Mobility is being re-invented in a transforming world and faces a striving need for innovation. Decarbonization is one of the drivers to select new paths but also the modifications in social, economic, energy and cities to ease access to a more frugal mobility.
Among the many possible ways, how can new technologies have an impact and offer a path to achieve the ambitious targets to limit the impact of climate change.
From the very small nano-level research to macro-economics topics, we will explore through examples and concrete research programs how experts are innovating for designing the next generation of mobility means.
In this forum organized by Plastic Omnium with MIT, you’ll learn how generative artificial models are supporting the creation of new innovations and how emerging technologies can be adapted. You’ll also hear from experts on the impact of technology on mobility and how corporations, academia and startups can work together to tackle today’s challenges with the environment and energy transition while also offering people adapted and valuable means.
Online pre-registration has been closed. Walk-in registration is available on site.
John Roberts has been Executive Director of MIT Corporate Relations (Interim) since February 2022. He obtained his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at MIT and returned to the university after a 20-year career in the pharmaceutical industry, joining the MIT Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) in 2013. Prior to his return, John worked at small, medium, and large companies, holding positions that allowed him to exploit his passions in synthetic chemistry, project leadership, and alliance management while growing his responsibilities for managing others, ultimately as a department head. As a program director at MIT, John built a portfolio of ILP member companies, mostly in the pharmaceutical industry and headquartered in Japan, connecting them to engagement opportunities in the MIT community. Soon after returning to MIT, John began to lead a group of program directors with a combined portfolio of 60-80 global companies. In his current role, John oversees MIT Corporate Relations which houses ILP and MIT Startup Exchange.
John Moavenzadeh is an expert and thought leader on the Future of Mobility. John is Executive Director of the MIT Mobility Initiative, a research, education, entrepreneurship and civic engagement program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he developed and co-teaches the graduate-level Mobility Ventures course. John is also Senior Advisor to Deloitte’s Future of Mobility practice and Operator Advisor LP at Assembly Ventures. John serves as an independent advisor to several companies that promise to transform transportation.
As Head of Mobility and Member of the Executive Committee of the World Economic Forum for over 15 years in Geneva and New York, John led a team that developed a portfolio of public-private initiatives, including autonomous vehicles and urban mobility, security of the international travel system, drones and the future of the air space, and advancing seamless integrated mobility. John has also served as Executive Director of the MIT International Motor Vehicle Program, an associate with Booz Allen Hamilton’s international transportation practice, and started his career as a product design engineer with Ford Motor Company in 1990.
John holds a BS in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, an MS in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School. He has completed executive management programs at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), INSEAD and the Wharton School.
Pattie Maes is a professor in MIT's Program in Media Arts and Sciences. She runs the Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces research group, which aims to radically reinvent the human-machine experience. Coming from a background in artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction, she is particularly interested in the topic of cognitive enhancement, or how immersive and wearable systems can actively assist people with memory, attention, learning, decision making, communication, and wellbeing.
Maes is the editor of three books, and is an editorial board member and reviewer for numerous professional journals and conferences. She has received several awards: Fast Company named her one of 50 most influential designers (2011); Newsweek picked her as one of the "100 Americans to watch for" in the year 2000; TIME Digital selected her as a member of the “Cyber Elite,” the top 50 technological pioneers of the high-tech world; the World Economic Forum honored her with the title "Global Leader for Tomorrow"; Ars Electronica awarded her the 1995 World Wide Web category prize; and in 2000 she was recognized with the "Lifetime Achievement Award" by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council. She has also received an honorary doctorate from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium, and her 2009 TED talk on "the 6th sense device" is among the most-watched TED talks ever.
In addition to her academic endeavors, Maes has been an active entrepreneur as co-founder of several venture-backed companies, including Firefly Networks (sold to Microsoft), Open Ratings (sold to Dun & Bradstreet) and Tulip Co (privately held). Prior to joining the Media Lab, Maes was a visiting professor and a research scientist at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. She holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and a PhD in artificial intelligence from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium.
