25 Autonomous Vehicles Influencers to Follow by 2020

The ultimate aim of Artificial Intelligence is to provide machines the ability to operate autonomously. One such area which is projected to grow exponentially over the next decade is Autonomous Vehicles. With Artificial Intelligence coupled with the rapid advances in electronics and computer technology, the word driverless will soon take over the roads.

One such pioneer in this field, Elon Musk, says, that by 2020 the basic functionalities of autonomous driving would become a reality.

The influencers presented in this list have contributed to the field of autonomous vehicles on various fronts. They are actively sharing their knowledge and understanding of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous vehicles to further their advances. From the founders of famous organizations, former Google employees, research scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs, here’s presenting the top 25 influencers you should follow and hear from.

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Sebastian Thrun

Sebastian Thrun is the co-founder of Udacity, former VP, and pioneer at Google’s AI team. He is the CEO of Kitty Hawk Corp. KHC develops battery-powered aviation vehicles for the future. Sebastian is a great computer scientist and taught many students at Stanford. He contributed a lot in the beginning period of Google’s self-driving automotive.

Tim Faude

Tim Faude is a senior representative at Match-Maker Ventures with an entrepreneurship career. Currently, he is the managing partner at the CEYOND group. Tim influences big businesses & young potentials with his digital marketing & SEO tactics. He has also been a member of the Uniforce Consulting advisory board for almost seven years.

Tom Raftery

Tom Raftery is an international keynote speaker and a global VP for SAP. He’s also a proud father with a vision for change. Currently, his most ambitious and ongoing projects consist of AI in the medical sector & utilizing solar energy. Tom is also the co-founder at Cloud CIX. Even being so busy, he spares time to consult in social media.

Gaurav Taank

Gaurav Taank is the VP of engineering and operations at Cronycle. He is an influencer of SDE-data science. Gaurav is the director & co-founder of Indoi Systems Private Limited. It is currently owned by a major robotics company. His interests are in ML, Big Data, NLP, and many more interesting topics.

Karl-Thomas Neumann

Karl-Thomas Neumann has been working in the automotive industry for the past 30 years. His career follows product developments, business & market strategies. Neumann has founded a new company named KTN GmbH. It brings support towards E-mobility. He was a marathon runner and a strategy director for the automobile industry at Opel.

Tasha Keeney

Tasha Keeny is currently the analyst for Ark Investment Management LLC. She covers autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, and market analysis or stock materials. Tasha was a former consultant at Applied value. During her time in AV, she worked with big automotive and manufacturing clients. Her career also covers the drone delivery systems in the eCommerce sector.

Chris Hosford

Christopher Hosford is the editorial manager at the HosfordGroup LLC. He was the east coast bureau chief of BtoB magazine. His editorial career started at Coastal Communications. He wrote Great Business Meetings, Greater Business Results. Currently, Hosford is working on driverless Automotives at Waymo.

Edward Niedermeyer

Edward Niedermeyer is the Communications Director at Partners for Automated Vehicles Education. PAVE is a nonprofit organization that works with the auto industry. He was a reporter for Silicon Valley automotive news. There he reported on the mobility of technologies. Edward brings his idea for the automotive industry to the broader audience.

Edward Loh

Edward Loh is the head of the editorial at MotorTrend Group. At MTG, he leads many editorial teams that work for 19 different brands. He was the senior vice president before that. Edward was the last person to interview John Lamm for NASCAR on MotorTrend. He reviewed LucidMotors, Toyota Sequoia recently

Wilko S Wolters

Wilko S. Wolters is the Associate Partner, Digitalization Industry & Automotive at IBM iX. He lectures at Hochschule Landshut. Wiko is also the digital board advisor and managing partner at Moilityheads. He was the co-founder of D2twelve. He implements changes in digital industries like automotive, OEMs, and even mobile network operators.

Collin Mulliner

Collin Mulliner has been working as a researcher and developer at Mulliner.org for almost 26 years. He is an independent security researcher and released many tools for penetration testing. Collin was the principal security engineer for autonomous vehicle security at Cruise. In his past time, Collin worked on platform security for the Square Register POS terminal.

