Michelle Maggiore leads Cisco’s global Transportation Solutions Group. She is a professional transportation engineer with 20 years of experience in technology deployment, performance management, and strategic planning for transportation agencies and local governments, most recently applying her background to the deployment of technology in the public sector. At Cisco, Michelle advises sales teams, product developers, and customers on implementing technologies to support connected and automated vehicles. Her activities focus on a vehicle to infrastructure communications and application development and deployment.

Michelle’s academic contributions to the field of transportation include the development and application of decision support analytics to align public-sector investments to regional goals and performance measures.  Her methodology for optimizing transportation and technology investments was published by the National Academy of Sciences in NCHRP Report 806, where she served as Principal Investigator. 

Prior to joining Cisco, Michelle led US transportation services for IBM and served as Vice President for Asset and Performance Management at CH2M Hill.  She has advised the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Eno Transportation Foundation, and the US DOT on performance-based transportation and technology investment planning.

Michelle has an MS in transportation engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a BS in civil engineering from Pennsylvania State University.

Ned Cabot leads Cisco’s Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) team in the Americas. CDA is a partnership between Cisco and state or national leadership, industry & academia aimed at accelerating a country’s digital agenda. A CDA partnership can help a country grow GDP, create new jobs, enhance educational opportunities and drive innovation across government and private sector institutions.

Mr. Cabot has made his career at Cisco advising government leaders on how to deploy information and communications technologies to achieve public policy objectives. During his eleven years with the company, he has led a series of strategic business development activities in Central Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.

Prior to joining Cisco, Mr. Cabot was in public service in the United States for more than seventeen years, the bulk of that time with the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), a federal export promotion and foreign assistance organization.

Mr. Cabot served as USTDA’s Regional Director responsible for Central Europe and later for Sub-Saharan Africa. He represented the United States in establishing the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa and oversaw the agency’s role in promoting growth and stability in the Balkans. Mr. Cabot served in the Clinton Administration as USTDA’s Director of Congressional Relations and as the agency’s Export Director.

Mr. Cabot has served as a Legislative Assistant to Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and as an Aide to the Speaker of the Connecticut General Assembly, Irving Stolberg. He was also a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic.

Mr. Cabot holds a B.A. from Oberlin College and an M.A. in Political Science from the Braunschweig Technical University in Braunschweig, Germany. He speaks English, German and Spanish. He currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School, a Mandarin immersion PK-5 elementary school. He is married to soprano Jennifer Casey Cabot and has two children.

Scott Faris, Chief Business Officer, Luminar, is an experienced serial technology company executive with over three decades of operating, venture-financing and scaling experience in optoelectronic and solid-state device industries.

Prior to Luminar, Scott was CEO of Panaceutics, Inc. and Planar Energy, Inc., a company developing solid-state batteries for electric vehicles. Scott has been CEO of Waveguide Solutions, which pioneered integrated optical chips and COO of Ocean Optics, a global manufacturer of high-volume precision optical instrumentation. Scott serves as a Venture Partner in IDEA Fund as well as on the Board of Directors of Lightpath Technologies, Inc., a publicly-traded high-volume optical component manufacturer.

For more than 15 years has been at the forefront of solving some of the nation’s most complex public policy, legal and crisis communications issues as a lawyer and strategic advisor to a variety of multinational corporations. He is currently the Head of State Public Policy & Government Affairs at Waymo. In this role, he is responsible for leading the company’s state legislative, policy and political priorities throughout the United States. Prior to joining Waymo, Reginald was the Head of U.S. Economic Development at Facebook. Before joining Facebook, Reginald was in-house counsel at BP, working as a key strategist on the company’s government affairs and communications response to the Gulf oil spill. He began his law career in Washington, D.C. at WilmerHale and served as a federal law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Reginald received his law degree from Duke University School of Law, which he attended on a full-tuition scholarship and graduated cum laude with a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame, where he was a decorated student-athlete on the men’s soccer team and made history as the school’s first African American athlete to be named a Rhodes Scholar finalist.

Kelsey Brunette Fiedler is an Ideation Analyst at Munich Reinsurance America, Inc.’s (Munich Re) Incubator, a strategic business unit within New Strategic Markets. Her main responsibilities are vetting and analysis of new products and services within the Mobility Domain. She is currently leading the pilot of project AVerified, which provides verification of operational safety for autonomous vehicle manufacturers.

