NEWS RELEASE – June 3, 2008 – National Instruments today announced that Andrew Hargadon, the director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and the Energy Efficiency Center at the University of California, Davis, will deliver the closing keynote address at NIWeek 2008, the premier event for graphical system design scheduled for Aug. 5-7 in Austin, Texas. Hargadon, author of the book “How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate,” will share his insights on innovation and how it can meet the Earth’s energy challenges with the more than 3,000 engineers, scientists and educators in attendance.

“We are excited to welcome Andrew Hargadon to NIWeek as this year’s guest keynote speaker,” said John Hanks, National Instruments vice president of product marketing for data acquisition and industrial control. “Andrew’s perspective on how companies innovate by uniting the right people and technologies is especially relevant to NIWeek attendees who are exploring green engineering as the solution for more efficient and cost-effective applications.”

Hargadon has spent more than a decade researching innovation management and the role of design in managing technology transitions, including how they are applied to the development and commercialization of sustainable technologies. His work has been used by organizations such as Hewlett-Packard, Canadian Health Services, the U.S. Navy and several startups. Hargadon also is an associate professor of corporate executive programs on technology management at the Graduate School of Management at UC Davis and serves on the advisory boards of several startup companies.

Prior to founding the UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship, Hargadon taught in the Product Design Program at Stanford University and worked as a product design engineer and project leader for Apple Inc. At Apple, he served on the design team for the Macintosh and PowerBook products. Hargadon received his doctorate from the Department of Management Science and Engineering in the Stanford University School of Engineering, where he was named Boeing Fellow and Sloan Foundation Future Professor of Manufacturing. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford University’s Product Design Program in the Mechanical Engineering Department.

About NIWeek
Since 1995, thousands of engineers, scientists and educators worldwide have gathered at NIWeek to learn about cost-efficient, flexible technologies for creating advanced test, control and design solutions. NIWeek 2008 begins Aug. 5 for three full days of interactive technical sessions, summits and hands-on workshops. Readers can register at www.ni.com/niweek.

About National Instruments
National Instruments (www.ni.com) is transforming the way engineers and scientists design, prototype and deploy systems for measurement, automation and embedded applications. NI empowers customers with off-the-shelf software such as NI LabVIEW and modular cost-effective hardware, and sells to a broad base of more than 25,000 different companies worldwide, with no one customer representing more than 3 percent of revenue and no one industry representing more than 10 percent of revenue. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 4,800 employees and direct operations in nearly 40 countries. For the past nine years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America.