The Autonomous Main Event 2023

Georges Massing is the Vice President Digital Vehicle & Mobility at Daimler AG. He joined Daimler as Director User Interaction & Software for the Mercedes-Benz vehicle portfolio in 2016. Previously, he was responsible for Driver Experience, mechatronic controls and interior light for BMW in Munich and held various management positions in areas such as gesture and eye control, driver assistance systems, EV / hybrid vehicles and lighting systems at Magna. Georges Massing holds a graduate degree in aerospace engineering from Technical University of Berlin.

Dr. Markus Heyn has been a member of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH since April 2015. Since January 2022, he has been chairman of the Mobility Solutions business sector and responsible for all the corporate functions and services relating to that sector, as well as its divisions and subsidiaries. Heyn is also responsible for software development services.

With over 32 years of experience in the automotive and technology industry, Ricky Hudi acts as Chairman of The Autonomous. Passionate about innovation and the development of autonomous driving technologies, Ricky is a true pioneer in the mobility sector. After holding various roles at BMW AG and AUDI AG he took over in January 2009 as EVP Development Electrical/Electronic AUDI AG. He also founded his own company “FMT – Future Mobility Technologies” and is leveraging a world-wide network of key players in the autonomous driving industry.

Nakul Duggal is a Senior Vice President and General Manager Automotive at Qualcomm. He is responsible for Qualcomm’s automotive strategy, semiconductor, software and services portfolio, ecosystem development, program management and customer relationships. His responsibilities include focused development expansion into the digital cockpit, smart transportation and the connected car as well as autonomous driving, oversight over product roadmap and its execution, customer-focused business development, and applications engineering.

Riccardo Mariani is recognized as an expert in functional safety and integrated circuit reliability. In his current role as VP of Industry Safety at NVIDIA, he is responsible for driving safety alignment across NVIDIA’s automotive and embedded business units. He is in charge of developing cohesive safety strategies, architecture, and products that can be leveraged across NVIDIA’s AI-based hardware and software platforms. Riccardo Mariani is the current first VP of IEEE Computer Society and also is chair of the IEEE Functional Safety Standards Committee.

Essa Al-Saleh is Chief Executive Officer of Volta Trucks AB and Volta Trucks Ltd, having joined the company as Chairman of the Board of Directors in September 2020, and taking on the role as CEO in April 2021. Essa joined Volta Trucks from Agility Logistics where he spent 13 years as President and CEO. During that time, Agility grew from a one-country operation with 300 employees and $150m in revenue to a global freight and logistics business in over 100 countries with 18,000 employees and $4bn in revenue.

Indu is an experienced product leader who leverages her expertise with automotive systems, software and autonomous driving platforms to build market-leading lidar products that enhance automotive safety. At AEye, she drives the advancement, adoption and integration of AEye’s Adaptive Lidar through collaboration with customers, Tier 1 and cross-functional partners. The founder of Women in Autonomy, Indu is an influential voice and advocate for women in the industry.

Andreas Urschitz has been a member of the Management Board and Chief Marketing Officer of Infineon Technologies AG since 2022 (mandated until 31 May 2025). Passionate about innovation, Andreas strongly believes that technical development should not be an end in itself but should make life better, protect the future of humanity and maybe even make the world a safer and more livable place.

Glen De Vos is senior vice president and chief technology officer of Aptiv, a position he has held since March 2017. In this role, Mr. De Vos is responsible for leading the company’s innovation strategies and development of advanced technologies. In addition, Mr. De Vos leads the global engineering organization, which includes more than 18,000 technologists located in 12 major technical centers across the globe. In addition to his current role, Mr. De Vos also served as President, Mobility & Services Group based at Aptiv’s Boston Technology Center.

Phil Koopman is an internationally recognized expert on autonomous vehicle safety whose work spans over 25 years. Phil has been actively involved with AV policy and standards as well as more general embedded system design and software quality. He was the principal technical contributor to the UL 4600 standard for autonomous system safety issued in 2020. An Associate Professor at the Carnegie Mellon University ECE department, he teaches software skills for mission-critical systems.

Johann Jungwirth leads Mobileye’s AV group and is responsible for the development and releases of Mobileye's L2+ to L5 AV products, including Mobileye SuperVision, Mobileye Chauffeur and Mobileye Drive. He is also responsible for the global deployment and rollout of Mobileye’s Mobility-as-a-Service business based on self-driving vehicles, including the global MaaS scale-out strategy, vehicle programs, fleets, mobility platform and services. Before joining Mobileye in 2019, he held engineering leadership roles at some of the world’s biggest automakers.

Peter Schiefer has been President of the Automotive Division since July 2016. He joined Infineon (Siemens AG until 1999) in 1990. For many years, Peter Schiefer has been responsible for Operations and Business Management in various executive units at Infineon. He has worked closely with all international production sites as well as with global purchasing. He is also the Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors in the SIAPM joint venture (SAIC Infineon Automotive Power Modules [Shanghai] Co., Ltd.).