Marcelo Coelho is the Head of Design at Formlabs and a lecturer and researcher in the MIT Department of Architecture. Spanning a wide range of media, processes, and scales, his work explores the boundaries between matter and information, fundamentally expanding and enhancing the ways in which we design and create. Coelho’s work has been exhibited internationally, including places such as the Olympics Ceremonies, Times Square, and Ars Electronica, and can be found in museums, private collections, and millions of products sold all over the world. He holds a doctorate degree from the MIT Media Lab.
Reshaping the physical world with new forms of expression and collaboration between human and machine intelligence.
Professor Tuller received a BS and an MS in electrical engineering and a doctorate in solid-state science and engineering, all from Columbia University. Before joining the DMSE faculty, he served as a postdoctoral research associate at Technion in Israel. He has published more than 500 articles, co-edited 15 books, and was awarded 33 patents. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Electroceramics and series editor of Electronic Materials: Science and Technology. He is also co-founder of Boston MicroSystems, a pioneer in silicon carbide-based MEMS technology and devices.
Catarina has been working with the Cambridge/Boston startup ecosystem for over 10 years and joined Corporate Relations with a solid network in the innovation and entrepreneurial community. Prior to MIT, she was part of the team that designed and launched the startup accelerator IUL MIT Portugal, which was later rebranded as Building Global Innovators. She was based in Lisbon and worked in direct relation with the Cambridge team. She held positions including Operations Coordinator, Program Manager, and Business Developer. The accelerator soon achieved steady growth in large part due to the partnerships that Catarina led with regional and global startup ecosystems. After that, she worked at NECEC, leading a program that connects cleantech startups and industry. In this role, she developed and built a pipeline of startups and forged strong relationships with both domestic and European companies. She has also held positions in Portugal and France, including at Saboaria e Perfumaria Confiança and L’Oréal as Technical Director and Pharmacist. Catarina earned her bachelor's in chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences in Portugal. She went on to earn her Master of Engineering for Health and Medicines in France.
Peter Godart, PhD is the co-founder and CEO of Found Energy, an MIT spinout commercializing breakthrough technology that turns aluminum into fuel for generating low-cost, clean hydrogen on demand. He holds BSc degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering and an MSc and PhD in mechanical engineering from MIT. After earning his bachelor’s degrees in 2015, Dr. Godart spent two years as a research scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (347G), where he worked daily operations for the Mars Science Laboratory (“Curiosity”), qualified hardware for the Mars 2020 Rover (“Perseverance”), and led a research team in the exploring aluminum-based fuel for potential Europa lander applications. For his doctoral work, Dr. Godart developed new ways of extracting energy from aluminum waste to power electricity generation and seawater desalination in the aftermath of natural disasters, laying the groundwork for his company. Dr. Godart is also an avid educator and writer, and his first book Thermodynamics and ClimateChange is available on MIT Opencourseware.
Tristan Swedish is a co-founder and CTO of Ubicept, which specializes in next generation perception using photon counting cameras. For the past decade, Tristan has worked in emerging technology teams working on difficult real-time sensing problems in places such as Raytheon BBN Technologies, Facebook, and Skydio. Tristan received a PhD from the MIT Media Lab, where he developed computational imaging techniques to turn objects into cameras. His passion is to improve the robustness of machine perception for better safety and autonomy for all.
VirjKan is an engineer, designer, and entrepreneur. Her work centers on building experiences that reshape human relationships with the environment and each other. She is the CEO of Primitives Biodesign, a biomaterials startup that produces functional, intelligent, and biodegradable materials to combat environmental issues in kelp conservation, plastics pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and food waste. As an avid scuba diver, Virj draws on her first-hand experiences with marine ecosystems, to develop market-based solutions to drive climate action. Virj Kan received her master of science degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she utilized ocean-based materials to develop stimuli responsive biopolymers that changed color, released odor, and changed shape for industrial design applications. She has over seven years of hands-on materials engineering and formulation experience with a range of biological materials. Her body of work spans from engineering functional biomaterials, to building digital fabrication tools, designing 3D robotic manipulation, IoT and mobile computing interfaces at the Samsung Design Innovation Center & NASA Jet Propulsion Lab.
