The U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. General Services Administration Will Co-host a Virtual Event on the Future of Mobility with Open Source Software

The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) will co-host a virtual event on the future of mobility with open source software (OSS). This interactive event will unite OSS and transportation professionals to discuss research and development opportunities and the drive for groundbreaking innovation. The event is scheduled for August 4 from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm EDT.

OVERVIEW

OSS is spurring innovation in transportation by enabling greater collaboration and ideation. A growing number of organizations including the public sector, private sector, and academia are building OSS to collaboratively advance the research and development (R&D) of new transportation mobility and safety solutions. Recently, OSS has accelerated the R&D of cooperative driving automation (CDA), intelligent transportation systems (ITS), and traveler information systems. This virtual event will bring together a diverse panel of government and technical industry experts to discuss the impacts and opportunities of OSS for transportation—with a focus on automated driving technology. The panel will highlight existing OSS platforms, examine opportunities and threats to innovation, and discuss where we go from here to continue this momentum.

EVENT DETAILS

This interactive virtual event will include presentations and panel discussion. Panelists include:

• Taylor Lochrane, Ph.D., P.E., Technical Manager, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. DOT: Dr. Lochrane is the Technical Manager for the Cooperative Automation Research Program in the Office of Operations Research and Development located at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center. He leads a team of engineers developing the CARMA platform, which supports testing and evaluation of CDA.

• Amin Mehr, Co-Product Owner, Code.gov: Mr. Mehr is responsible for maintaining the Code.gov website and overseeing federal agency implementation of the White House’s Federal Source Code Policy. He is passionate about open source and works on a range of topics including strategy, product, outreach, and customer experience to help agencies with their coding objectives. Previously, Mr. Mehr served as Program Director for Performance.gov alongside his role as an Advisor on the Federal CIO Council in the Office of Government-wide Policy. Prior to his work at GSA, he led the BusinessUSA initiative at the Small Business Administration and the Department of Commerce. 

• Brian Gerkey, co-founder and CEO, Open Robotics: Open Robotics drives the development and adoption of open software and hardware for robotics. Prior to Open Robotics, Mr. Gerkey worked at Willow Garage, SRI, Stanford, and USC. He is a strong believer in, frequent contributor to, and constant beneficiary of open source technology.

• Raj V. Ponnaluri, State Connected Vehicle and Arterial Management Engineer, Florida Department of Transportation: In addition to leading the state’s arterial management, wrong-way driving and connected vehicle programs, Mr. Ponnaluri assists with the development of the transportation systems management and operations (TSM&O) initiatives. He is a registered P.E., PTOE, and PMP. He has 22 years of experience in traffic engineering and operations, ITS, TSM&O, public transportation, and project and contract management. Mr. Ponnaluri has published his work in several journals.

• Joe Speed, Field CTO, ADLINK Technology: Mr. Speed has spent his career developing and advocating open source at organizations including Linux Foundation and IBM where he launched IBM IoT and IBM AutoLab. Mr. Speed helped make MQTT open source and open standard, convincing the automakers to adopt it. He’s currently working to do the same for Autoware and ROS 2 with Eclipse Cyclone DDS. Mr. Speed has built a dozen advanced technology vehicles but is most proud of helping develop accessible autonomous mobility for the elderly and disabled. He is also a member of the Open Robotics ROS 2 TSC, Autoware TSC, OpenADx SC. 

Register in advance for this free virtual event. After the event, a recording will be available on the ITS JPO web site.

SUMMARY

Title: Virtual Event on The Future of Mobility with Open Source Software
Date: August 4, 2020
Time: 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm EDT
Registration: Register Here!

Posted 7/21/20