Kelsey is a graduate of the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business and Michigan State’s College of Law as well as a member of the New Jersey Bar.  She also spent time at the Michigan Department of Insurance, Michigan Millers Mutual Insurance, Ford Motor Company, and GMAC.  Speaking engagements include the Missouri Director’s Regulatory Summit The Innovation Imperative and NAIC CIPR Regulatory Evaluation 2.0 – Meeting the Challenges of Innovation in addition to authoring, Back into the sandbox: How assumptions are the cornerstone of innovation, THE REGULATOR, Winter 2016. 

Robert Brown is the Head of Public & Government Affairs for TuSimple. Mr. Brown is responsible for the federal, state, and local public and government relations for TuSimple. Working with legislators and regulators on best practices for safety, commercial viability, and policies. He works on building coalitions of industry, OEMs, Tier 1 providers, associations, and academics in the autonomous vehicle industry.  Prior to TuSimple, he worked for the state of California, was Vice President at the Mitchell Firm, taught at Oxford University and the University of California, San Diego. 

Peter Berger is the Director of Innovation at EmbraerX in Silicon Valley. EmbraerX is the disruptive innovation division for Embraer, the third-largest aircraft manufacturer in the world.
Mr. Berger has three roles within EmbraerX. First, to oversee active projects, most notably the all-electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle (eVTOL) being built in collaboration with Uber. Second, to oversee Embraer’s investment activity in North America. Third, to work with Embraer’s existing business units to foster innovation within their existing product lines and processes.
Prior to joining EmbraerX, Mr. Berger was the CEO of several startups including Contact IQ, Alitora Systems and Topicmarks which sold to The Meet Group (NASDAQ: MEET) in 2011. Additionally, he has advised numerous startups and Fortune 500 companies such as Orange Telecom and Qualcomm.
Mr. Berger has an undergraduate degree from California Polytechnic and a law degree from Rutgers University.

Troy Rutherford is a program director with Boeing NeXt, an organization that is leading the introduction of new mobility solutions and the next-generation ecosystem that will bring flight closer to home. He leads the team of engineers and researchers developing Boeing’s new unmanned cargo air vehicle. Capable of carrying 250 to 500 pounds, the cargo air vehicle will open up new possibilities for safely and efficiently transporting goods in a variety of industries.
Throughout his career at Boeing, he has held positions in software engineering, systems engineering and program management. Most notably, he managed the development, production, integration, and support and sustainment for a robust product portfolio.
Rutherford has a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical and computer engineering from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and a master’s degree in business administration from Washington University in St. Louis.

Vince Lichtinger is the manager of the Fuels and Emerging Technology group for Marathon Petroleum Corporation. He graduated with Honors from Case Western Reserve University in 1989 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and began work at Marathon Oil Company as an Associate Chemical Engineer creating process simulations of refineries. Vince then spent 6 years in the upstream side of the business, providing process engineering support for Marathon’s gas processing plants and compression facilities in Michigan, Oklahoma, and Kansas. In 1995, he returned to Findlay and worked in the Product Quality group for about 10 years. He was then manager of the Corporate HES Auditing group for two years and audited all MPC’s operations, including refineries, terminals, and pipelines. Vince spent the following six years in Terminal, Transport, and Rail leading trucking logistics and terminal operations. From 2015-2017, he led Operational Excellence across all of Logistics & Storage. In November 2017, he was named Manager of Fuels and Emerging Technology for MPC.

David Harkey is the current president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the affiliated Highway Loss Data Institute. He took the helm of the Institutes in 2018 after spending 11 years as director of the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center.

Neil Pedersen has been Executive Director of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) since 2015. In that role, he provides executive direction and leadership to TRB’s technical activities, including its annual meeting of over 14,000 transportation professionals, it’s more than 200 technical committees, its conferences, and its publications; its peer-reviewed policy consensus studies; and its multimodal cooperative research programs.
Prior to joining TRB, Neil spent 29 years at the Maryland Department of Transportation, where he served the last eight years as State Highway Administrator and Governor’s Highway Safety Representative.

Jody Kelman leads the self-driving platform team at Lyft, where she runs products for self-driving vehicle integration and deployment. Prior to Lyft, Jody worked at McKinsey & Company, focusing on public-private partnerships and technology-driven infrastructure investments. In 2008, she served on President Obama’s Technology, Innovation, and Government Reform transition team.

Jody graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and holds a master’s degree from the University of Sydney, where she was a Fulbright Scholar. Jody currently serves as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a mentor at Comet Transportation Labs.