Mike Potts is the Founder and CEO of StreetDrone. A pioneering entrepreneur, innovator, and expert strategic advisor, Mike has more than 15 years of experience in building successful businesses in e-commerce, digital marketing, data analytics, and autonomous technologies. He is driven by his passionate belief that businesses and society generally need access to the benefits of autonomous technology in as short a time frame as possible, and that this can only be achieved by first applying autonomous technology to slow-moving vehicles.

Georg Kopetz is member of the executive board at TTTech Auto. As TTTech Auto's Chief Executive Officer he is responsible for the overall strategy, marketing, sales and human resources. He studied law at the University of Vienna in Austria and the Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas in France. Georg Kopetz has comprehensive professional experience in the financial and legal field, having worked as a finance and law consultant in Austria and abroad.

Lars Reger is executive vice president and chief technology officer for NXP Semiconductors. He is responsible for managing new business activities, R&D in automotive, industry 4.0, the internet of things (IoT), mobile and connectivity & infrastructure. Prior to joining NXP as CTO of the automotive division in 2008, he was responsible for business development and product management within Continental’s connectivity business unit. In December 2018, Lars was appointed NXP’s CTO and has since then been responsible for the technology portfolio of NXP.

Dr. Stefan Poledna is the co‐founder of TTTech Group and CTO at TTTech Auto. He is responsible for the technology roadmap, all scientific topics and quality management in both companies. Dr. Stefan Poledna has over 30 years of international industry experience in innovative embedded systems development. He has authored several patents with a focus on safety, communication, and automated driving. He received his Ph.D. degree in computer science with distinction from Vienna University of Technology, where he also lectures on Dependable Computer Systems.

Richard Damm is President of the Federal Motor Transport Authority (Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt, KBA) in Germany. He is also chairman of the UNECE Working Party on Automated, Autonomous and Connected Vehicles in Geneva where the globally effective regulations on automation of vehicles are generated. Before being appointed President of KBA, Mr. Damm served at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure in Bonn and Berlin. Richard is an internationally recognized expert in the field of the worldwide harmonization of vehicle regulations.

Christoph Hartung took over as chairman of the Board of Management of ETAS GmbH on January 1, 2021. Hartung has been with Bosch since January 2020 and held the role of Executive Vice President of the Connected Mobility Solutions division. He holds an academic degree in Industrial Engineering and Management Science and a Master of Science in Computer and Information Science from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. He started his career with various automakers, including Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.

Benedikt Wolfers is a founding partner of POSSER SPIETH WOLFERS & PARTNERS (pswp), a law firm specialized in national and international regulation for different industries, notably automotive, energy, finance and infrastructure. He has been engaged for many years in the design and approval process for SAE L3 and 4 systems and the development of homologation and road traffic law. He is advising OEMs, semiconductors, tier 1 companies in Europe and the US and has long-standing experience with national and international regulatory bodies and governments.

Bryant Walker Smith is an associate professor in the School of Law and the School of Engineering at the University of South Carolina as well as an affiliate scholar at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. Trained as a lawyer and an engineer, Bryant advises cities, states, countries, and the United Nations on emerging transport technologies. He coauthored the globally influential levels of driving automation, drafted a model law for automated driving, and taught the first legal course dedicated to automated driving (in 2012).

Jennifer has spent her entire adult life on stages, in front of the camera or at the microphone, in Trinidad &Tobago, the UAE and Europe working as a performing artist, presenter and voice over artist. Additionally she studied media management and media journalism and is currently doing her master's in business psychology. Continuously learning and receiving new perspectives is her great passion. In her free time she loves to travel to new places, spend time with friends and family or try out any kind of sport.

Jens Kötz is Head of Development Architecture, Energy, Security and Diagnostic Functions at AUDI AG. With over 24 years of experience in Automotive Industry, he is an expert in cross electronic technologies. With that knowledge he has driven many innovations in the field electronic networking, energy supply, functional safety, diagnostics and cyber security. In addition, Jens Kötz has taken the responsibility for further departments such as connectivity, electrification and high voltage-batteries.

Dr. Karsten Michels is Head of Product Line HPC at Continental Automotive. In this role, he is responsible for the High-Performance Computer product portfolio throughout the entire product life cycle. In the last four years, Michels was leading the Research & Advanced Development for the Continental Automotive Group, which includes the product areas of e. g. Automated Driving, Chassis Systems, Brakes, Cockpit High-Performance Computers, and Clusters.

Bernhard Mueller-Bessler owns about 20 years of autonomous driving and automotive experience. He is one of the earlier inventors of AD technology. He started his career with several world-known autonomous prototypes, co-leading one of the first initiatives to push AD features to a product, running his own company to enforce autonomous operations and smart infrastructure, supporting the semiconductor industry to define the next generation of chips for autonomous driving enablement, and now supporting Hexagon on unleashing the power of virtual testing.

