Topic: Self-Driving Cars

Oliver Cameron

Oliver is a leader in self-driving cars and artificial intelligence.

Today, Oliver is the Vice President of Product at Cruise, joining through the acquisition of Voyage. Cruise is building the world's most advanced self-driving vehicles to safely connect people with the places, things, and experiences they care about. Through partnerships with General Motors and Honda, Cruise is the only self-driving company with fully integrated manufacturing at scale, building all-electric, zero-emission, self-driving vehicles that will help save lives, reimagine cities, reduce carbon pollution, redefine time in transit, and restore freedom of movement for individuals who live in dense urban settings.

Prior to Cruise, Oliver was the co-founder and CEO of Voyage. Voyage developed and deployed self-driving cars designed for senior citizens who struggled to drive. Voyage's first product was an autonomous taxi service located within a 160,000 resident retirement community in Florida. Here, their fleet delivered on the promise of autonomous driving—solving the mobility needs of residents who need it most. Voyage raised $52M in venture capital from Khosla Ventures, Franklin Templeton, Initialized Capital, and CRV. Cruise acquired Voyage in March 2021.

Prior to Voyage, Oliver was the Vice President of Engineering, Content & Product at the online education startup Udacity. Udacity—recently valued at over $1 billion—was born out of a Stanford University experiment in which Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig offered their "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" course online to anyone, for free. Over 160,000 students in more than 190 countries enrolled and not much later, Udacity was born. At Udacity, he led a 200-strong Engineering, Content, and Product team, focusing on our autonomous vehicle, robotics, artificial intelligence, and deep learning curriculum.

Brad Templeton

Brad Templeton is a developer of and commentator on self-driving cars, software architect, board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, internet entrepreneur, futurist lecturer, writer and observer of cyberspace issues, hobby photographer, and an artist. Templeton has been a consultant on Google’s team designing a driverless car and lectures and blogs about the emerging technology of automated transportation. He is also noted as a speaker and writer covering copyright law and political and social issues related to computing and networks. He is a director of the futurist Foresight Nanotech Institute, a think tank and public interest organization focused on transformative future technologies.
Templeton was founder, publisher and software architect at ClariNet Communications Corp., which in the 1990s became the first internet-based business, creating an electronic newspaper. He has been active in the computer network community since 1979, participated in the building and growth of USENET from its earliest days, and in 1987 founded and edited a special USENET conference devoted to comedy.
Templeton has been involved in the development of important pieces of software including VisiCalc, the world’s first computer spreadsheet, and Stuffit for archiving and compressing computer files. In 1996, ClariNet joined the ACLU and others in opposing the Communications Decency Act, part of the Telecom bill passed during Clinton Administration. The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the plaintiffs and ruled that the Act violated the First Amendment in seeking to impose anti-indecency standards on the internet.
Professional Activities: - Founder of ClariNet, the world’s first internet-based business (first dot-com) - Director and chairman for 10 years of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an organization created to “confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today.” - Developer of many packaged software products in the microcomputer era. - Published first large e-book anthology of current fiction. - Leader of internet/USENET community, creating rec.humor.funny which was the most widely read publication on the internet from 1988 to 1995.

Steve Wozniak

A Silicon Valley icon and philanthropist for more than thirty years, Steve Wozniak has helped shape the computing industry with his design of Apple’s first line of products the Apple I and II and influenced the popular Macintosh. In 1976, Wozniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer Inc. with Wozniak’s Apple I personal computer. The following year, he introduced his Apple II personal computer, featuring a central processing unit, a keyboard, color graphics, and a floppy disk drive.

The Apple II was integral in launching the personal computer industry.

In 1981, he went back to UC Berkeley and finished his degree in electrical engineering/computer science. For his achievements at Apple Computer, Wozniak was awarded the National Medal of Technology by the President of the United States in 1985, the highest honor bestowed on America’s leading innovators.

In 2000, he was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame and was awarded the prestigious Heinz Award for Technology, The Economy and Employment for single-handedly designing the first personal computer and for then redirecting his lifelong passion for mathematics and electronics toward lighting the fires of excitement for education in grade school students and their teachers.

Through the years, Wozniak has been involved in various business and philanthropic ventures, focusing primarily on computer capabilities in schools and stressing hands-on learning and encouraging creativity for students.  Making significant investments of both his time and resources in education, he adopted the Los Gatos School District, providing students and teachers with hands-on teaching and donations of state-of-the-art technology equipment. He founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and was the founding sponsor of the Tech Museum, Silicon Valley Ballet and Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose.

In 2006, Wozniak published his autobiography, iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It. It was co-authored by writer Gina Smith.

In 2007, Wozniak joined Scottevest as an Advisory Board Member.

In 2009, Wozniak joined Fusion-io, a data storage and server company, in Salt Lake City, Utah as their chief scientist.

In 2014 Wozniak became an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Engineering & Information Technology at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.