TC Sessions: Mobility 2022
May 18 – 20, 2022 — San Mateo
Speakers
Sterling Anderson
Co-founder & Chief Product OfficerAurora
Maggie Bachenberg
Co-founder & CEOPointz
Victoria Beasley
General PartnerPrelude Ventures
Tarik Bolat
CEO and CofounderGPR
Lisa Mae Brunson
Founder & Chief VisionaryWonder Women Tech
Oliver Cameron
CEOOdyssey
Shuyang Cheng
Tech Lead Manager, PerceptionPony.ai
Yoon Choi
PartnerMuirwoods Ventures
Regina Clewlow
Co-founder & CEOPopulus
Doug Davenport
Founder, Executive DirectorProspectSV
Jon Denby
Founder & CEOStreetlogic
Herbert Diess
CEOVolkswagen Group
Dmitri Dolgov
CTO & VP of EngineeringWaymo
John Du
PartnerGM Ventures
Summer Fowler
Chief Corporate Responsibility OfficerArgo AI
Maxime Gariel
Chief Technology OfficerXwing
Ralph Gilles
Chief Design OfficerStellantis
Riccardo Giraldi
Senior Director of ExperienceZoox
Marcus Greer
Equity Investment AnalystCapital International Investors
Gary Gysin
CEOWisk Aero
Mar Hershenson
Founding Managing PartnerPear VC
Dr. Alex Ivanenko
Cofounder and CEOHyPoint
Omer Keilaf
Co-Founder & CEOInnoviz Technologies
Rachel Kellam
Product ManagerAppen
Jesse Levinson
CTO and Co-FounderZoox
Yanbing Li
Senior VP, EngineeringAurora Innovation
Alisyn Malek
Executive DirectorCoalition for Reimagined Mobility
Laura Major
CTOMotional
Richard Meaux
COOExro Technologies
Charlie Miller
Distinguished Security EngineerCruise
Ritu Narayan
Founder & CEOZūm
Alex Nesic
Co-founderDrover AI
Taylor Ogan
Co-founder & CEOSnow Bull Capital,
Damilola Olokesusi
CEO and Co-founderShuttlers
Wilson Pang
Chief Technology OfficerAppen
Saswat Panigrahi
Vice President, Strategy, Product Management & Data ScienceWaymo
Trevor Pawl
Chief Mobility OfficerMichigan Office of Future Mobility and Electrification
Jun Pei
CEO & CofounderCepton
Scott Plank
FounderJSP Ventures
Somnath Ray
Founder & CEOCLIP
Avinash Rugoobur
PresidentArrival
Austin Russell
Founder & CEOLuminar
Gabriel Scheer
Director, Innovation, Mobility & EnergyElemental Excelerator
Cyrus Sigari
Co-founder & Managing PartnerUP.Partners
Bonny Simi
Head of Air Operations & PeopleJoby Aviation
Joe Speed
VP of ProductApex.AI
Sven Strohband
Partner & Managing DirectorKhosla Ventures
Sarah Tariq
Vice President, Autonomous Driving SoftwareNVIDIA
Peter Treadway
CIOACTON INC
Amisha Vadalia
Senior Director of OperationsPlus
Chris Valasek
Director of Security EngineeringCruise
Trina Van Pelt
VP & Sr. Managing DirectorIntel Capital
Shelby Winkler
Senior Vice President of Programs & OperationsCavnue
Nils Wollny
CEO & Co-founderholoride
Candice Xie
Co-founder & CEOVeo
Rebecca Yeung
Corporate VP Operations Science & Advanced TechnologyFedEx
Yimeng Zhang
VP of Engineering & U.S. Site LeadPony.ai
Jiajun Zhu
Co-founder & CEONuro
Sterling Anderson is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Aurora, the company delivering the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. A longtime developer of autonomous vehicle technology, Sterling developed the MIT Intelligent Co-Pilot, a shared autonomy framework that paved the way for broad advances in cooperative control of human-machine systems. In 2014, he joined Tesla, where he led the design, development, and launch of the Tesla Model X and then led the team that delivered Tesla Autopilot. Sterling holds several patents and over a dozen publications in autonomous vehicle systems and earned his Masters and Ph.D. from MIT.
Sterling's Sessions
The Path to Commercializing Autonomous Trucking
Aurora has been running a pilot program with FedEx to haul goods between Dallas and Houston via self-driving Paccar trucks since September 2021. As with most other autonomous freight pilots, human safety operators are present in the vehicles, but Aurora’s goal is to operate its trucks fully autonomously by the end of next year. We’ll check in on the pilot’s progress so far, and implications for the future of autonomous trucking.
Maggie is the CEO and co-founder of Pointz, a safety-focused mapping app for bikes and scooters that leverages crowdsourcing. She got into cycling during her gap year when she did a cross-country ride from Virginia to California, cycling over 3700 miles. Maggie is a graduating senior at Brown University and majored in Environmental Studies, with a focus on urban transportation. During college, she led the women’s entrepreneurship team and was an Analyst Fellow at Franklin Advisory, a VC consulting firm. She also played #2 on the Brown Women’s Rugby Team throughout her time at Brown. She is originally from southern Minnesota and now lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Maggie's Sessions
Startup Spotlight
Meet three early stage startups that are building hardware and software onto existing platforms to improve transportation in cities.
Victoria is General Partner at Prelude Ventures, where her climate tech investments span mobility, food & agriculture, clean energy, sustainable apparel, and carbon markets. Prior to Prelude Ventures, Victoria worked on climate change strategy at BCG and started an agriculture supply chain company. Earlier, she led Finance at a major solar manufacturer. Victoria holds an MBA and MS in Environment and Resources from Stanford University. She also holds a BS in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she was a Copland Scholar. Victoria lives in San Francisco with her husband and young son.
Victoria's Sessions
TechCrunch Mobility Pitch-off
The industry’s brightest entrepreneurs will take the stage in front of a live audience and a panel of industry experts, pitching revolutionary technologies.
Tarik Bolat is the CEO and co-founder of WaveSense.
Tarik's Sessions
A New Sensing Paradigm: How GPR Uses Subterranean Maps to Enable Automated Driving in Any Condition
Automakers and AV companies use GPR’s subterranean mapping and localization platform to deliver a safe automated driving experience without relying on clear lane markings, cooperative weather and lighting, or stable visual landmarks. GPR is expanding where and when consumer vehicles with automated features and AVs can operate, opening up new markets and bringing a level of autonomy that can earn the public’s trust. GPR CEO Tarik Bolat will detail how GPR’s product works, how automakers and AV companies are using it today, and what it means for the future of high volume passenger vehicle autonomy, robotaxis, and automated freight.
Lisa Mae Brunson is Chief Visionary and Founder of Wonder Women Tech, host of the Wonder Women Tech Show Podcast, and a speaker, author, and a Social Innovation Architect. She serves as Chair for the Commission for Technology and Innovation for the City of Long Beach, and serves on the board for CSULB Innovation and Entrepreneurship. As a Black, Latina and Indigenous female, Lisa Mae is passionate about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging and Humanity. She builds programs and initiatives working with Fortune 500 Companies, Government Entities, Schools and Universities, Organizations, and individuals to address the challenges stemming from lack of inclusion, discrimination, systemic racism, gender parity and more.
Lisa Mae's Sessions
Creating Ethical and Inclusive Solutions for Mobility Tech
This session will explore the opportunities mobility startups and companies have when building ethical and inclusive solutions into the infrastructure of their product, and/or company culture. We’ll deep dive into an “AMA” style and thoughtful discussion around innovating a multi-billion dollar industry with social innovation in mind.
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.
Oliver's Sessions
Turning an AV Innovation into a Product
Autonomous vehicle technology has evolved from the confines of academic research to living labs — aka testing on closed tracks and public roads. Now, a handful of companies, including Cruise and Motional are trying to turn their innovations into a product that not only has the technical capability to navigate city streets, but is approachable and easy for people to use. Cruise VP of product and former Voyage co-founder Oliver Cameron and Motional CTO Laura Major will cover the technical and deployment challenges to creating a product people can and will want to use.
Shuyang Cheng is a Tech Lead Manager for the Perception team on detection, segmentation and scene understanding in Pony.ai. She leads the effort to develop and launch cutting-edge machine learning models on 3D/2D detection & segmentation and evolves the Perception system to better understand pedestrians, vehicles, and complex scenes on the road. Shuyang holds an M.S. in Computer Software Engineering from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Shuyang's Sessions
How Pony.ai Navigates Diverse Traffic Scenarios and Inclement Weather Globally
At Pony.ai, we aim to deliver autonomous mobility everywhere by building safe and reliable autonomous driving technology. Since our founding in 2016 in Fremont, California, we have been pioneering autonomous mobility services that benefit global users in 5 cities across the US and China. With 6.2 million autonomous miles driven, Pony.ai’s core autonomous driving technology enables the “virtual driver” to navigate through diverse traffic scenarios and inclement weather smoothly and safely.