Simon Fürst is currently Cooperation Manager Automated Driving at BMW Group. Since October 2017, he has been responsible for the automated driving & driver assistant systems division. In October 2019, he was appointed principal expert for automated driving technologies. In December 2020, he became the convener of the newly started ISO TC22/SC32/WG13 "Safety for driving automated systems."

Annie Lien is Deputy CEO at VinAl. She has 20 cumulative years experience in mobility, autonomous driving R&D with a diverse background in business, product, technical strategy, marketing/PR, governmental affairs, customer focus, user experience/human factors. After working at Audi/VW, Annie spent over 6 years in the startup world of innovative solutions for self-driving cars and robotics automation; advised and consulted entrepreneurs, investors, auto OEMs, suppliers and other entities on autonomous driving.

Frank Han is an expert in the field of information and communication technology. He has more than 20 years of experience in the design and development of heavyweight commercial products in the information and communication industry. Currently, he is the chief software architect of Changan Automobile, responsible for the overall technical direction of the company’s software-defined vehicles and leading the design and development of Changan’s new-generation automobile software platform.

Håkan Schildt is recognized as an expert in the field of Autonomous Business Transformation. He has more than 14 years of experience in the areas of connectivity and digitalisation. Håkan joined Scania as a R&D engineer in 2008 and took his first management position in 2011. In 2018 Scania formed a new business area with the task to commercialize the autonomous technology and Håkan was appointed to lead and build the new organisation. In 2021 Håkan joined Traton Group to drive the autonomous business transformation across the Traton Group.

Andreas Tschiesner leads McKinsey’s automotive and assembly work in Europe. He has more than 20 years of consulting experience - several in Japan - and brings in-depth knowledge of all facets of the automotive sector. Andreas serves a variety of automakers, suppliers, engineering companies, and a wide range of machinery organizations. He advises companies on strategic questions and challenges related to technology and innovation, focusing on large-scale performance transformations, end-to-end digitization, and the development of new business models.

Marc Solsona Palomar is Amazon Web Services’s General Manager of Automotive Technology. He joined AWS Industry Products in 2021 as General Manager for Automotive Technology, based in Seattle. His team is focused on developing new automotive products and solutions, from embedded in-vehicle to cloud, in close partnerships with the leading OEMs and industry technology providers. Over the years, he has held a number of technical positions in industries from enterprise networking, VoIP, wireless, consumer electronics, Smart TVs.

Michael Nikowitz is coordinator for automated driving at the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology. For several years he worked in the automotive industry as a Robotics Engineer as well as a Laser Scientist specializing on ultrashort pulse laser systems. He also worked at the Austrian Association for Advanced Propulsion Systems (A3PS) in the field of alternative drive trains, representing Austria at the International Energy Agency and developing roadmaps for automated driving.

Raunaq enjoys the interplay between cutting-edge technology, usability, and commerce. As co-founder and CTO of Humanising Autonomy, he puts this interest to use in defining the technological strategy of the startup, and oversees a world-class team of engineers, scientists, and psychologists to realize the company’s global vision. Raunaq had been working as an engineer since before starting his academic career and has had his work showcased in numerous publications including NewScientist, Forbes, and FastCompany.

Andreas Hille is the Senior Vice President of Global Function Product Line Management & Engineering at PALFINGER. As a member of the Executive Leadership Team, he is responsible for implementing the company’s multi-dimensional product and R&D strategy. He applies his passion for innovation to actively shape the future product offering of PALFINGER and drives digitalization within the upgraded R&D structures and methods. Prior to joining PALFINER he headed Roche Diagnostic’s R&D division and held leadership roles at Liebherr Transportation Systems.

Hermann co-founded Amadeus Capital Partners in 1997. In his long history as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Hermann has founded or co-founded companies in a wide range of technology sectors. These include Acorn Computers (where he helped spin out ARM), Active Book Company, Virata, Net Products, NetChannel and Cambridge Network. He was a founder director of IQ (Bio), IXI Limited, Vocalis, SynGenix, Advanced Displays Limited, acquired by Cambridge Display Technology, Electronic Share Information Limited, E*Trade UK and has supported many others.

Magnus Liljeqvist is a Global Technology Manager at Volvo Group within the Base SW and middleware field. He has acquired 15 years of experience in electrical and autonomous systems. He holds an academic degree in Economics and a Master of Science in Engineering and Industrial Management from Linköping University, Sweden.

Jens Petersohn is the Head of Product Group HAD in Elektrobit. He has over ten years of expertise in the automotive industry with ADAS topics. In addition to that experience, Jens worked at NASA for two years and at Silicon Graphics Inc./Cray Research Inc. for seven years. Before his appointment at Elektrobit, Jens focused on strategic and technical roadmaps for automated driving technologies on SAE levels 2 to 4 at Continental. Earlier, he was the owner of the product roadmap for the comprehensive environment model.