Speakers
Head of Autonomous Mobility INRIX
Co-founder & Partner Urban Us
Director Porsche Digital
Co-founder & CEO SoftWheel
Co-founder & CTO FUELL Inc.
CEO Odyssey
Co-founder & CEO Populus
CTO & VP of Engineering Waymo
Director Innovation Lab Hub US Volvo Cars Group
Co-Founder and President Nuro
Director of Product & Design, JUMP Hardware Uber
Chief Information Officer Argo AI
Founder and CEO Damon Motors
Founder & Managing Partner Maniv Mobility
Engineering Lead ATG Prediction Team Uber
Vice President Global Business Development Segway-Ninebot
President & CEO Motional
Director, Robotics Institute & Professor, School of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University
Co-founder & CEO udelv
CTO and Co-Founder Zoox
Mayor City of San Jose
Executive Director Coalition for Reimagined Mobility
Head of Product Skip Scooters
General Manager LADOT
Head of Micromobility Policy Lyft
Founder & Managing Director, Mobility Program Techstars
Co-founder, President & CEO Mobileye, an Intel Company
Partner Bain Capital Ventures
Co -founder & CTO Starsky Robotics
Head of Partner Product & Programs Aurora
Vice President, Research & Advanced Engineering & CTO Ford Motor Company
Partner Eclipse Ventures
CEO & Co-founder holoride
Avery Ash serves as Head of Autonomous Mobility for INRIX, the global leader in connected car services and intelligent movement. Avery leads the company’s global policy engagement and helps shape business strategy in the connected car and autonomous vehicle space. Prior to INRIX, Avery served as Director of Federal Relations for AAA. Where he was responsible for the Association’s federal advocacy on transportation, vehicle technology, mobility and energy issues. Avery also led development and deployment of the Association’s engagement strategy on advanced vehicle technology issues including connected, driverless and electric vehicles. Avery currently serves on the World Economic Forum’s executive working group for Autonomous and Urban Mobility, co-chairs the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Technology Engagement Center’s AV Workgroup, and serves as a founding steering committee member for Partners for Automated Vehicle Education. He has previously served on the Board of Directors of the Electric Drive Transportation Association and the C3 Group’s Connected Car Council, and been selected as an Aspen Institute Socrates Scholar and SAFE Energy Security Fellow. Prior to joining AAA, Avery worked for Congresswoman Chellie Pingree on technology and economic development issues. Avery is a graduate of Bowdoin College with a joint degree in Economics and Anthropology.
Stonly Baptiste is a co-founder and partner with the investment firm Urban.us, the venture fund for startups that make cities and the environment better.
Stephan builds teams and products at the crossroads of mobility and digital lifestyle trends as Director of Digital Business Innovation and Venturing at Porsche Digital in San Jose. Porsche Digital is the competence center for digitalization within Porsche, where new business models and innovative digital products are defined and implemented in close cooperation with Porsche companies globally. The Silicon Valley office focuses specifically on New Business Innovation & Emerging Technology as well as Venture Investments. The Venture investments are concentrated on business models related to customer experience, mobility, and digital lifestyle with a focus on future technologies such as artificial intelligence, predictive and contextual modelling, blockchain, and virtual and augmented reality. Stephan joined Porsche Digital in 2016 as the Corporate Development Lead when the company employed just two other people. Since than he has played an integral role in strategy and product roadmapping to define the company while building the team to more than 100 people globally. Stephan joined the automotive industry in 2008 at VW Group’s Seat brand in Barcelona, Spain, and then held different positions at Volkswagen and Porsche. He studied International Business in Esslingen, Germany, and at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico. In April 2019 Stephan moved to Porsche Digital in San Jose and is currently growing the team in California with entrepreneurs from different backgrounds.
Daniel is a serial entrepreneur who loves to build and lead companies in fast-moving, complex environments. A business leader and startup visionary that founded and led four startup disruptive startup in the fields of mechanical engineering and transportation, social network and market place, cyber security. In 2013 Daniel co-founded SoftWheel an Israeli mobility startup and serves as its CEO. Softwheel design, engineers and manufactures optimized electric vehicle platform making future EVs more efficient, reliable and scalable backed by established partnerships with leading automotive players.