Yoon has been a Venture Investor and strategic partner to many Silicon Valley start-ups/founders for 18 years prior to Muirwoods. Yoon founded a seed fund, Forest Ventures focusing in automotive sector and was aninvestment director at SAIC capital, one of the leaders in China’s automotiveindustry. Before SAIC, she led the Corporate Venture Group at Maxim Integrated,where she led multiple strategic technology acquisitions and venture investments. Earlier in her career, Yoon was one of the founding members at Samsung Ventures.
Yoon's Sessions
How to Land Early-Stage Funding
Spoiler alert: Uber for X is no longer a differentiator. Mobility isn’t a nascent vertical, and sector startups seeking funding should consider that advantage. Investors don’t need to explain the venture-sized opportunity in the transportation industry; instead they want to see contrarian growth – whether that’s a new angle on an old technology, or profitability. TechCrunch is bringing together three venture capitalists – Yoon Choi from Muirwoods Ventures, Mar Hershenson from Pear VC and Gabriel Scheer from Elemental – to talk about their investment strategies, what’s hot, and what’s not.
TechCrunch Mobility Pitch-off
The industry’s brightest entrepreneurs will take the stage in front of a live audience and a panel of industry experts, pitching revolutionary technologies.
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.
Regina's Sessions
The Race to Code and Monetize the Curb
Everyone — from on-demand delivery to scooters to autonomous ridehailing — needs a piece of the curb to operate. We’ll talk about how smart cities are leveraging technology and platforms to manage and price this precious resource to deliver a safer, more sustainable mobility future.
Doug Davenport is the Founder of Prospect Silicon Valley, a nonprofit organization focused on supporting innovative startups in the transportation, energy, and infrastructure sectors. Since its beginnings in 2013, ProspectSV has grown to engage more than 65 high-impact startups and corporate partners and has implemented $30M in grant funding and $80M in public financing to improve the lives and surroundings of people in the Bay Area. Doug is an active member of the Bay Area Council and is a founding member of both the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator Program and the Innovate Energy Network. He holds master’s degrees in civil engineering and business from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Doug's Sessions
The Future of Fleets
Everything about Mobility is changing, from traditional public transit to ride sharing to a wave of electric vehicles, bikes, and scooters. New mobility requires more than just vehicles – we need on-site power, charging networks, and digital platforms to manage fueling, maintenance, logistics, and more. With more than 375,000 public sector vehicles and buses in California alone, vehicle fleets represent a significant opportunity to quickly achieve scale in green mobility. But the customer is different from other commercial and industrial customers. Let’s talk about the needs of institutional customers, and how to win in this unique market.
Former iPhone Product Designer, Head of Hardware at Rylo 360 Camera (backed by Sequoia & Accel). Built AI-based computer vision systems for Uber’s JUMP fleets.
Jon's Sessions
Startup Spotlight
Meet three early stage startups that are building hardware and software onto existing platforms to improve transportation in cities.
Herbert Diess was born in 1958. After holding a number of management positions at Robert Bosch GmbH and BMW, both in Germany and abroad, he was appointed CEO of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand from 2015 until 2020. In 2018, Diess was appointed as CEO of Volkswagen Group and has assigned responsibility for the China Board of Management Division since 2019. On January 1, 2022, Herbert Diess took over responsibility for the automotive software unit CARIAD within the Volkswagen Group Board of Management.
Herbert's Sessions
VW's Path to Become a Global EV and Tech Powerhouse
VW Group CEO Herbert Diess is in a race to transform the automaker into a global leader in software, EV sales, and autonomous vehicles. Hear from Diess about the challenges that remain and how VW plans to take the EV crown from Tesla and keep legacy automakers in the rearview mirror.
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.
Dmitri's Sessions
The World According to Waymo
Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving arm, has reached significant milestones recently, from launching a robotaxi service in San Francisco to securing partnerships with legacy logistics companies that will help it commercialize autonomous freight. However challenges remain on all sides – political, technological, commercial and social. Dmitri Dolgov, co-CEO of Waymo, was there from the beginning. As one of the founders of Google’s self-driving car project, which began in 2009 and became Waymo in 2016, he’ll talk us through how far autonomy has come, and how far it still has to go.
John Du was named Partner, GM Ventures, effective May, 2019. In addition to this role, John holds the position of Chief Technologist for GM China. Prior to this appointment, John was Director of General Motors Research & Development organization’s China Science Lab, which he led from its founding in 2009. He was responsible for building a strong and innovative research team and leading the research and development in intelligent and connected vehicles, battery, advanced materials, and electrified propulsion systems. Before joining General Motors, John held several positions at Intel Corp, where he joined in 1993 from its Oregon site. John’s roles at Intel included software developer in Intel’s New Business Group, researcher at Intel Communications Research Lab, and engineering manager at Intel Network Processor Product Group. In 2001, John took an international assignment to Beijing, China, where he served as a senior manager and built an application engineering organization to support Intel network processor business expansion in China. In 2005, John was named Director of Intel China Research Center. Prior to Intel, John worked at Spectrum Technologies, a video conference application startup company in Sunnyvale CA. John received his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the Beijing Institute of Technology in 1989 and an Executive MBA from China Europe International Business School in 2010.
John's Sessions
How Your Startup Should Think About Collaboration, Not Just Capital
The capital markets have a way of distracting even the most scrappy founders. However, as we’re starting to see, a well-priced funding round isn’t a replacement for a well-oiled operation. And startups should think more about strategic opportunities, and collaborations, when giving up those coveted cap table spots. We’re bringing together GM Ventures’ John Du, Snowbull Capital’s Taylor Ogan, Intel Capital’s Trina Van Pelt and Marcus Greer of Capital International Investors to talk about partnerships in the mobility world – especially the ones that you’re probably not thinking about.
TechCrunch Mobility Pitch-off
The industry’s brightest entrepreneurs will take the stage in front of a live audience and a panel of industry experts, pitching revolutionary technologies.
Summer is passionate about closing the gap between profit and purpose, and ensuring that Argo AI remains committed to, and accountable for, the social and environmental effects of its operations. Her team is responsible for community engagement, workforce development, environmental sustainability, philanthropy, and volunteerism. Summer’s team also oversees diversity, equity, and inclusion at Argo. Summer spent the first 20 years of her career in software engineering and cyber security. She came to Argo from Carnegie Mellon University’s CERT cyber security division where she served as technical director of cyber security risk and resilience. Prior to her work at CERT, Summer was a technical member at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and a software engineer at Northrop Grumman. Today, in addition to her role as Argo’s Chief Responsibility Officer, she is an adjunct faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University and active in circles that promote cyber security education, and diversity and inclusion. She advises corporate boards on cyber security governance and serves as a director on the board for PAWomenWork, a Pittsburgh nonprofit with a goal to empower women to find careers with family-sustaining wages. Summer holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a master’s degree in information science from the University of Pittsburgh.
Summer's Sessions
Building AVs for All
As autonomous vehicles creep towards commercialization, a question has started to loom for city planners, urban dwellers and even the companies trying to develop the technology. What does an equitable, accessible and safe AV look and act like? In other words, what is a good AV citizen? Summer Fowler, chief corporate responsibility officer at Argo AI, Riccardo Giraldi, senior director of experience at Zoox and Alisyn Malek, executive director of the Coalition for Reimagined Mobility will discuss how to build an AV for everyone, including the cyclists, pedestrians and human drivers who will share the road with them.
Maxime Gariel is the Chief Technology Officer at Xwing, an aviation company on a mission to radically improve human mobility through the use of fully autonomous airplanes. Maxime is a pilot whose lifelong dream is to make airplanes fly themselves. His work on autonomous flight systems includes fixed-wing to rotary-wing aircraft ranging from small to large aircraft. Prior to Xwing, Maxime was the Principal GNC (Guidance, Navigation & Control) Engineer at Rockwell Collins where he built autonomous aircraft systems like the AgustaWestland SW4 Solo autonomous helicopter. Maxime is a former MIT Postdoctoral Researcher of aerospace systems, and holds a PhD and Masters of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech.
Maxime's Sessions
Pilotless Flight: How Close Are We to Fully Autonomous Airplanes?
Many believe self-flying planes will begin transporting passengers in our lifetime. Do you see yourself as an early adopter of autonomous flight?Join Maxime Gariel, CTO of Xwing, the company leading autonomous aviation, in an engaging discussion where we will explore what it would be like to take your first autonomous flight.Maxime can also share insights to the common misconceptions of autonomous flight, how the technology is currently impacting the aviation market, and how close we truly are to commercial autonomous flight.
