement speech to the college’s baccalaureate graduates at the Greek Theatre on May 12. A self-described “geek” who is passionate about technology, Dai encouraged the graduates with her own story.

“If a young girl from Shanghai can come to America knowing almost no English, graduate from Berkeley, raise a beautiful family, build a meaningful career, keep her traditional values and principles and co-found one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world,” Wei told the graduates, “truly anything is possible in America.”

Dai started Marvell Technology Group in 1995 with her husband, Sehat Sutardja (M.S.’85, Ph.D.’88 EECS), and his brother, Pantas Sutardja (B.S.’83, M.S.’85, Ph.D.’88 EECS). Sutardja Dai Hall was named in their honor. Weili and Sehat are the proud parents of two Berkeley Engineers: Christopher (B.S.’10 EECS), now a doctoral student here; and Nicholas (B.S.’12 EECS), who graduated on May 12. In all, more than 1,300 students earned baccalaureate, master’s or doctoral degrees from the college in 2012.

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