Crowdsourcing Campaign To Bring Nikola Tesla Statue To Silicon Valley Kicks Off

PALO ALTO, Calif., May 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- An online fundraising campaign to bring a statue of Nikola Tesla to Palo Alto, California was launched today on the crowd-funding site Kickstarter.com. Dorrian Porter, a 12 year start-up veteran and former attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, has teamed up with 91 year old local developer Harold Hohbach, the landlord of his last start-up business, to launch the project. 

"When people hear the name Tesla in the Silicon Valley, their next question tends to be, what model do you drive?" said Dorrian Porter. "The Tesla Statue is a gesture to tell the story of the technology entrepreneur who existed long before a company --- or even the Silicon Valley."  

Nikola Tesla is an inventor who immigrated to the United States in 1884, initially to work alongside Thomas Edison. That relationship didn't last, and Tesla is credited with the alternating current inventions that fueled the rise of electric company Westinghouse and made alternating current the standard of electricity we rely on today. Hohbach began his career at Westinghouse in 1946.

Porter, who himself immigrated to the region in 1999 to join Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and left a year later to start his first company, says that Nikola Tesla typifies the choice between creativity and money faced every day by anyone working in the Silicon Valley. Tesla, a prolific inventor, is often cited for his inability to sustain wealth in his lifetime, but his life and work reveals personal satisfaction with a focus on the technology and not the money. 

"I've worked with great individuals in technology and finance in the Valley, but there is no doubt that money questions have a nasty habit of affecting creative decisions on huge areas of opportunity," says Porter. "Nikola Tesla's free thinking around wireless information transfer and energy are more relevant to the future of the Silicon Valley and the planet than they ever have been."

The proposed placement of the statue is nearby the prominent streets of California Avenue and Page Mill Road, on property close to Hohbach's recently approved Park Plaza project. Local artist, Terry Guyer, who has his studio on Edison Way in Menlo Park, has joined the project and built the initial model of the statue, which can be seen on the fundraising site.

Unique rewards awaiting pledges of the campaign include replicas of the statue itself and having your name etched in stone alongside Tesla.

The 30-day fundraising campaign is planning attendance at several local events and schools over the next few weeks, culminating later this year in a statue-unveiling event and tribute dinner featuring high-profile Tesla supporters. More information can be found on the Kickstarter campaign page, on Twitter at @teslastatue & on the Northern Imagination Facebook page.

Local press will be invited to both the statue-unveiling event and tribute dinner. If you are a member of the media interested in covering/attending, please contact Tanya White.

Northern Imagination LLC was founded in 2013 by Dorrian Porter to enable the pursuit of creative projects, ideas and inventions. The company's goal is to advance new ideas in any area that can impact the well-being and happiness of people, especially involving film or photography and ideally related to education and poverty.

For Media Inquiries:
Tanya White
[email protected]
415.254.7134

SOURCE Northern Imagination LLC