Ralph Gilles is the Chief Design Officer for the Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep®, Ram, Maserati and Fiat (Latin America) brands. He is also a member of Stellantis’ Top Executive Team. He is responsible for shaping and directing design across the brand’s portfolio. Since first joining the company in 1992 as a designer, Gilles has put his extensive academic background in industrial design and business administration to use holding various positions with increasing responsibilities at the company. He is extremely active inside and outside of the company. Gilles serves as the executive sponsor of the Stellantis African Ancestry Network Diaspora (STAAND) in addition to playing a supporting role with the Stellantis Global Diversity Council. At his alma mater, College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit, Gilles serves as a member of the CCS board of trustees. An avid car enthusiast who enjoys spending time at the track, go-karting and watching Formula 1 auto racing, Gilles has participated in the Targa Newfoundland Rally, the Car and Driver One Lap of America and the SRT Viper Cup Series. In addition, he frequently serves as a judge at various Concours d’Elegance events across the country, including Pebble Beach, Amelia Island, the Inn at St. John as well as the EyesOn Design car show.
Ralph's Sessions
From V8s to EVs, Reshaping the Auto
Ralph Gilles started at Chrysler in 1992, and he’s still with the company as the Chief Design Officer at the newly-formed conglomerate, Stellantis. His design resume is legendary: The Chrysler 300C, Dodge Magnum, SRT Grand Cherokee, and the SRT Viper. But now he’s leading Stellantis into the electric future, which requires (and allows) for radical new designs. Hear about his design process, and how he’s reshaping the automobile yet again.
Riccardo Giraldi is a Senior Director at Zoox leading the Experience team, defining the future of autonomous mobility and designing an unprecedented experience for passengers and cities. Prior to joining Zoox, Riccardo worked as a Director at Microsoft, leading the incubation of innovative products, including Microsoft HoloLens, Mixed Reality applications, and Surface devices. He focuses on the evolution of our relationship with technology to invent and design innovative solutions to help improve people’s lives and accelerate our progress towards a more sustainable future. He strives to build inclusive environments that foster creativity and enable everyone to express their full potential. Riccardo is a speaker and teacher, sharing his ideas, experience, and passion at conferences and schools around the world.
Riccardo's Sessions
Building AVs for All
As autonomous vehicles creep towards commercialization, a question has started to loom for city planners, urban dwellers and even the companies trying to develop the technology. What does an equitable, accessible and safe AV look and act like? In other words, what is a good AV citizen? Summer Fowler, chief corporate responsibility officer at Argo AI, Riccardo Giraldi, senior director of experience at Zoox and Alisyn Malek, executive director of the Coalition for Reimagined Mobility will discuss how to build an AV for everyone, including the cyclists, pedestrians and human drivers who will share the road with them.
Marcus Greer is an equity investment analyst at Capital Group with research responsibility for major automotive OEMs along with the autonomous and electric mobility ecosystem. He has six years of investment experience with Capital Group. Prior to joining Capital, Marcus worked as a public equity investor at Fidelity Investments. Before that, he was a private equity associate at Emerson Collective looking at late-stage VC and early-stage growth companies. He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Nevada. Marcus is based in Los Angeles.
Marcus's Sessions
How Your Startup Should Think About Collaboration, Not Just Capital
The capital markets have a way of distracting even the most scrappy founders. However, as we’re starting to see, a well-priced funding round isn’t a replacement for a well-oiled operation. And startups should think more about strategic opportunities, and collaborations, when giving up those coveted cap table spots. We’re bringing together GM Ventures’ John Du, Snowbull Capital’s Taylor Ogan, Intel Capital’s Trina Van Pelt and Marcus Greer of Capital International Investors to talk about partnerships in the mobility world – especially the ones that you’re probably not thinking about.
Gary brings more than 30 years of experience delivering market leadership and rapid growth in the autonomous vehicle, energy, IOT, and enterprise high technology sectors. Before joining Wisk, Gary was the president and CEO of Liquid Robotics, an autonomous ocean robotics company that fundamentally changed the way the world accesses, collects and monitors ocean data. During his career, he has been recognized as an innovative, high-energy executive with a reputation for transforming startups into global businesses. Gary has served as CEO and executive vice president for numerous high-tech companies, including Silver Spring Networks, McData Corporation, Asempra, PGSoft and Novell/Volera. While leading Liquid Robotics, Asempra and PGSoft as President and CEO, he led the successful growth and subsequent sales of all three Silicon Valley start-up companies. Gary sits on the Board of Governors for the Aerospace Industries Association, as well as the Board of Directors for GAMA and Symbio. He is also a member of the Alliance of CEOs. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Gary's Sessions
How Urban Air Fits in Cities
What will it take to execute urban air mobility operations in cities? TechCrunch Mobility will sit down with Gary Gysin, president and CEO of Wisk Aero, Cyrus Sigari, co-founder and managing partner at UP.Partners, and Bonny Simi, head of air operations and people at Joby Aviation, about both the challenges and opportunities in the urban air mobility space and what it will take to not just launch in cities, but to actually be of value to residents.
Mar is Pear’s Founding Managing Partner. After earning a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, Mar developed a groundbreaking technique of optimizing the design of analog semiconductors. Since then, she has accrued over 13 years of founder experience, co-founding three startups in mobile/ecommerce, enterprise software and semiconductor industries and has registered 14 separate patents. As Pear’s co-founder and managing partner, Mar brings operational and technical expertise to the Investment Team. She is in currently a Lecturer for Stanford University, teaching Lean Launchpad, one of the premier entrepreneurship classes at Stanford. Prior to that, she was a Consulting Professor at Stanford teaching the introductory course in Analog Circuit Design for nearly a decade. Mar serves on the board of trustees of Harvey Mudd College and the Advisory Board of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Carnegie Mellon University. She is a founder of Equity Summit, the premier conference for connecting URM Venture Capital GPs to LPs, and an initial founding member of All Raise. She has been recognized by MIT Technology Review as a Top Innovator Under 35, named a Champion of Innovation by Fast Company, awarded the Digital Automation Conference’s Marie R. Pistil Achievement Award, and recognized on the Forbes Midas List in 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Mar's Sessions
How to Land Early-Stage Funding
Spoiler alert: Uber for X is no longer a differentiator. Mobility isn’t a nascent vertical, and sector startups seeking funding should consider that advantage. Investors don’t need to explain the venture-sized opportunity in the transportation industry; instead they want to see contrarian growth – whether that’s a new angle on an old technology, or profitability. TechCrunch is bringing together three venture capitalists – Yoon Choi from Muirwoods Ventures, Mar Hershenson from Pear VC and Gabriel Scheer from Elemental – to talk about their investment strategies, what’s hot, and what’s not.
TechCrunch Mobility Pitch-off
The industry’s brightest entrepreneurs will take the stage in front of a live audience and a panel of industry experts, pitching revolutionary technologies.
Dr. Alex Ivanenko is the co-founder and CEO of HyPoint, the NASA award-winning Silicon Valley startup pioneering air-cooled hydrogen fuel cell systems for aviation and urban air mobility. Prior to founding HyPoint, Alex held senior sales roles at both 3M Corp. (NYSE: MMM) and Owens Corning (NYSE: OC). He attended Saratov State Technical University, where he received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, both in engineering, as well as a Ph.D. in electrochemistry. In addition, he received an MBA from RANEPA. He splits his time between California and England.
Dr. Alex's Sessions
Zero-emission Aviation — A Roadmap for Hydrogen-powered Flight
Aviation produced 2.4% of global CO2 emissions in 2018, which as a country would rank it 6th in the world between Japan and Germany. Non-CO2 effects, such as warming induced by aircraft contrails and other pollutants, bring aviation’s combined total contribution to global warming to approximately 5%. In this session, we will discuss the factors that have hindered zero-emission flight as well as the technological roadmap and recent breakthrough innovations that will bring hydrogen-powered airplanes to the skies within the next few years.
Omer Keilaf has spent 20+ years driving cutting edge technologies from inception to commercialization. As the co-founder and CEO of Innoviz Technologies, Keilaf is helping enable the commercialization of autonomous vehicles by providing high-performance LiDAR at mass market prices. He has overseen the company’s tremendous success as it overtook older, more established LiDAR developers to earn a design win with BMW, marking the industry’s first major design win for series production of autonomous vehicles. Last year, Keilaf took Innoviz public in a SPAC merger with Collective Growth Corporation, with a valuation of $1.4 billion. Prior to co-founding Innoviz, Omer served as an officer in an elite technological unit of the Intelligence Corps of the Israel Defense Forces. His speciality disciplines are in opto-mechanics, electrical engineering, and MEMS. He holds a BSc and MSc in Electrical Engineering and an MBA, all from Tel Aviv University.
