Register now: https://www.meetup.com/informs-sfo-chapter/events/314267447/?eventOrigin=group_featured_event
Oil and Chips: A Supply Chain Conundrum
๐ JJ Lake Business Center, 340 E Middlefield Rd, Mountain View, CA
๐ Thursday, May 7, 2026
๐ 5:30 โ 7:30 PM PT
๐ฒ Free | In-person | Panel + Q&A
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Modern supply chains are highly optimized-but increasingly fragile.
Join the INFORMS SF Bay Area Chapter for a panel discussion examining how reliance on a small number of suppliers, regions, and chokepoints creates systemic risk. We'll focus on oil and semiconductors as two critical examples shaping today's global economy.
Topics will include:
- Geopolitical and infrastructure risks (e.g., energy transit routes, concentrated chip manufacturing)
- Single points of failure in global production networks
- Tradeoffs between efficiency, cost, and resilience
- How disruptions propagate across interconnected supply chains
The panel will also explore how Operations Research (OR) enables better decision-making-helping organizations model disruptions, identify bottlenecks, and design more resilient strategies for sourcing, inventory, and capacity planning.
๐น Prof. Hillard Huntington (Stanford University) โ Executive Director of the Energy Modeling Forum, with decades of experience advising governments and industry on energy markets, geopolitical risk, and supply resilience.
๐น Gaurav Sharma (NVIDIA) โ Senior Planner in Supply Chain working on semiconductor capacity planning across wafer, chip, and advanced packaging-bringing a real-world view of how chip supply chains operate under pressure.
๐น Fitore Kelmendi (C3 AI, formerly BP) โ Former refinery engineer with deep expertise in oil and gas operations, now focused on applying AI to improve decision-making across energy systems.
Parking at the venue is free and plentiful!
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Agenda
5:30 โ 6:00 PM: Check-in & Refreshments (Food & Drinks)
6:00 โ 7:00 PM: Panel Discussion
7:00 โ 7:30 PM: Q&A + Wrap-up
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Ideal for professionals and students in supply chain, operations, analytics, and related fields, as well as anyone interested in building more resilient systems in an uncertain world.
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Anita Bowers
Sr Account Manager
Gurobi Optimization
Reno NV
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