Announcing The Information’s 2019 Autonomous Vehicle Event

We are excited to announce that our third annual Autonomous Vehicle Summit will be held June 13, 2019 at Fort Mason in San Francisco.

The purpose of this event is to bring together the technologists, investors, business leaders and strategists who are actively deploying self-driving technology and building next-generation businesses around it. Previous year attendees and speakers have included leaders from Waymo, Uber, Lyft, GM/Cruise, Ford/Argo, Aptiv, Nvidia among others.  

Those interested in speaking or sponsorship packages should inquire by emailing [email protected]. Those interested in attending should subscribe today to get priority access. Existing subscribers will be notified when tickets become available next year. 

2019 is an important year for the industry. After making progress in simulators and on test tracks, self-driving car prototypes will burst onto public streets this year in pilot programs from the San Francisco Bay Area to Florida to Israel.

Yet some prominent autonomous vehicle programs will face painful rewrites of their software as they realize it cannot be written like an app, sparking fights among engineers about technical choices.

The event will feature a handful of keynote talks followed by intimate breakout sessions where participants and sponsors can engage in curated conversations and networking.

Sample breakout topics:

• Latest machine learning research that is relevant to self-driving cars
• Policy issues for municipalities and federal agencies
• Hardware choices, from microchips to lidars to radars
• Technical debates on which parts of the software stack to outsource rather than build in-house; where and how to use neural networks; and how to employ a “systems engineering” approach

Past attendees:

• Waymo, Uber, Lyft, GM/Cruise, Ford/Argo, Aptiv, Nvidia
• Legacy auto makers & electric automakers
• Autonomous vehicle software startup CEOs
• Investment bankers, venture capitalists
• Lidar/radar/camera/microchip makers
• Engineers, product managers, biz/corp dev, recruiters
• Drone/’flying car’ companies
• Roboticists & AI practitioners
• Academics
• Municipal transportation officials

Past Speakers (2017 & 2018)

GM/Cruise’s Daniel Kan, Co-Founder & COO

Zoox’s Tim Kentley-Klay (CEO & Co-Founder) and Jesse Levinson (CTO & Co-Founder)

Daimler/Mercedes-Benz’s Axel Gern, VP, Autonomous Driving R&D

Argo’s Bryan Salesky, CEO (Ford)

Zoox’s Mark Rosekind, Chief Safety Innovation Officer (formerly NHTSA Administrator)

Bosch’s Kay Stepper, VP, Driver Assistance & Automated Driving

Magna International’s Boris Shulkin, VP of Research & Development

Baidu’s Helen Pan, Director of Intelligent Driving Group

Ford’s Ken Washington, CTO

Nauto’s Jennifer Haroon, VP, Strategy & Business Operations

Audi/Volkswagen’s Alexandre Haag, CTO, Autonomous Intelligent Driving Gmbh

Toyota Research Institute’s Adrien Gaidon, Machine Learning Lead

Embark’s Alex Rodrigues, Co-Founder & CEO

Voyage’s Oliver Cameron, Co-Founder & CEO

nuTonomy’s Karl Iagnemma, CEO (now Aptiv)

May Mobility’s Alisyn Malek, Co-Founder & COO

Velodyne’s Mike Jellen, President

Optimus Ride’s Sertac Karaman, Co-Founder & President

Index Ventures’ Mike Volpi, General Partner

Scale API’s Alexandr Wang, Founder & CEO

DeepScale’s Forrest Iandola, CEO

Drive.ai’s Carol Reiley, President & Co-founder

Ex-Waymo & Uber ATG strategist, Anne Widera

Renovo’s Christopher Heiser, Co-Founder & CEO

Ex-Cruise & Nvidia engineering executive Sasha Ostojic

Nvidia’s Justyna Zander, Automotive Manager

Paccar’s Paul Konasewich, Director of Business Development