Omer's Sessions
Delivering the Holy Grail: Safe, Highly-automated Consumer Vehicles for Sale
Next year top automakers will sell luxury consumer vehicles that include safe, hands-free driving features. LiDAR will take these automated driving systems to the next level, and re-establish trust with consumers who stand to benefit from these life-saving technologies. Innoviz Technologies CEO and Co-founder Omer Keilaf will discuss the long road to making automotive-grade LiDAR, in order to help car makers like BMW achieve Level 3 automation for the first time. What’s next? The tech is ready. Now it’s time to integrate it into cars around the world and properly educate consumers so they love, not loathe, automated driving again.
Rachel is a Product Manager in Appen’s Autonomous Vehicles working group. In that role, she is working to provide high quality data on all levels of autonomy for motor vehicle clients. Prior to joining Appen, Rachel worked on data science tools to enable model interpretability, fairness testing and automated machine learning. Other passions of hers include using AI and technology to act as a catalyst towards solving humanitarian-centered problems for non-profits around the world.
Rachel's Sessions
Data: Your Key to Successful Autonomous Mobility
Appen is the Data for AI Lifecycle leader. This session will explore use cases and challenges that our clients see from data sourcing, data preparation, and model evaluation by humans. Our experts will discuss and demo the technologies and processes that were used to enable success for both in-cabin experiences and out-of-car data with ADAS systems and autonomous vehicles.
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.
Jesse's Sessions
Vehicle Spotlight: Zoox
Zoox first debuted its custom-built robotaxi vehicle in December 2020 in a virtual event. That vehicle has been largely under wraps ever since with testing occurring in areas away from the public. Now, the Zoox vehicle is ready for an up close and personal debut at TC Sessions: Mobility. Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson will discuss the vehicle, the company’s progress and where we might see Zoox next.
Dr. Yanbing Li is a global business and technology leader with extensive leadership experience building market-leading products and hyper-growth businesses of $1B+ in the US and China. Yanbing is currently a Senior Vice President of Engineering at Aurora, the company building self-driving technology to deliver the benefits of the future of transportation safely, quickly, and broadly. She leads all software development for Aurora including autonomy, ground truth, mapping, simulation, cloud infrastructure and data platform. Prior to Aurora, Yanbing was a Vice President of Product and Engineering at Google, leading the Enterprise Services Platform (ESP) organization in Google Cloud, responsible for the commerce platform for cloud, and operations and service infrastructure powering both Google Cloud and Google. Prior to Google, Yanbing was the Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Storage and Availability Business Unit (SABU) at VMware. She led product development, engineering, and go to market and built one of the fastest-growing businesses and a new $1B category for VMware. During her tenure with VMware, she held multiple executive leadership roles including General Manager for vCloud Air Storage, VP of Engineering for Storage, VP of Central Engineering, VP of Global R&D Sites, and Managing Director of China R&D. Yanbing worked at Synopsys (a leading Electronic Design Automation software maker) for nine years in various research, development, and engineering leadership roles. Yanbing holds a Ph.D. degree from Princeton University, a Master’s degree from Cornell University, and a BS degree from Tsinghua University (Beijing), in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering.
Yanbing's Sessions
Where is My Autonomous Car?
When it comes to moving people via autonomous vehicles, two paths are beginning to emerge: Robotaxi services and private vehicles with autonomous capabilities. Companies are moving towards commercializing robotaxi by aiming straight for full autonomy. Automakers, on the other hand, are rolling out personal vehicles that have lower levels of autonomy via advanced driver assistance systems today, with the end goal of slowly improving until they can offer personal vehicles with higher levels of autonomous functionality. We’ll sit down with the AV experts to discuss the stumbling blocks to each approach and which might deliver first at a mass scale.
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.
Alisyn's Sessions
Building AVs for All
As autonomous vehicles creep towards commercialization, a question has started to loom for city planners, urban dwellers and even the companies trying to develop the technology. What does an equitable, accessible and safe AV look and act like? In other words, what is a good AV citizen? Summer Fowler, chief corporate responsibility officer at Argo AI, Riccardo Giraldi, senior director of experience at Zoox and Alisyn Malek, executive director of the Coalition for Reimagined Mobility will discuss how to build an AV for everyone, including the cyclists, pedestrians and human drivers who will share the road with them.
Laura Major is an accomplished Chief Technology Officer and author. As CTO at Motional, Major leads hundreds of engineers in the development of revolutionary driverless technology systems. She began her career as a Cognitive Engineer for Draper Laboratory, where she combined her psychology and engineering skills to design decision-making support devices for US astronauts and soldiers. After 12 years with the company, she served as Division Leader for the Information and Cognition Division. During this time Laura was recognized by the Society of Women Engineers as an emerging leader in 2014. Major also spent time at Aria Insights, Inc. (formerly known as CyPhy Works), a US-based drone manufacturer that specialized in developing highly advanced drones. She served as VP of engineering, and then Chief Technology Officer, working on the development of autonomous aerial vehicles. Major is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is an accomplished writer and co-author of the book What To Expect When You’re Expecting Robots: The Future of Human-Robot Collaboration.
Laura's Sessions
Turning an AV Innovation into a Product
Autonomous vehicle technology has evolved from the confines of academic research to living labs — aka testing on closed tracks and public roads. Now, a handful of companies, including Cruise and Motional are trying to turn their innovations into a product that not only has the technical capability to navigate city streets, but is approachable and easy for people to use. Cruise VP of product and former Voyage co-founder Oliver Cameron and Motional CTO Laura Major will cover the technical and deployment challenges to creating a product people can and will want to use.
As the Chief Operating Officer of Exro Technologies, Richard Meaux has the tools, motivation and grit to get the job done. In Richard’s case, the job is making electric vehicles (EVs) smarter and e-mobility accessible for every city, business and individual. An engineer by trade, with degrees in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Florida, Richard spent time at NASA, working on aerospace design structures to help eliminate space debris, and completed GE’s Commercial Leadership Program, where he rotated throughout various business units, including engineering, product development, and sales and marketing. Prior to joining Exro, Richard was Director of Marketing and Digital Operations for GE Industrial Motors, a Wolong Company.
Richard's Sessions
Why you can’t build a new EV in corporate America
Gas-powered cars and motorcycles have been around for over a hundred years. During that time, legacy auto brands and major corporations have gained a wealth of capital and experience in designing, manufacturing, selling, and improving ICE models. Now with the push for electrification, that experience is a bit of a crutch. Electrification requires more than just adding a battery to existing ICE models, but a rethink of chassis designs and hard-tooled manufacturing facilities. Such a huge shift in mindset and expertise requires what tech startups have in spades—this includes a penchant for constant innovation, failing fast, and thinking beyond “how things have been done” for decades. Corporate America is learning from younger companies that are immersed in the world of electrification and working with the latest technology available. A huge reason why Sue went from being the CEO of Small Industrial Motors at GE to the CEO of Exro was because she couldn’t innovate fast enough or take the amount of risk needed to change the industry from the inside. Sue will share how she now balances her corporate experience and profit-driven business savvy, with her tech startup eagerness to move fast and break things, to ultimately deliver EVs that drive better, faster and longer at a lower cost.
Dr. Charlie Miller is a distinguished security engineer at Cruise where he designs and implements cybersecurity features of their autonomous vehicles. Prior to Cruise, Dr. Miller was at the National Security Agency, Twitter’s information security team, and the autonomous vehicle security teams at Uber and Didi Chuxing. He also has experience in embedded security and has done research in the fields of laptop battery security as well as near field communications (NFC) of cellular phones. Dr. Miller has a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Notre Dame. Named “one of the most technically proficient hackers on Earth” by Foreign Policy, Dr. Miller has found countless vulnerabilities in a number of Apple products and is known as the first hacker to remotely exploit the iPhone and the first Android phone. He has won the “Super Bowl” of computer hacking, the annual Pwn2Own competition four times. Dr. Miller has extensive automotive security expertise and demonstrated that a variety of Fiat Chrysler vehicles, including the 2014 Jeep Cherokee, could be remotely hacked from anywhere in the country and he could control the radio, brakes, wipers, transmission, acceleration, and even the steering of the target vehicle. The demonstration of these vulnerabilities led to the recall of 1.4M vehicles.
Charlie's Sessions
Securing Today’s Cars and Tomorrow’s Robotaxis
A new era in connected cars is here and with that comes new security risks. And then there are robotaxis and other autonomous Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, undisputed leaders in the cybersecurity industry, who both hold top security roles at GM-backed self-driving company Cruise, will join us to discuss the dynamic and rapidly changing realm of automotive cybersecurity.