Mark Halliday

Mark Halliday is a product leader in automotive and smarter mobility. He previously worked as the chief product officer at Tantalum. Mark is the product manager for McLaren Applied. He has 18 years of experience in software development & project management at IBM. At the moment, he finds great interest in automotive safety systems.

Ed Walters

Ed Walters is the CEO of Fastcase. Fastcase helps people become smarter for legal research. The company pioneers in data visualization, mobile apps, and citation analysis. He was an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center at Washington DC. Walters teaches about robots and likes to explore autonomous machines & drones.

Saurabh Palan

Saurabh Palan is the product manager at Google. Currently, he is the leading assistant of Google TV & Stadia. He was on the board of advisors for Adori Labs, Inc before working with Google. Saurabh is on the board of directors for Silicon Valley Robotics. He is also the product manager at Toyota Research Institute.

Joann Muller

Joann Muller is one of the veterans in the auto industry. She is the transportation correspondent at Axios. She also directs newsletter & expert analysis on latest tech as Detroit Bureau Chief at Forbes. In one of her encounters with Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, she uncovered some potential of their automotive.

Vladimir Iglovikov

Vladimir Iglovikov is a senior computer vision engineer at a self-driving division for Lyft Inc. He is also a grandmaster at Kaggle. His vast experience in ML & Deep Learning is now fueling the automotive engineering backend. He was a graduate research assistant at UC Davis where he worked with regression models and Hubbard models.

Bradley Berman

Bradley Berman is an experienced reporter. He covers and investigates the latest technology and consumer products. He is the writer and editor of many articles related to autonomous vehicles, EV’s, and future transportations. Berman worked as a freelance writer in The New York Times and many world-class publishers. He is also the content strategist for U.S. News.

Alex Lidow

Alex Lidow is the CEO of Efficient Power Conversion. His work on power conversion is implemented in autonomous vehicles for the vision of clean energy. Alex holds many patents of semiconductor technologies used in these autonomous vehicles. His belief in affordable and efficient energy led to many types of research.

Aicha Evans

Aicha Evans is the CEO & Founder of Zoox. Zoox is an autonomous vehicle company situated in the US. This was later acquired by Amazon. Aicha was the former senior vice president at Intel. She also worked as an engineering manager at Skyworks. She started a restaurant for the love of cooking and through time developed herself as an autonomous perfectionist.

Bertrand Duflos

Bertrand Duflos is a European patent attorney at Cabinet Beau de Loménie. He legalizes in automobile & mobility. He was the technical manager for Lab3. Duflos founded Surface Lab and worked with Butagaz at the same time. Both companies legalize automobile patents. With more than 12 years of experience, Duflos is currently helping clients with legal automotive expertise.

Reilly Brennan

Reilly Brennan is the general partner at Trucks Venture Capital and a lecturer at Stanford. He is venturing funds for the future of transportation. Reilly is also one of the board members for ShipSwyft and Seeva TEchnologies. Before starting to work with trucks, he directed the automotive research program at Stanford too.

Peter Sorgenfrei

Peter Sorgenfrei was the CEO of Holo. Holo is the largest automotive company in Denmark with global partners. He was one of the pioneers to introduce autonomous vehicles in Europe. He built a couple of companies too. Peter was previously the global head of strategic partner for Ipsos. He also founded Sorgenfrei, a company with his name. It means “free from worry” in English.

Thomas Bamonte

Thomas Bamonte is the senior program manager at the North Central Texas Council of Governments. He helps to build automated vehicle programs. The program consists of transportation technologies and policies with foreign and large corporations. Thomas was the assistant executive director for the North Texas Tollway Authority, where his innovation brought new transportation technologies.

Mark Phillips

Mark Phillips is the host for Poland’s automotive industry gatherings. He is also an automotive journalist for aftermarket Intel. He hosted many programs that highlighted global leaders and automotive technology. He has more than 12 years of experience as an aftermarket editor and video host. Mark created many hosted content too for large automotive companies.

Joe Barkai

Joe Barkai is the vice president of research for IDC. His research covers effective product lifecycle, design & engineering. He was the keynote speaker for the Markman Speaker Management Bureau. In his book “The Outcome Economy”, he mentioned the internet of things profoundly. His engagement in the automotive industry is vast. He was the speaker for the best practices for automotive in 2015.

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