Erik Buell
Co-founder & CTO, FUELL Inc.Erik Is the Founder, former Chairman and CTO of the Buell Motorcycle Company, which eventually merged with Harley-Davidson from 1993 to 2009. Erik is a pioneer of modern race motorcycle technology, as well as a world class engineer and inventor. He created some of the most innovative and usable motorcycles to date, using inventions like a hollow aluminum frame to house the fuel and create chassis rigidity, or a hollow swing arm to house the oil. More than 130,000 motorcycles with the Buell name have been produced to date.
Oliver is co-founder and CEO of Odyssey. Odyssey is pioneering world models, the next frontier of artificial intelligence. Previously, Oliver built driverless cars at Cruise and Voyage.
Pauline Canteneur
Pauline Canteneur earned a master’s degree in business management from EDHEC Business School in France before accepting a position at the French Embassy in Berlin for the Department of Agriculture. Pauline completed her major in entrepreneurship at FGV EBAPE in Rio de Janeiro. She was born to third-generation farmers in the North-Eastern part of France. For three years, Pauline worked as a strategy analyst for the innovation arm of BNP Paribas, L’Atelier. Spending time between the firms’ Paris and San Francisco offices, Pauline specialized in scouting innovative trends in the AgTech and FoodTech sectors. In 2016, she co-authored a report on Data Driven Agriculture which referenced all U.S. companies leveraging the power of data to optimize farming operations. Currently, Pauline works as a business strategy analyst for FarmWise, a startup whose mission is to bring autonomous sustainable farming at scale. Pauline’s focus at FarmWise is to aid in the firm’s organic and sustainable growth by opening new markets, which include new crops and geographical locations and also to serve as a liaison between the private agricultural sector and research communities.
Regina is the CEO and Co-founder of Populus, a data platform for cities to manage the future of mobility. Trusted by leading cities and the world’s largest mobility operators, the Populus platform securely ingests real-time data from shared electric scooters, bikes, and cars, and delivers cities with digital solutions to efficiently manage their curbs and streets. Regina has over a decade of experience in transportation, having served as a research scientist and lecturer at Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UC Davis. Prior to forming Populus, Regina was the Director of Business Development and Strategy at RideScout, an early mobility-as-a-service aggregator that was acquired by moovel, Daimler and BMW’s mobility services unit. Regina has been named a 40 Under 40 by Mass Transit magazine and the San Francisco Business Times. She has a Ph.D. in transportation and energy systems from MIT, and a bachelor’s in computer science from Cornell.
Katie DeWitt
Katie DeWitt has focused her career on developing projects and products that align individual consumers’ interests with a broader social and environmental impact. She loves working in urban mobility because she has the opportunity to make people’s lives easier and make an impact on transportation equity, congestion, pollution, and global carbon emissions. As VP of Product at Scoot, she helps build great user experiences that make it fast and affordable for city residents to get around on clean electric vehicles, as well as building the software and intelligence that powers the company’s daily operations. Prior to Scoot, Katie spent five years at SolarCity and Tesla leading the product team that designed the sales and delivery experience for home energy products, including solar panels, Solar Roof tiles, and Powerwall batteries. She began her career in city government working on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s clean energy and sustainability initiatives, followed by a 2-year adventure in a peaceful rural community in Costa Rica working as a micro-enterprise advisor in the Peace Corps. Katie holds a BA in Ethics, Politics, and Economics from Yale University and an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.
Dmitri Dolgov is the co-CEO of Waymo, an autonomous driving technology company with a mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to get where they’re going. Dmitri is one of the founders of the Google self-driving car project, which began in 2009 and became Waymo in 2016. As co-CEO, Dmitri is responsible for overall company strategy, with his primary focus on the development and deployment of the Waymo Driver, based on a custom, in-house designed, fully autonomous technology stack. Dmitri previously served as Waymo’s CTO. Prior to Waymo, Dmitri worked on autonomous driving efforts at Toyota and at Stanford as part of Stanford’s DARPA Urban Challenge team. Dmitri received his B.S. and M.S. in Physics and Math from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.