Ritu Narayan is the founder and CEO of Zum, a technology company modernizing student transportation. An accomplished entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience as a tech industry leader, Narayan has been named one of Inc.’s Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs, recognized as one of Entrepreneur’s 100 Women of Influence, and received the 2023 Power of Women Award from Global Silicon Valley and Arizona State University. Prior to Zum, Narayan led teams at Oracle, Yahoo, IBM and eBay. A Sloan Fellow and graduate of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Narayan earned her undergraduate degree in computer science at the Delhi Institute of Technology. She lives in San Carlos, California, with her husband and two children.
Ritu's Sessions
Building a Sustainable Mobile Ecosystem
With transportation accounting for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, there are few business decisions that could make as much of an impact on greenhouse gas emissions as electrifying transportation, particularly mass transit. But for sustainability at this scale, businesses must consider an ecosystem approach to thrive. Drawing from Zum’s expertise in leading the charge to transition school bus fleets to EV, this roundtable will focus on the creative and innovative ways business leaders, investors, professionals and the community at large can work together to achieve a greener future.
A ‘veteran’ of the young micromobility industry, Alex is passionate about technology that can help ensure the long term viability of micromobility as a major component of sustainable urban transportation. Previously an executive at Immotor and a co-founder of CLEVR Mobility, Alex is now co-founder and Chief Business Officer at Drover AI. Drover AI is the pioneer of AI powered computer vision for micromobility, bringing innovative ADAS capabilities to shared micromobility operators to help them meet increasing safety and regulatory requirements. Besides geeking out on mobility, always up for for anything related to tennis, travel, skiing/snowboarding and diverse cuisines.
Alex's Sessions
How to Unlock Profits in Micromobility
Despite the vast sums of venture capital that has gone into shared micromobility, the industry has yet to reach unit economics favorable enough to turn a profit. But it’s getting close. We’ll sit down with Drover AI’s Alex Nesic, Acton’s Janelle Wang and Veo’s Candice Xie to talk about the new methods, and the new tech, that’s being deployed to help micromobility companies unlock profits.
Taylor is co-founder and CEO of Snow Bull Capital, a Boston-based hedge fund focused on the high-tech, green-tech space. Among the fund’s investment themes are autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, batteries, and artificial intelligence. Taylor has a focus on the Chinese investment landscape, and will be moving with his company to Shenzhen, China later in the year. Taylor graduated from Trinity College (CT) with a focus on the implementation of electric and autonomous vehicles in China. His research on electric and autonomous vehicles has been published in academic journals and magazines.
Taylor's Sessions
How Your Startup Should Think About Collaboration, Not Just Capital
The capital markets have a way of distracting even the most scrappy founders. However, as we’re starting to see, a well-priced funding round isn’t a replacement for a well-oiled operation. And startups should think more about strategic opportunities, and collaborations, when giving up those coveted cap table spots. We’re bringing together GM Ventures’ John Du, Snowbull Capital’s Taylor Ogan, Intel Capital’s Trina Van Pelt and Marcus Greer of Capital International Investors to talk about partnerships in the mobility world – especially the ones that you’re probably not thinking about.
Damilola is the Co-founder and CEO of Nigeria’s leading technology-driven transportation startup called Shuttlers. The company is revolutionizing how professionals and organizations commute in the ever-busy Lagos and Abuja metropolis. Dami, as she is fondly called possesses a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Lagos. She boasts of experience in Process Engineering and Investment Management. Dami is very passionate about solving socio-economic problems in her community, hence the founding of Shuttlers. The Shuttlers platform enables professionals and organizations to share rides in decent buses to and from work. With Shuttlers, users book trips along fixed routes at 60-80 per cent lower rates than other ride-hailing services. It is worthy of note that Shuttlers operates a “no surge during peak hours or bad weather” pricing, which is the first of its kind in Africa. The Shuttlers solution is contributing to a decline in the menace of traffic in cities, as young professionals can now share comfortable air-conditioned bus rides with other professionals- this is not only reducing their daily commuting stress but also reducing traffic congestion and carbon emission due to lesser private cars on highways (1 bus can remove up to 14 -29 cars from the road.) Damilola is a Forbes30under30 (2019) Recipient for Technology, and she went on to be selected by the UK government for a technology exchange in 2020. She has garnered accolades such as The Digital & Tech Award at the Women in Africa Contest in Morocco in 2017, the Award for the Best Idea at the Aso Villa Demo Day, where she had the opportunity of meeting the Vice President of Nigeria and Mark Zuckerberg. She has also won grants from institutions like Airtel’s Sahara, GEM-WorldBank, and Ford Motors Company. In 2020, she launched an initiative called Shemoves Shuttles, an all-female shuttle service (sponsored by Ford Motors Company) that has impacted 600+ female professionals by turning their commute time to learning time. She is a member of the Lagos hub of Global Shapers of the World Economic Forum, where she served as the Vice Curator in 2019/2020. She is part of the Harambean Team 2018 cohort- an alliance for highly educated young African socialites, business, and political entrepreneurs attending leading universities in Asia, Europe and North America. In 2021, under the leadership of Dami, Shuttlers raised a $1.6m seed funding, announcing plans to expand into more African metropolitan cities. Damilola is poised to continue to lead innovation in the technology and transportation sectors and other sectors in Nigeria and around the world.
Damilola's Sessions
Sustainable Mobility in Emerging Markets: Optimizing People, Planet and Profit through Technology
Emerging economies like Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria, where Shuttlers operates, are famous for exponential population growth. This population growth comes with many challenges, transportation being one of the most prominent. The ever-growing population creates an imbalance where demand for transportation continues to outpace supply by miles. The United Nations (UN) has pointed out that high-technology-driven transportation systems that prioritize sustainability are the solution to common transportation problems in emerging economies, Transportation Report 2021 (https://sdgs.un.org/sites/default/files/2021-10/Transportation%20Report%202021_FullReport_Digital.pdf).As private transport technology companies like Shuttlers emerge to redefine the way people move by introducing new tech-enabled transport systems and services, it is crucial to focus on long-term transportation sustainability. The conversation around transportation sustainability should focus on how technology can optimize these three key pillars – People, Planet and Profit.Discussing transportation sustainability at the roundtable (using the highlighted three Ps, also known as the triple-bottom-line model by John Elkington) will help raise awareness and profer solutions to the shortcomings of transportation technology in emerging markets. These shortcomings range from insufficient talent/skill to the issue of carbon emissions, unavailability of modern environmentally friendly transportation infrastructure, and maintaining profitability as a startup whilst imbibing the best global practices in transport innovation.
Wilson Pang joined Appen in November 2018 as CTO and is responsible for the company’s technology. Wilson has over 20 years’ experience in software engineering and AI. Prior to joining Appen, Wilson was Chief Data Officer of CTrip in China, the second largest online travel company in the world, where he led data engineers, analysts, data product managers, and machine learning scientists to improve user experience and increase operational efficiency that grew the business. Before that, he was senior director of engineering at eBay in California and provided leadership to various domains, including data service and solutions, search-science, marketing technology, and billing systems. He worked as an architect at IBM, prior to eBay, building technology solutions for various clients. Wilson is also the co-author of Real World AI: A Practical Guide for Responsible Machine Learning Wilson obtained his Masters and Bachelor’s degrees of Electric Engineering from Zhejiang University in China.
Wilson's Sessions
Data: Your Key to Successful Autonomous Mobility
Appen is the Data for AI Lifecycle leader. This session will explore use cases and challenges that our clients see from data sourcing, data preparation, and model evaluation by humans. Our experts will discuss and demo the technologies and processes that were used to enable success for both in-cabin experiences and out-of-car data with ADAS systems and autonomous vehicles.
Saswat Panigrahi is VP of Strategy, Product Management and Data Science at 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. In this role, Saswat manages Waymo’s engineering and commercial roadmaps across our business lines of ride hailing, long haul trucking and local delivery. Having joined Waymo in 2016, he has been part of Waymo’s launch of the first fully autonomous public commercial launch in Phoenix and the start of fully autonomous operation in San Francisco. Before Waymo, he was the Senior Product Manager at Google, working on Chrome Browser, Chromebooks, and Android. Prior to Google, he held roles of Software Developer, Product Manager and Line Manager at Ericsson in Canada, China and Sweden leading a group of engineers, pre-sales, program and product managers in the last role. He also worked as a research engineer at McGill University. Saswat earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kanpur, his master’s in electrical and computer engineering at McGill University in Canada and Masters in Business Administration from IMD in Switzerland.
Saswat's Sessions
Where is My Autonomous Car?
When it comes to moving people via autonomous vehicles, two paths are beginning to emerge: Robotaxi services and private vehicles with autonomous capabilities. Companies are moving towards commercializing robotaxi by aiming straight for full autonomy. Automakers, on the other hand, are rolling out personal vehicles that have lower levels of autonomy via advanced driver assistance systems today, with the end goal of slowly improving until they can offer personal vehicles with higher levels of autonomous functionality. We’ll sit down with the AV experts to discuss the stumbling blocks to each approach and which might deliver first at a mass scale.