John Xin is a proven business executive with 20+ years of experience across financial services and automotive industry; Past experience include business development, strategic partnerships, fundraising, product innovation, corporate investment and management consulting. Prior to founding Lunewave, he was a Managing Director of Strategic Partnerships Group at a Fortunate 100 company responsible for ~$500M in annual revenue.
Patrick Stack has beendeveloping software for the surface metrology, finite element analysis, and additive manufacturing industries for over 25 years. Patrick founded the software company, TrueGage, which has been in the surface metrology software business for 20 years. Currently he is working for GelSight, a manufacturer of mobile tactile sensors and software, as a Principal Software Engineer. Patrick is a member of the B46.1 Standard Committee on Surface Texture Analysis.
John Carrier is a senior lecturer in the System Dynamics Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Managing Director of 532 Partners. His expertise is in shaping the dynamics of operating environments to improve productivity, quality, safety, and morale simultaneously. He has helped companies save hundreds of millions of dollars by helping them find and eradicate the hidden systems lurking inside every operation. His current focus is to help prepare companies to compete in the new environment of Industry 4.0.
He has educated over five hundred top-level leaders in the MIT Sloan Executive Education program in Oil & Gas, petrochemicals, mining, and healthcare. When not teaching, he spends most of his time in the operating environment, working directly with the front line to deliver measurable results in less than sixty days.
Dr. Carrier holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan, a Ph.D. in Control Systems from MIT, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Carlos Portela is the d’Arbeloff Career Development Assistant Professor in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Portela’s research lies at the intersection of materials science, mechanics, and nano-to-macro fabrication with the objective of designing and testing novel materials -- with features spanning from nanometers to centimeters -- that yield unprecedented mechanical, optical, and acoustic properties.
Ariel L. Furst is the Paul M. Cook Career Development Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. Her work centers on inventing technologies to improve human and environmental health by making access to resources more equitable. Her lab develops transformative technologies to solve important problems related to healthcare and sustainability by harnessing the inherent capabilities of biological molecules and cells. She is also a co-founder of the regenerative agriculture company, Seia Bio. She completed her Ph.D. at Caltech developing non-invasive diagnostics for colorectal cancer and was then an A. O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley, where she developed sensors to monitor environmental pollutants. She is a 2023 Marion Milligan Mason Awardee, a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar for Bio-Inspired Solar Energy, and an ARO Early Career Grantee. She was recently awarded the MIT UROP Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award for her work with undergraduate researchers. She is passionate about STEM outreach and increasing participation of underrepresented groups in engineering.
Prior to joining MIT in September 2022, Olivier Cadet was Senior Vice President Global Operations, Americas, and President of Kongsberg Maritime Inc. located in Houston, TX and responsible for Kongsberg Maritime operations in the Americas region. Prior to assuming his role in July 2018, Olivier was Executive Vice President of Products & Services, based in Norway. In that role, Olivier was overseeing the teams managing Kongsberg Maritime’s products portfolio aligned with market demands and future trends, such as autonomous operations and digital performance. Olivier was also accountable for Kongsberg Maritime’s strategic initiative around Information Management System and Smart Data.
Olivier started his international career in the offshore drilling industry in 1998, working for Schlumberger/Transocean as a Controls Engineer where he was involved in the installation, commissioning and support of Dynamic Positioning and Automation systems on offshore drilling rigs. In 2004 Olivier joined Air Liquide, the world leader in industrial gases, where he served for 9 years in a variety of innovation management roles, including R&D Group Manager and Program Director, driving Air Liquide’s research efforts in the field of Advanced Process Control and Operations Research to support the company’s efficiency program.
A dual citizen (U.S./France), Olivier graduated from the Grenoble Institute of Technology (INP Grenoble) in France in 1998 with a Master of Engineering (Diplôme d’Ingénieur) in Electrical Engineering. He completed the Advanced Management Program with MIT Sloan Executive Education in June 2022.