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The wife of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and the co-founder of Instagram are among the notable guests for tonight’s State of the Union address by President Obama.
The presence of Laurene Powell Jobs and Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger signals that at least a part of the State of the Union will focus on technology, which President Obama has long argued can help improve the country’s fortunes.
Releasing the guest list for the State of the Union address has increasingly become a way for the White House to call attention to an issue or initiative, using an individual to personify a theme or cause it would like to pursue.
Jobs was among the guests at a dinner President Obama hosted that included several technology luminaries.
Others on tonight’s guest list include Debbie Bosanek, the longtime secretary for Warren Buffett, whom Obama frequently uses as an example in his criticism of the nation’s tax policy. Buffett has complained that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
President Obama has made the case for using technology to produce new jobs and revamp existing industries, including the health care field.
Dr. Hiroyuki Fujita, the founder and CEO of Quality Electrodynamics, which makes devices and detectors for imaging machines for the health care industry, will also be in attendance. Adam Rapp, a cancer survivor who the White House has said benefited from the health care overhaul plan, is set to sit in First Lady Michelle Obama’s box.