Trevor Pawl is the Chief Mobility Officer for the State of Michigan, and leads the Michigan’s Office of Future Mobility and Electrification. In this position, Pawl is responsible for working across state government, academia and private industry to grow Michigan’s mobility ecosystem through strategic policy recommendations and new support services for companies focused on the future of transportation. Prior to this position, Pawl served as the Senior Vice President of Business Innovation at the MEDC, where he led the official state programs for mobility (PlanetM), supply chain assistance (Pure Michigan Business Connect), export assistance (Michigan International Trade program) and entrepreneurial assistance (Michigan Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program). Before joining the MEDC, Pawl brought with him experience in supply chain matchmaking, having led the creation of the economic development program, Connection Point, at the Detroit Regional Chamber, which later became Pure Michigan Business Connect. Trevor has been named Crain’s Detroit Business’s “40 Under 40” and “50 Names to Know in Government”. He’s also been named Development Counsellors International’s “40 Under 40 Rising Stars of Economic Development” and the Great Lakes Women’s Business Council’s “Government Advocate of the Year”. Pawl holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Marketing from Grand Valley State University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Detroit Mercy.
Trevor's Sessions
Advancing the Future of Transportation Infrastructure
The future of mobility starts with the next generation of transportation solutions and the infrastructure that keeps them running safely and efficiently. Attendees will hear from some of the most innovative names on opportunities that await when the traditional auto industry collides with high-tech innovations to revolutionize the way we think about our roads. The session will illustrate the need for future-proofing our roads and how a connected and automated vehicle corridor in Michigan is paving the way for a nationwide deployment of tech-enabled roadway. The discussion will feature: Trevor Pawl, State of Michigan Chief Mobility Officer and Shelby Winkler, Senior Vice President of Programs and Operations at Cavnue.
Dr. Jun Pei founded Cepton in 2016 with the vision of enabling safe, autonomous transportation for everyone. Hands-free, driveway to driveway – lidar promises to make that a reality, but only through scale. Focused on making safety the standard for all levels of autonomy, Cepton is dedicated to commercializing lidar for every consumer vehicle, not just the luxury class. By supporting General Motors’s Ultra Cruise program, Cepton is aimed at bringing the benefits of lidar technology to every American household in as soon as two years. What’s Cepton’s journey to the industry’s largest ADAS lidar design award, and what does it mean for the future of mobility? We will hear from Jun his take on lidar’s unique capabilities of adding certainty to perception, key considerations behind lidar scalability and the timeless principles underlying Cepton’s seemingly simple lidar approach.
Jun's Sessions
Breaking the Luxury Spell: A Journey to Commercializing Safe Autonomy for All
Dr. Jun Pei founded Cepton in 2016 with the vision of enabling safe, autonomous transportation for everyone. Hands-free, driveway to driveway – lidar promises to make this vision a reality, but only through scale. Focused on making safety the standard for all levels of autonomy, Cepton is dedicated to commercializing lidar for every consumer vehicle, not just the luxury class. By supporting General Motors’ Ultra Cruise program, Cepton is aimed at bringing all the benefits of lidar technology to every American household in less than two years. We’ll hear from Dr. Pei on Cepton’s journey to the industry’s largest ADAS lidar series production award, and what it means for the future of mobility. We’ll also hear from Dr. Pei on lidar’s unique capabilities of adding certainty to perception, key considerations behind scaling lidar for everyday passenger cars and the timeless principles underlying Cepton’s elegant invention.
Scott Plank established JSP Ventures in 2019 to invest in and operate impactful startups. He is the co-founder and sole funder of MediGO and MissionGO, two companies making positive change by expanding the number of lifesaving organs for transplant and expediting the efficiency of procurement logistics. Scott has also been an investor and early-stage advisor for multiple companies including WeWork and Everfi. In 2012, Scott founded War Horse Cities to pursue his passion for urban community building through real estate development, neighborhood-based hospitality and community based philanthropic initiatives. From 1998-2012, while a partner at Under Armour, Scott built its e-commerce strategy, a robust retail platform of global DTC stores and the global supply chain and technology platforms. Scott earned his BA in Urban Studies from the University of Maryland and MBA in Finance from the Kogod School of Business at American University.
Scott's Sessions
The Future of Critical Medical Cargo Deliveries is Unmanned Aircraft, And It’s Here Today
Healthcare’s complex modes of transportation and chains of custody are in need of innovation. This session will offer a firsthand look at how two companies – MediGO and MissionGO – are currently leveraging autonomous unmanned helicopters to provide safe, efficient, inexpensive, and low carbon footprint transport of critical medical cargo. Participants will learn about and discuss ideas for addressing known and unknown scenarios in which decision-making will take place between autonomous and traditional modes of transportation, as well as ways to provide improved healthcare resource efficiencies (including delivery of blood samples and human transplant organs; healthy, fresh and local foods; emergency supplies), improve patient outcomes and reduce costs.
Som is the CEO, Founder of CLIP, a clean mobility company building the world’s first plug & play electric propulsion devices for bicycles and pedaled vehicles. Som’s mission is to reinvent the e-bike experience to make it affordable for everyone. To empower a growing urban population with a viable path to switch to bicycles by providing e-bike tech at a fraction of cost and complexity. Previously, Som worked on urban mobility solutions as part of the Smart Cities group at MIT’s Media Lab. Awarded top innovator under 35 – TR35 from MIT TechReview for a low-cost mobility solution for the disabled in India.
Somnath's Sessions
Startup Spotlight
Meet three early stage startups that are building hardware and software onto existing platforms to improve transportation in cities.
Avinash is President of Arrival, joining the company following a successful career at General Motors, Cruise Automation, and his own award winning ventures Curve Tomorrow and Bliss Chocolates. As Arrival’s President, Avinash is responsible for Arrival’s business and product strategy and international expansion. In his role, he oversaw Arrival’s public listing in March 2021, which was the UK’s biggest ever IPO with a $13 billion float on Nasdaq. He also led the close of over $300 million in investment from blue-chip investors including Hyundai, Kia, UPS and funds managed by BlackRock. Avinash has international experience in leading and growing businesses across multiple segments. During his time at GM, Avinash was responsible for the ~$1Bn acquisition of Cruise Autonomous and part of the team which saw its subsequent valuation increase to $14Bn. This work was pivotal in accelerating the delivery of AVs as well as creating the OEM – Startup ecosystem. Avinash has a passion for projects with positive social impact and is focused on bringing affordable zero emission transportation to everyone.
Avinash's Sessions
Vehicle Spotlight: Arrival
Arrival announced last year plans to design and build an affordable, purpose-built electric vehicle for ride-hailing in partnership with Uber in the UK. Before the vehicle enters production, Arrival will show off the first prototype here at TC Sessions: Mobility. Arrival President Avinash Rugoobur will talk about the process of designing and hopefully producing the vehicle, what the EV company is also working on and what may be right around the corner.
Austin Russell is an engineer, business leader, and self-driving industry pioneer as the Founder and CEO of Luminar Technologies (NASDAQ: LAZR), the global leader in automotive LiDAR hardware and software technology. Under Austin’s leadership, Luminar has developed the first LiDAR and software technology capable of powering production autonomous vehicles, has amassed over 50 commercial partners including the majority of the world’s largest automakers, and went public on the Nasdaq in December 2020 with a current market valuation of approximately $7 Billion. Austin started Luminar in 2012 at age 17 after previously working on various photonics and optoelectronics projects, architecting a new kind of LiDAR to enable safe autonomous functionality on cars, trucks, and robo-taxis, with over 100 awarded patents. At age 25, Austin has been recognized as the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. Austin is also a Thiel Fellowship, MIT Tech Review Innovators Under 35, and Forbes 30 under 30 alumni.
Austin's Sessions
A Contrarian View on Deploying Autonomy at Scale
Luminar founder and CEO Austin Russell has a different view of how to deploy autonomy at scale from other AV developers in the industry including Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Lidar sits at the center of Russell’s vision, but perhaps not in the way one might think. We will dig into Russell’s perspective and his strategy of how to bring autonomous vehicles to the masses at scale — without pulling the human out of the driver’s seat.
Gabriel is the Director of Innovation, focused on mobility and energy, for Elemental Excelerator, a climatetech accelerator founded in 2009 in Hawaii. Previously, Gabriel was on the founding team at Lime, where he spent three years working on government relations, data policy, and transit partnerships globally. He has also worked at and consulted to Chariot, Zipcar, Superpedestrian, and Spin. In addition, he founded and ran a large environmental nonprofit and built a social innovation consultancy, as well as attempting to build a company to help small businesses pursue energy efficiency retrofits.