Jenny Elfsberg heads up the new innovation community workspace in Mountain View as part of Volvo Group Connected Solutions. The purpose with the hub is to become part of the Silicon Valley ecosystem and collaborate and co-create with different actors in the valley. Jenny and her team focus on mobility and their mission is to explore and innovate with partners such as startups, tech giants, multinational corporations, universities, authorities and decision makes. Jenny has been with Volvo group for 20 years and in her most recent position prior to moving to Silicon Valley in August 2018 she was Director of Volvo Construction Equipment’s (Volvo CE) Emerging Technologies organization since May 2009. Jenny and her global team of 20 research engineers worked to build knowledge and shape the future of the construction industry. The team created a future vision for the company, aiming at triple zeros (zero emissions, zero accidents and zero unplanned stops) and also created the first generations of electric, autonomous and connected concept machines. Jenny has also created a framework and a network with the mission to secure Volvo CE’s innovative capability. Earlier in her career she has held a variety of senior positions, mainly within Engine R&D. Jenny holds a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Linköping Technical University in Sweden and a Licentiate of Engineering degree in Innovation Engineering from Blekinge Technical University in Sweden. Outside of work, Jenny enjoys most sorts of outdoor activities, learning new things, reading and spending time with family.
Dave Ferguson is the Co-Founder and President of Nuro, a self-driving technology company bringing scalable autonomy to robotaxis, commercial fleets, and personally owned vehicles. Nuro’s mission is to make autonomy accessible to all. Before starting Nuro in 2016, Dave was a principal engineer on Google’s self-driving program (now Waymo), where he led the computer vision, machine learning, behavior prediction, and scene understanding teams. He also led the planning group for Carnegie Mellon University’s winning team in the 2007 DARPA Urban Grand Challenge, a competition that helped launch the modern AV industry. Dave holds more than 100 patents and has published over 60 papers on robotics and machine learning. He earned his MS and PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.
Nick Foley is dedicated to combining technology and design to make cities dramatically better places to live. Early in his career, he co-founded GREYSHED, a robotics research firm focused on modernizing architectural construction through automation and graceful human-machine interactions. Since 2011, he has led the hardware product, design, and engineering teams at JUMP (formerly Social Bicycles), as they pioneered dockless bikesharing technology and partnered with communities around the world to create human-scale transportation networks. Being immersed in the forefront of transportation innovation brought early insight into the incredible product experience and revolutionary efficiency that shared electric micromobility could deliver. Nick then led the development as JUMP created, scaled, and refined several generations of industry-defining electric vehicles and supporting technology. He presently leads hardware product and industrial design as JUMP, now part of Uber, grows globally into a new transportation norm: making the default way people move one that is faster, more sustainable, and more fun than ever before.
Summer Craze Fowler serves as Argo AI’s Chief Security Officer. She joined Argo from the CERT Cybersecurity Division of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where she has worked since 2007 and served as technical director for Cybersecurity Risk and Resilience. In her time at CMU, Summer led a team of 60 cybersecurity engineers who focused their work in three key areas: critical infrastructure protection, cybersecurity risk management and insider threat challenges. She also helped develop and teach cybersecurity education programs for corporate board directors and senior executives, and she taught CMU graduate students in cybersecurity policy and governance. Prior to joining CMU, Summer served as a technical project manager at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where she led a team that worked with the Pentagon on issues related to information assurance. She also spent five years at Northrop Grumman Corporation as a software engineer focused on tactical ground systems and situational awareness tools for the U.S. military. Summer holds a Master of Science in Information Science and Telecommunications and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh.
Jay Giraud is an automotive tech entrepreneur focused on launching companies that redefine mobility. As the founder, inventor and CEO for three automotive tech startups, Jay has built successful products and companies on unproven business models. By building high-performing teams his startups have found success from forming industry leading go-to-market partnerships and created over $200 million in market value to date. As a seasoned speaker, Jay knows how to connect with audiences and has spoken at dozens of industry events in automotive and cleantech conferences worldwide. Before his startup pursuits, he traveled the world conquering extreme mountaintops as a top ranked professional snowboarder. Today, Jay focuses his efforts at Damon X Labs, creating a safer, smarter, self-learning platform for a market of more than 160 million motorcycles sold annually.
Michael Granoff is founder and Managing Partner of Maniv Mobility, a venture capital fund based in Tel Aviv which invests exclusively in the new mobility future. Founded in 2015, Maniv has a portfolio of over 25 mobility startups, in Israel, the US and beyond. They include companies developing sensors, software, simulation, localization, data monetization, autonomous systems, over-the-air updates, automotive cyber-security, micromobility, new mobility business models and more. Aside from several startup boards, Mr. Granoff serves on the board of Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE), a Washington, DC-based policy and advocacy organization he helped establish in 2004. Past board roles included that of electric car network developer Better Place. He has been involved in three US Presidential campaigns and in 2010 received Brandeis University’s Asper Award for Global Entrepreneurship. Mr. Granoff holds a B.A. from Tufts University, an MBA and JD from Kellogg, Northwestern University. He is a veteran marathon runner and lives just outside of Tel Aviv with his wife and four children.
