Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google Inc., will help launch Homecoming Weekend when he speaks as Cornell's 31st Hatfield Fellow in Economic Education.

His lecture, titled "Our Connected Age," will be Sept. 20 at 5 p.m. in Statler Hall's Alice Statler Auditorium. The lecture is free; space is limited.

Since joining Google in 2001, Schmidt has helped grow the company from a Silicon Valley startup to a global leader in technology. As executive chairman, he is responsible for Google's external matters: building partnerships and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership, as well as advising the CEO and senior leadership on business and policy issues.

Schmidt served as Google's chief executive officer 2001-11, overseeing the company's technical and business strategy alongside founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Under his leadership, Google dramatically scaled its infrastructure and diversified its product offerings while maintaining a strong culture of innovation.

Prior to joining Google, Schmidt was chairman and CEO of Novell and chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems Inc. Previously he served on the research staff at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Bell Laboratories and Zilog. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University and a master's degree and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California-Berkeley.

Schmidt is a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the Prime Minister's Advisory Council in the United Kingdom. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2006 and inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a fellow in 2007. He also chairs the board of the New America Foundation, and since 2008 has been a trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.

The Robert S. Hatfield Fellowship in Economic Education is the highest honor Cornell bestows on individuals from the corporate sector and serves as a platform for exchange of ideas between the academic and corporate communities. These corporate leaders are invited yearly to come to campus, deliver a public lecture of significance and meet with faculty and students as Robert S. Hatfield fellows. The Robert S. Hatfield Fund for Economic Education was established in 1980 by the Continental Group Foundation to honor its retiring chairman, president and CEO Robert S. Hatfield '37.