Gabriel's Sessions
How to Land Early-Stage Funding
Spoiler alert: Uber for X is no longer a differentiator. Mobility isn’t a nascent vertical, and sector startups seeking funding should consider that advantage. Investors don’t need to explain the venture-sized opportunity in the transportation industry; instead they want to see contrarian growth – whether that’s a new angle on an old technology, or profitability. TechCrunch is bringing together three venture capitalists – Yoon Choi from Muirwoods Ventures, Mar Hershenson from Pear VC and Gabriel Scheer from Elemental – to talk about their investment strategies, what’s hot, and what’s not.
Opportunities for first/last mile people & goods movement in urban areas
Form factor & business model innovation.
TechCrunch Mobility Pitch-off
The industry’s brightest entrepreneurs will take the stage in front of a live audience and a panel of industry experts, pitching revolutionary technologies.
An aviator, entrepreneur, and investor, Cyrus Sigari has committed his life’s work to making flight more accessible for the betterment of humanity. Sigari is considered one of the world’s foremost experts on the rapidly advancing Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and Electric Vertical Take Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft industries, which Morgan Stanley predicts will become a $1.4 trillion market by 2040. Sigari is Co-founder and Managing Partner of UP.Partners, an early-stage venture firm investing in technology companies that are supporting a multi-dimensional future. He is an active investor and advisor to numerous AAM companies, co-founder of the UP Summits, and founder of TransportUP, the leading AAM related news and media company. Sigari is also a global leader in the business of private aviation. As the Executive Chairman and co-founder of jetAVIVA, Sigari grew jetAVIVA to be one of the largest sellers of business jets in the world, with annual sales in excess of $400M USD. Sigari has been flying for more than 27 years and piloting aircraft for thousands of hours. He is an instructor on 13 different jets, including the Boeing 747. He has owned dozens of aircraft, is a helicopter pilot and owner, a graduate of Purdue University’s Aerospace and Aeronautical Engineering program, an experienced acceptance test pilot, and formerly a nationally-ranked competitive aerobatic pilot. Sigari is also an Ironman triathlete and self-admitted adventure junkie.
Cyrus's Sessions
How Urban Air Fits in Cities
What will it take to execute urban air mobility operations in cities? TechCrunch Mobility will sit down with Gary Gysin, president and CEO of Wisk Aero, Cyrus Sigari, co-founder and managing partner at UP.Partners, and Bonny Simi, head of air operations and people at Joby Aviation, about both the challenges and opportunities in the urban air mobility space and what it will take to not just launch in cities, but to actually be of value to residents.
Bonny is Joby Aviation’s Head of Air Operations and People. Prior to joining the team at Joby, Bonny held several operational and strategic roles at JetBlue within Flight Operations, System Operations, People, Airports, and Customer Support. Most notably, she founded and led JetBlue Technology Ventures. As a pilot, Bonny has commanded Boeing, Airbus and Embraer aircraft at both United Airlines and JetBlue Airways. She is an Emmy-nominated sports reporter and a 3-time Olympian in the sport of Luge.
Bonny's Sessions
How Urban Air Fits in Cities
What will it take to execute urban air mobility operations in cities? TechCrunch Mobility will sit down with Gary Gysin, president and CEO of Wisk Aero, Cyrus Sigari, co-founder and managing partner at UP.Partners, and Bonny Simi, head of air operations and people at Joby Aviation, about both the challenges and opportunities in the urban air mobility space and what it will take to not just launch in cities, but to actually be of value to residents.
Joe Speed is VP Product at Apex.AI. Prior to joining Apex.AI, Joe was member of Open Robotics ROS 2 TSC, Autoware Foundation TSC, Eclipse OpenADx SC, and ADLINK Technology’s Field CTO driving robotics and autonomy. Joe has spent his career developing and advocating open-source at organizations including Linux Foundation and IBM where he launched IBM IoT and co-founded the IBM AutoLAB automotive incubator. Joe helped make MQTT, IoT protocol, open source and convinced the automakers to adopt it. Joe is working to do the same for Apex.AI’s safe ROS 2 distribution and ROS middleware. Joe has developed a dozen advanced technology vehicles but is most proud of helping develop an accessible autonomous bus for older adults and people with disabilities.
Joe's Sessions
Next Gen Mobility: Why Software Drives the Future of Vehicle Architecture
Vehicles have long been defined by the hardware that powers them, but cutting edge technologies are carrying mobility into a software-first future. Vehicles with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) have upwards of 100 computers known as electronic control units (ECUs) operating largely independently from one another. But the transition to connected, autonomous, shared, electric vehicles consolidates that into a small number of powerful computers. This means the computer architecture becomes simpler while the software becomes more complex, which requires a more robust level of software integration than ever before. This is creating hurdles that must be overcome for traditional original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in all industries including automotive, agriculture, mining, industrial automation, and more. This roundtable will discuss:What it’s going to take for industries to launch autonomous vehicles at scale.Why industries like agriculture and manufacturing are seeking autonomous and software innovations from the automotive industry and robotics.The steps that must be taken to speed the delivery of the required software and algorithms.The impact reliability has on autonomous vehicles. For example, if software crashes on your computer it is annoying, but on an autonomous car, farming equipment, or manufacturing robot, the result can be devastating.
Sven Strohband is a partner and managing director at Khosla Ventures, and led the firm’s early investments in Berkshire Grey, GitLab, Hermeus and Rocket Lab among others. An engineer at heart, Sven is passionate about technologies that forge new industries and accelerate novel user experiences. Previously, he spent six years at Mohr Davidow Ventures, where he led technical diligence for the infrastructure IT and sustainability practices and worked with the portfolio to recruit technical talent, run product-market fit experiments and develop fundraising strategies. Prior to that, Sven was a project manager for the Electronics Research Lab of Volkswagen, where he led technical projects for Volkswagen brands ranging from LED front lighting and electrochromic glass to driver- assistance systems and robotics. He was also lead engineer and project lead for the Stanford racing team’s autonomous car, Stanley, which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. Now on display at the Smithsonian Museum, Stanley was the foundation for Google’s self-driving car efforts. He co-founded and was CEO of AI company Metamind, which is now a part of Salesforce and a key component of Salesforce Einstein. Sven sits on the boards of numerous companies including Berkshire Grey, Rocket Lab, Velo3D, Waabi and ThoughtSpot. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in mechanics and computation from Stanford University. In his spare time, Sven enjoys teaching his children to code, machining and welding, and flying autonomous drones.
Sven's Sessions
TechCrunch Mobility Pitch-off
The industry’s brightest entrepreneurs will take the stage in front of a live audience and a panel of industry experts, pitching revolutionary technologies.
Sarah Tariq is the VP of Autonomous Driving Software at NVIDIA, where she helps lead NVIDIA’s efforts to create a world class AV platform, NVIDIA Drive. Amongst other things, Sarah’s team is responsible for providing some of the core software pieces of this platform, including the perception, localization, mapping, prediction and planning and control stacks. Before joining NVIDIA, Sarah spent six years at Zoox, helping to deliver autonomous driving in challenging urban environments, including downtown San Francisco. At Zoox, Sarah worked on delivering critical components of the perception stack, leading the vision and perception teams, and helping lead cross functional efforts to improve the driving capabilities and performance of the Zoox vehicle. Prior to this, Sarah spent a decade working on several areas including real-time simulation and rendering, performance optimization for high performance computing and super computers, and computer vision.
Sarah's Sessions
Where is My Autonomous Car?
When it comes to moving people via autonomous vehicles, two paths are beginning to emerge: Robotaxi services and private vehicles with autonomous capabilities. Companies are moving towards commercializing robotaxi by aiming straight for full autonomy. Automakers, on the other hand, are rolling out personal vehicles that have lower levels of autonomy via advanced driver assistance systems today, with the end goal of slowly improving until they can offer personal vehicles with higher levels of autonomous functionality. We’ll sit down with the AV experts to discuss the stumbling blocks to each approach and which might deliver first at a mass scale.
Peter is an innovator & inventor, who owns over 50 patents in mobility, charging station systems
Peter's Sessions
How to Unlock Profits in Micromobility
Despite the vast sums of venture capital that has gone into shared micromobility, the industry has yet to reach unit economics favorable enough to turn a profit. But it’s getting close. We’ll sit down with Drover AI’s Alex Nesic, Acton’s Janelle Wang and Veo’s Candice Xie to talk about the new methods, and the new tech, that’s being deployed to help micromobility companies unlock profits.
As the Senior Director of Operations at Plus, Amisha helped build and now oversees industry-leading operations, safety processes, trainings, and pilot programs that pave the way for the safe commercial rollout of Plus’s self-driving truck technology. The operations team under Amisha’s leadership coordinates testing and data collection, manages the supply chain, and supports national customer deployments of Plus’s first commercial product – a driver-in solution called PlusDrive. Amisha previously worked in the renewable energy sector, leading operations at a solar monitoring and data analytics company. Amisha graduated from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where she received a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Management.