Clark Haynes
Engineering Lead ATG Prediction Team, UberClark Haynes is the Engineering Lead for Uber ATG’s Prediction Team, developing state of the art methods to predict how real world road users will interact with self- driving vehicles. Prediction is a key component in developing autonomous systems, drawing upon technical areas such as machine learning, data science, robotics, and software engineering. Clark is an avid bike commuter, focused on advancing autonomous rideshare to make our streets safer and more efficient for all modes of transport. Prior to joining Uber, Clark was software lead for Carnegie Mellon’s CHIMP robot, one of the winners of the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge, and previously conducted research as an Intelligence Community Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. Clark holds a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and B.S.E. from the University of Michigan.
Tony Ho
Vice President Global Business Development, Segway-NinebotTony is leading Segway-Ninebot’s effort in developing mid to long term growth opportunities, and building strategic partnership with key players in the mobility ecosystem, including municipalities, infrastructure providers, automotive and tourism industries. Tony was a serial entrepreneur and an advisor to a number of early stage technology companies. He was formerly board member and Chief Operating Officer for Fangjia.com, a home valuation website based on big data and vertical search technology. Prior to that he was VP of Product and Director of Business Development for Myvu/MicroOptical, as well as other roles in technology early stage companies. Tony also worked for Procter & Gamble as a Manager in a variety of functions. Tony attended Harvard Business School where he earned his MBA, the University of Toronto, where he earned a M.Sc. Degree in Mechanical Engineering, and the University of Manitoba where he earned a B.Sc. Degree in Mechanical & Industrial Engineering.
Karl Iagnemma is an authority on robotics and driverless vehicles. His commentary has been published and broadcast worldwide on Bloomberg, The Economist, CNBC, and BBC, among others. As former director of the Robotic Mobility Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), his research resulted in more than 150 technical publications, 50 issued or filed patents, and numerous edited volumes, including books on the DARPA Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge autonomous vehicle competitions. In 2017, Iagnemma was named one of the “Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs” by Goldman Sachs and designated a member of the “Recode 100” list of technology influencers. He holds MS and PhD degrees from MIT, where he was a National Science Foundation fellow, and a BS from the University of Michigan, where he graduated first in his class. Iagnemma co-founded nuTonomy, Inc. in 2013 and saw the company through acquisition by Aptiv in late 2017. He is now president and CEO of Motional, which was formed from a joint venture by Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv in 2020. Motional is making driverless vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality.
Matthew Johnson-Roberson is the director of Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute and a professor in the School of Computer Science. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Sydney in 2010. He has held prior postdoctoral appointments with the Centre for Autonomous Systems (CAS) at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and the Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney. He co-founded Refraction AI, a last-mile autonomous vehicle delivery company. He has worked in robotic perception since the first DARPA grand challenges in the early 2000s, and his group focuses on enabling robots to better see and understand their environment.
Daniel Laury is the co-founder and CEO of Udelv, the world leader in autonomous deliveries. In January 2018, alongside his team of engineers, he spearheaded the world’s first public road autonomous delivery in California. To date Udelv has successfully completed almost 1000 deliveries. Prior to Udelv, Daniel founded and ran several companies, including Geary LSF, the 4th largest US independent digital marketing agency according to Advertising Age. Laury is also an investor in high tech through his VC fund, The Explorer Group and Chairman of Halt Homelessness, a nonprofit organization he created to combat homelessness in San Francisco. He holds an MBA from top French business school ESSEC and was Co-Chair of SEMPO San Francisco.
Jesse Levinson co-founded Zoox in 2014 and is the company’s Chief Technical Officer (CTO). He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University and completed his Computer Science Ph.D. and Postdoc under Sebastian Thrun at Stanford University, where he developed algorithms for the $1M-winning entry in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge and went on to lead the self-driving car team for five years. Levinson also co-created Pro HDR, the first HDR photography app for smartphones, which sold more than a million copies.