Oliver Cameron is a co-founder and CEO of Voyage. Voyage is a leader in self-driving cars, and is on a mission is to deliver on the promise of this revolutionary technology. Oliver previously led the autonomous vehicle, artificial intelligence, and deep learning curriculum at the online education startup Udacity.”

Rahul Gupta is a Managing Director in Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP focusing on Smart Infrastructure. He has over 30+ years of the combined federal government (legislative and executive branches as well as independent commissions) and private sector experience leading in infrastructure, geospatial, digital and analytics, cyber and security, and telecommunications. He has published numerous studies and given speeches on the topics of smart cities, resilience, sustainability, and urbanization, while in the government and in the private sector. Rahul is an adjunct faculty at Georgetown University’s graduate program and is engaged in STE(A)M activities.

Miriam Chaum is Uber’s Head of Public Policy for Self-Driving Cars. In this role, she works closely with Uber’s local policy teams and Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group to advance policies that promote the safe development and deployment of automated vehicles. Miriam has worked for over ten years on a range of social and environmental policy issues for the public, private, and non-profit sectors in the U.S. and abroad. Miriam joined Uber in 2018 from an education technology start-up. Miriam previously worked as public sector consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers and as a senior policy advisor to the central government in New Zealand. Miriam holds a BA in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

Tassilo Wanner is the VP of Global Public & Regulatory Affairs at Lilium. He oversees the company’s worldwide stakeholder engagement, advocacy efforts, and regulatory and government affairs strategy.
Previously, Tassilo was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, leading TTL (Transport, Travel, and Logistics) as well as strategy and change management studies. Before joining McKinsey, he spent four years in political planning and strategic communication roles for the Parliamentary Leadership in the German Bundestag as well as for the German Federal Minister of the Interior in Berlin.
Tassilo studied at LMU Munich and Georgetown University and earned a Doctorate in Political Science and Modern History. He is married and the father of three children.

Senator Jeff Brandes is a highly respected and accomplished leader who served in the Florida Legislature from 2010 to 2022. He represented District 24, which covered a majority of Pinellas County, and was known for his innovative and independent policy-making. Throughout his tenure, he consistently advocated for solutions to address Florida’s most challenging issues.

Brandes is a strong advocate for free market principles and has worked to reduce regulations and taxes to promote business development in Florida. He is a vocal supporter of cutting-edge technologies and has played a vital role in the state’s advancing self-driving vehicles, rideshare, and other emerging technologies. For over a decade, he has hosted the Florida Automated Vehicle Summit, which assembles industry leaders from around the world to address transportation technologies, operations, and policy issues.

He is a veteran, having served as an Army officer in the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq. This experience gave him a unique perspective on leadership and public service. He has also been an advocate for prison reform and worked to increase public safety through improvements in the criminal justice system. The former Senator continues to be an expert leader in property insurance reform.

Brandes is a business owner and serves on the boards of several community organizations. Senator Brandes lives in St. Petersburg and is dedicated to making Florida a better place to live, work, and raise a family. Since leaving office, he has founded the Florida Policy Project, a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization that researches best practices and better outcomes in housing affordability, property insurance, criminal justice, and transportation. The Florida Policy Project is working to impact state policy-making on these pillars.

Stefan Seltz-Axmacher is CEO and Founder of Starsky Robotics, a driverless truck startup launched in August 2016 which aims to make roads safer and allow truck drivers to work closer to home. Starsky Robotics began moving freight on the highway in February 2017, and in February 2018 drove a truck fully unmanned for seven miles on the highway. Starsky raised a $16.5 million Series A round led by Shasta Ventures, with substantial contributions from previous investors like Y Combinator, Trucks.vc, 50 Years, 9Point Ventures, and many others.

Prior to founding Starsky Robotics, Stefan worked with a number of Silicon Valley startups, partnering with innovators in logistics and technology fields. He holds a degree in International Business from Drexel University.

Marcus Welz leads the Siemens Intelligent Traffic Systems business in the U.S. The company offers advanced software and systems to modernize and improve urban and interurban traffic. In this role, Welz manages all functions including sales, R&D, product management, customer service and drives strategic business direction.

On November, 2018, Welz was also named as CEO of Bytemark, Inc. Joining Siemens in 2001, Welz progressed through a number of management roles throughout Europe and the United States. Prior to his current position, Welz served as Senior Vice President and Head of Global Sales & Project Management at Siemens AG, headquartered in Munich.

Welz holds a Business Administration degree from Munich University of Applied Science and a Master of Science Degree in Energy Engineering from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.