Amisha's Sessions
From Algorithms to Public Roads: Why A Human-Centered Approach to Autonomous Driving Technology Is Needed to Win Hearts and Minds
The development of autonomous truck technology has progressed to a point where it’s no longer a question of if, but how and when it will become commercially available at scale. Amisha Vadalia, Plus’s Senior Director of Operations, will share the different paths companies are taking to develop Level 4 driverless trucks, Plus’s unique evolutionary path to full autonomy which starts with a commercial product already being being operated by Amazon and others, and a comparison of human-centered technology with systems that are not based on feedback from drivers, fleets, and OEMs.
Chris Valasek is the Director of Security Engineering at Cruise where he oversees vehicle, infrastructure, and application security. Valasek is widely recognized for his work in the automotive security arena and was lauded for the remote compromise of a 2014 Jeep Cherokee, whereby he and his research partner obtained physical control of the vehicle, resulting in a 1.4M vehicle recall. He also has an extensive background in reverse engineering and exploitation research. Chris has a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh.
Chris's Sessions
Securing Today’s Cars and Tomorrow’s Robotaxis
A new era in connected cars is here and with that comes new security risks. And then there are robotaxis and other autonomous Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, undisputed leaders in the cybersecurity industry, who both hold top security roles at GM-backed self-driving company Cruise, will join us to discuss the dynamic and rapidly changing realm of automotive cybersecurity.
Trina Van Pelt is Vice President & Senior Managing Director of Intel Capital and a Voting Member of its Investment Committee. In addition to her overall ICAP leadership responsibilities, she focuses on growth and venture investments in intelligent edge, enterprise SaaS, artificial intelligence, and urban mobility. Trina is currently a director on 5 growth-stage portfolio company boards. Trina has over 25 years’ experience in a broad range of global technology acquisitions and investments. Since 2017, Trina has also chaired Intel Capital’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Initiative. Before joining Intel in 2004, Trina was director of corporate development at CNET Networks, an investment associate at TA Associates, and investment banking analyst at Lehman Brothers. She holds a bachelor’s in business administration with distinction from the University of Michigan and a master’s in management from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.
Trina's Sessions
How Your Startup Should Think About Collaboration, Not Just Capital
The capital markets have a way of distracting even the most scrappy founders. However, as we’re starting to see, a well-priced funding round isn’t a replacement for a well-oiled operation. And startups should think more about strategic opportunities, and collaborations, when giving up those coveted cap table spots. We’re bringing together GM Ventures’ John Du, Snowbull Capital’s Taylor Ogan, Intel Capital’s Trina Van Pelt and Marcus Greer of Capital International Investors to talk about partnerships in the mobility world – especially the ones that you’re probably not thinking about.
As the SVP of Programs and Operations, Shelby is responsible for leading program management and technology operations, ensuring Cavnue’s delivery of safe, cost-effective, and scalable solutions. Shelby came to Cavnue as the VP of Program Management in 2021, with more than 20 years of engineering and program management experience, driving products from concept to launch and beyond. Over the course of her career, Shelby has delivered safety-critical automotive, healthcare, and iconic consumer electronic products—most notably including the Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad. After several successful product launches, she moved to the Apple Special Projects Group to focus on advancing autonomous systems safely. Shelby obtained her B.A.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo and is also a certified Professional Engineer of Ontario.
Shelby's Sessions
Advancing the Future of Transportation Infrastructure
The future of mobility starts with the next generation of transportation solutions and the infrastructure that keeps them running safely and efficiently. Attendees will hear from some of the most innovative names on opportunities that await when the traditional auto industry collides with high-tech innovations to revolutionize the way we think about our roads. The session will illustrate the need for future-proofing our roads and how a connected and automated vehicle corridor in Michigan is paving the way for a nationwide deployment of tech-enabled roadway. The discussion will feature: Trevor Pawl, State of Michigan Chief Mobility Officer and Shelby Winkler, Senior Vice President of Programs and Operations at Cavnue.
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.
Nils's Sessions
The New Passenger Economy featuring Live Demo
In anticipation of a future where autonomy is the norm and passengers will seek stimulating entertainment to break up the monotony of a commute, Holoride is offering an in-car VR system that turns every vehicle into a moving theme park. Only the Audi-spinoff isn’t waiting for full autonomy to commercialize its product and bring us into the new passenger economy. Holoride’s VR tech is coming to Audi cars as early as this summer. We’ll sit down with Nils Wollny, co-founder and CEO of Holoride, to talk about what place VR, blockchain, NFTs, crypto currency and NFTs have in the automotive space.
Inspired by the challenges of creating a sustainable transportation system with stellar products, Candice left corporate America to launch Veo in 2017. She knew success required building respectful relationships with communities and providing vehicles designed exclusively for shared use. Candice has a deep understanding of how to balance the safety and regulatory needs of communities with the unlock-and-go mentality of riders. Under Candice’s leadership, Veo deliberately and selectively grew its market presence in the U.S. and became the first profitable micromobility company in the industry.
Candice's Sessions
How to Unlock Profits in Micromobility
Despite the vast sums of venture capital that has gone into shared micromobility, the industry has yet to reach unit economics favorable enough to turn a profit. But it’s getting close. We’ll sit down with Drover AI’s Alex Nesic, Acton’s Janelle Wang and Veo’s Candice Xie to talk about the new methods, and the new tech, that’s being deployed to help micromobility companies unlock profits.
Rebecca Yeung leads the Operations Science and Advanced Technology (OSAT) department at FedEx Corporation. Her primary responsibilities are to scale up robotics and automation, establish a robust autonomous vehicle portfolio, and create business values in safety, efficiency, service, and sustainability. She is passionate about technology and has spent more than a decade fully absorbing the latest and greatest knowledge to build deep expertise in robotics, AV, EV, and digital platform economy. She is fully invested in transportation and logistics and has spent more than two decades learning everyaspect of FedEx business and network operations. These rare hybrid skills are a powerful combination, enabling her to be well-versed both in technology, andhow technology translates into business impact. Rebecca holds an MBA from the University of Maryland–College Park and has a bachelor’s degree from Fudan University in China. She started her career at FedEx as an MBA Intern in 1998. Today, Rebecca is a seasoned executive and a member of the FedEx Strategic Management Committee, a select group of the company’s top leadership, which sets the strategic direction for the enterprise.
Rebecca's Sessions
The Path to Commercializing Autonomous Trucking
Aurora has been running a pilot program with FedEx to haul goods between Dallas and Houston via self-driving Paccar trucks since September 2021. As with most other autonomous freight pilots, human safety operators are present in the vehicles, but Aurora’s goal is to operate its trucks fully autonomously by the end of next year. We’ll check in on the pilot’s progress so far, and implications for the future of autonomous trucking.
Yimeng Zhang is the VP of Engineering and Pony.ai’s U.S. Site Lead where her expertise is valued in helping the company pioneer its autonomous mobility technologies. Zhang is a 15 years industry veteran, with a concentration on perception and machine learning. At Pony.ai, Yimeng heads up the Perception and Prediction team and leads operations of the company’s U.S. site. She earned her Ph.D. from Cornell University, a Master’s Degree from Carnegie Mellon University, and a Bachelor’s Degree from Kyoto University. Yimeng is recognized as an accomplished global leader in the AV industry – and was named a “Self-Driving Power Player” by Business Insider.
Yimeng's Sessions
How Pony.ai Navigates Diverse Traffic Scenarios and Inclement Weather Globally
At Pony.ai, we aim to deliver autonomous mobility everywhere by building safe and reliable autonomous driving technology. Since our founding in 2016 in Fremont, California, we have been pioneering autonomous mobility services that benefit global users in 5 cities across the US and China. With 6.2 million autonomous miles driven, Pony.ai’s core autonomous driving technology enables the “virtual driver” to navigate through diverse traffic scenarios and inclement weather smoothly and safely.
Jiajun Zhu is the co-founder and CEO of Nuro. Prior to founding Nuro, Jiajun was a principal software engineer of Google and one of the founding team members of the company’s self-driving car project (now known as Waymo). In addition to leading the project’s perception team, he also helped build and lead their simulation efforts. Jiajun earned both his Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in computer science from the University of Virginia and Fudan University respectively. Jiajun has been awarded over 100 patents.
Jiajun's Sessions
A New Dawn for Delivery
Nuro is aiming to revolutionize delivery with the autonomous vehicle technology it has developed, tested and is now beginning to deploy. The company has managed to lock up numerous high-profile partnerships in the process, including with Domino’s and FedEx, not to mention a long list of investors. We’ll sit down with Nuro co-founder and CEO Jiajun Zhu to talk about the company’s path to commercialization, the opportunities and challenges of AV delivery and where the industry — and Nuro — is headed.