Sam Liccardo
Mayor, City of San JoseSince Mayor Sam Liccardo took office in 2015, San Jose has thrived. In his very first year, Sam settled intense battles over pension reform with 11 unions, saving taxpayers $3 billion over the next three decades and enabling the restoration of San Jose’s police force. Since then, he has led the most successful period of economic growth in the City’s history, announcing major expansions from employers like Adobe, Apple, Broadcom, Google,. Sam has also implemented innovative approaches to reduce homelessness—such as converting motels, expanding work-first programs, and building “tiny home” villages—while working with community partners to house more than 1,000 homeless veterans. Furthermore, Sam has helped broaden prosperity in San Jose by launching after-school programs in less affluent neighborhoods, providing jobs for 2,000 at-risk teens, teaming with community colleges to eliminate tuition for low income students, and lifting the minimum wage across the region. Sam has also co-led successful measures to bring BART and other transit improvements to San Jose, and protect our hillsides and open spaces from sprawling development. In 2018, San Jose residents overwhelmingly re-elected Sam, with 76% of the vote.
Alisyn Malek is the Executive Director for the Coalition for Reimagined Mobility. A change maker in the mobility and automotive sectors, Malek has experience leading organizations, driving investments and developing products. Malek focuses on driving consensus among automakers, global mobility players and regulators in advancing mobility policy. From EV product development, corporate venture, and strategy at General Motors to developing the first-of-its-kind autonomous vehicle transportation solution as the co-founder and COO of May Mobility, Malek has a deep understanding of the automotive and emerging transportation industries. Malek is also the founder and CEO of Middle Third, a boutique consultancy focused on go-to-market mobility strategies.
Shalin Mantri is Head of Product for Skip, a leading micro-mobility operator in several US cities. He is passionate about empowering people with safe, seamless, and accessible transportation. In pursuit of this mission, Shalin joined Uber as one of their first first product managers. He led Uber’s rider experience team, shipping features that radically improved the experience for millions of people. He went on to design and launch the company’s internal A/B testing platform, setting industry standards for how to run mobile app and marketplace experiments. Most recently, he led a technical product team at Uber’s self-driving cars program (ATG), covering simulation, mapping, machine learning, data platforms, and business intelligence. Shalin is a Stanford alum with degrees in Computer Science, Economics, and Management Science & Engineering.
Seun Phillips
Seun Phillips is the Managing Director of Planet M, an initiative of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC). Phillips joined MEDC in 2017 as the Managing Director, he is responsible for growing operations, partnerships and technology development within Michigan’s connected autonomous vehicle industry. Prior to joining MEDC, Phillips served as the Vice President of Education and Engagement at the Michigan Science Center in Detroit, MI. Phillips was responsible for programming and developing partnerships between corporations, schools, foundations and community organizations. Phillips started his professional career as a Senior Electrical Engineer at Motorola Mobile Devices, where he focused on audio circuitry and accessory compatibility. Phillips went on to co-found the Chicago-based non-profit, Project SYNCERE, with the mission to increase the number of underrepresented and disadvantaged K-12th grade students pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Phillips also founded STEMNETICS with the mission to prepare students with 21st Century Skills through the utilization of hands-on STEM activities throughout Michigan. Phillips is responsible for securing contracts, grant funding and strategic partnerships for schools and non-profit organizations. Phillips graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a minor in mathematics. Phillips received the Five Under Ten from his alma mater to recognize his professional achievements and contributions to the community-at-large. He also received the Conversations Awards, which highlighted Chicago’s most dynamic movers and shakers within Entrepreneurship, Medicine and Non-Profit businesses. Phillips serves on the Board of Directors for Project SYNCERE and the Folu Phillips Foundation.
Seleta Reynolds is General Manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) appointed by the Administration of Mayor Eric Garcetti. She leads a multi-faceted organization with an annual budget of $650 million. LADOT’s 2,000 employees are responsible for managing over 7,500 miles of streets, 37,000 parking meters, and the most advanced traffic signal system in the country, with over 46,000 traffic lights. LADOT transit carries 24 million rides annually. The agency is responsible for implementation of $250 million grant-funded projects, directing traffic for over 2,000 special events, and overseeing taxi and medical transport franchises. Ms. Reynolds is responsible for implementing Great Streets for Los Angeles, a plan to reduce traffic deaths, double the number of people riding bikes, and expand access to transportation choices for Angelenos and the region. Ms. Reynolds has overseen the buildout of over 33,600 square feet of plazas and parklets, the launch of Los Angeles’ Vision Zero initiative, and implementation of the first department-wide employee performance coaching initiative. She is most proud of the construction of Los Angeles’ first parking-protected bikeway; hosting the city’s first artist-in-residence in a city department; and launching the city’s Transportation Technology Strategy to prepare for connected and autonomous vehicles. Ms. Reynolds has over 20 years of transportation experience throughout the United States. Prior to accepting her current position, Ms. Reynolds served as a manager in the Livable Streets sub-division at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, where she worked on the city’s Vision Zero capital plan and oversaw the launch of Bay Area Bikeshare. She spent ten years as an Associate with Fehr & Peers consulting firm, where she managed the firm’s San Francisco and Seattle offices as well as the companywide bicycle and pedestrian discipline. She began her career as the Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator for the City of Oakland where she launched the city’s first bike parking program, Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan, and oversaw the installation of the first sharrows in California. She has advised transportation technology companies like WalkScore, contributed to the state-of-the-practice as an Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals Board Member, mentored young professionals through Women’s Transportation Seminar, and nurtured research on Transportation Research Board committees. Ms. Reynolds serves as the President of the National Association for City Transportation Officials. She graduated from Brown University with a degree in American History
Caroline joined Lyft in 2018 to start the company’s new bike, scooter and pedestrian policy program. In this new role, Caroline leads efforts to form strong partnerships with cities on policy initiatives like Vision Zero and complete street redesigns, as well as helps realize specific goals around bike and scooter shared mobility. Prior to Lyft, Caroline spent 2 months at ofo, and prior to that 12 years as deputy director of Transportation Alternatives in New York City. At TransAlt, Caroline led the advocacy campaigns to bring Vision Zero to the United States, establish the country’s largest bike share program, Citi Bike, and set national standards for urban complete street design. In 2013, in partnership with traffic violence victims, Caroline founded Families for Safe Streets, a grassroots, victim-led movement to eradicate reckless driving that now has chapters in cities across the United States. Caroline holds a BA in Anthropology from Columbia University.
Ted Serbinski is a tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist investing in founders around the world building the future of transportation. Ted is the Managing Director and founder of the Mobility program for Techstars, which is the the longest running mobility startup accelerator program in the world. He has invested in 33 startups in 30 months that have raised $45M valued at over $200M. Two have already been acquired. Ted also is the founding curator of the Startup Expo part of Automobil-D at the North American International Auto Show. In 2011, Ted relocated from San Francisco to Detroit as a founding partner at Detroit Venture Partners, a $55M venture capital fund that invested in 25 startups. For Ted’s work in catalyzing the Detroit startup scene, he has been recognized as a Champion of the New Economy by Junior Achievement. He also has been awarded the Crain’s 40 Under 40, dBusiness 30 in their 30s, Oakland County Elite 40 under 40, and the Detroit Techweek 100. Prior to moving to Detroit, Ted was the CTO and co-founder of the largest blog network for moms online that was acquired by Lifetime Television in 2008. Before that, Ted was one of the lead open source developers on the Drupal framework, committing over 1000 patches. He was an early pioneer building enterprise-grade Drupal websites for Fortune 500 clients, including Sony, MTV, and Lifetime Television. Today Drupal is one of the largest open source communities in the world powering 2.3% of all websites online. Ted graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Computer Engineering. Ted resides in Metro Detroit with his beautiful wife and 3 kids under the age of 3.
Amnon Shashua
Co-founder, President & CEO, Mobileye, an Intel CompanyProfessor Shashua is the President & CEO of Mobileye and a Senior Vice President at Intel Corporation. He also holds the Sachs Chair in computer science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Widely regarded as an expert in computer vision and machine learning, Shashua has published over 120 papers in the field of machine learning and computational vision, holds more than 45 patents, and has founded three startups in the fields of computer vision and machine learning. In 1999, he co-founded Mobileye, which is a widely recognized leader in automated driving and advanced driving assistance systems. Intel acquired Mobileye in 2017. Today, more than 30 million cars rely on Mobileye technology to make their vehicles safer. Mobileye’s autonomous vehicle platform will be launched in 2021. Earlier this year, Shashua was recognized as the Electronic Imaging (EI) Scientist of the Year by the Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T) for his pivotal contributions to computer vision and machine learning, and for advancing autonomous driving and wearable assistive devices for the blind and visually-impaired.
Sarah Smith is a partner at Bain Capital Ventures where she primarily invests in early- to mid-stage companies across a range of sectors including consumer, SaaS, and marketplaces. Sarah has been deeply involved in high-growth startups as an executive, investor, and student at institutions including Quora, Facebook, Graph Ventures, and Stanford. Before joining BCV in 2018, Sarah was vice president of advertising sales and operations at Quora. She led the launch of monetization, onboarding more than 500 advertisers to the self-service ads platform. From 2012 to 2016, Sarah was vice president of human resources, scaling the company from 40 to 200 employees across all hiring from university to executive search. She built the HR and operations teams responsible for company culture, compensation, benefits, equity refreshers, performance reviews, HRIS/ATS implementation, people development, policy enforcement, and content moderation. From 2008 to 2012, Sarah held various leadership roles at Facebook. As director of online operations, she launched teams including the Austin office, mid-market account management, and the SMB growth team. Her team grew revenue to $1 billion ARR while reducing churn and increasing customer satisfaction. Sarah holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and lives in Palo Alto with her family.
Kartik Tiwari is the CTO and co-founder of Starsky Robotics, a driverless truck startup which aims to make roads safer and allow truck drivers to work closer to home. Starsky Robotics began moving freight on the highway in early 2017, and one year later became the first company to take the safety driver out of a truck when it drove fully unmanned for seven miles on a closed road in Florida. In June 2019, Starsky did the first ever fully-unmanned test on a public highway with live traffic. Kartik has a background in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.
Lia Theodosiou-Pisanelli
Head of Partner Product & Programs, AuroraLia Theodosiou-Pisanelli is Head of Partner Product and Programs at Aurora where she leads the product development and program management for all of Aurora’s Partnerships. Prior to Aurora, Lia was Director of Business Development for Lyft Level 5, where she built strategic alliances with critical automotive, tier 1, and tier 2 suppliers to accelerate autonomous technology development. Prior to Lyft, she was Head of Global Government Relations at Square, where she led worldwide engagement with government and industry regulators and helped the company navigate market and product expansion in both nascent and highly regulated environments. Before joining the tech industry, Lia served in the U.S. Trade Representative at The White House.
Dr. Ken Washington is Vice President of Research and Advanced Engineering and Chief Technology Officer, Ford Motor Company, effective June 1, 2017. In this role, Washington will continue to lead Ford’s worldwide research organization, overseeing the development and implementation of the company’s technology strategy and plans, and playing a key role in the company’s expansion into emerging mobility opportunities. He reports to Jim Farley, president, New Businesses, Technology & Strategy, Ford Motor Company. Prior to joining Ford, he was vice president of the Advanced Technology Center at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. In this role, Washington was responsible for leading a team of scientists and engineers in performing research and development in space science and related R&D. Previously, he served as Lockheed Martin Corporation’s first chief privacy officer, a role in which he built the company’s privacy program, set the privacy strategy direction and established a team of privacy professionals to execute the strategy. Washington also previously served as the vice president and chief technology officer for the Lockheed Martin internal IT organization, where he was responsible for shaping the future of the corporation’s information technology enterprise. Prior to joining Lockheed Martin in February 2007, Washington served as chief information officer for Sandia National Laboratories, where he also previously served in a variety of technical, management, and program leadership positions. He has a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degree in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University and is a fellow of the MIT Seminar XXI program on International Relations.
Seth invests in full-stack technology companies that improve the physical world. He is fascinated by the notion that connected computer, in a number of different form factors, embedded in the physical world will change every industry and dramatically shift how humans live their lives. He focuses his time on building businesses that use: automation technologies to improve the movement of people and goods, next generation manufacturing technologies, and consumer hardware to facilitate state of the art in computer vision. Previously, Seth was an investor at GE Ventures where he invested in industrial hardware technologies focusing on robotics, additive manufacturing, and industrial IOT technologies. Seth is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College. He spends his free time running, cycling, snowboarding, surfing, and enjoying the beautiful NorCal outdoors.
Nils Wollny brings extensive experience in strategy, digital business, and innovation to his current role as CEO of holoride, a spin-out from Audi focusing on the next generation of in-car entertainment. Nils’ passion for mobility and media led him to co-found holoride in 2018, and since then, holoride has been named the “Best of CES 2019” and acknowledged by TIME Magazine as one of “The 100 Best Inventions of 2019” Additionally, Nils was recently named a “Rising Star” for 2020 by Automotive News Europe. In 2018, German Automobilwoche acknowledged him as a “40 under 40” high-potential managers. Prior to co-founding holoride, Nils led one of Europe’s leading digital agencies as Managing Director before joining Audi as Head of Digital Business. In this role, he was responsible for digital services and platforms.
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