Timothy Huntzinger is a veteran vehicle designer and tech entrepreneur with two decades of experience advancing mobility systems in the aerospace and automotive sectors. As founder of XOTO Inc. since 2021, he leads innovation in alternative mobility while continuing to consult for major companies. He has held leadership roles including VP of Design for the Kittyhawk Flyer (an autonomous EVTOL) and VP of Product Design at DAQRI, where he developed AR technologies for automotive applications. Tim previously taught at ArtCenter College of Design and Tongji University, and founded Huntzinger Design Studio, collaborating with Boeing, NASA, GE, Fisker, Rivian, and GM. He holds multiple patents in EV technology and earned degrees in transportation design from ArtCenter and BYU.

Dr. Venkat Sumantran is a distinguished business leader, technologist, and author with over three decades of experience in the global automotive and mobility sectors. He is Chairman of Celeris Technologies and has held executive leadership roles at Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, and General Motors, contributing significantly to innovations in mobility, strategy, and sustainable transportation.

Dr. Sumantran holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Tech and serves on multiple advisory boards, including those of educational institutions and international mobility initiatives. He is co-author of Faster, Smarter, Greener: The Future of the Car and Urban Mobility, a widely acclaimed book on the transformation of urban transportation.

Dan Sturges is a renowned thought leader advocating for mobility systems innovation for nearly 40 years. Since inventing the Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (now GEM car) in 1993, Dan has been driven to solve “wicked problems” and enable mobility systems innovation in the United States.

Published in 2023, Dan’s book Near to Far explains why the car-dominant paradigm is insufficient for today’s communities, and shares curated ideas, solutions, and patterns essential for achieving mobility systems innovations that enrich, enliven, and future-proof U.S. communities.

His diversified, cross-disciplinary career —working alongside transportation planners, vehicle manufacturers, government agencies, corporations, students, and communities—lends unique insights and advantages.

Dr. Steve M. Potter is an internationally recognized neuroscientist and neuroengineer whose groundbreaking work has helped define the modern fields of brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), wet-computing, and neuroengineering. As the founder of the Potter Group and creator of the field of Embodied Cultured Networks, Dr. Potter was among the first scientists to successfully interface living neural organoids with computers, enabling hybrid biological–digital systems that blur the line between natural and artificial intelligence.

During his tenure as a professor in the Laboratory for NeuroEngineering, operated by Georgia Tech University, Dr. Potter led a series of pioneering experiments that advanced our understanding of how living brain circuits learn, adapt, and communicate with machines. His research has profoundly influenced the development of “wet AI” — computational systems that use living neurons to process information — and continues to inform the ethics and future applications of biohybrid intelligence.

In addition to his leadership in neuroscience, Dr. Potter is an expert in drone technology and autonomous systems, applying his deep knowledge of neural feedback and adaptive control to explore parallels between biological and robotic intelligence.

After two decades in academia, Dr. Potter shifted his focus from laboratory management to hands-on innovation and maker education, bringing his passion for creativity, tinkering, and real-world problem-solving to communities across the U.S. and Europe. A widely respected teacher and mentor, he has received numerous awards for his project-based learning methods and continues to consult, teach, and write on the future of intelligence, both natural and artificial, from his home in Dundalk, Ireland.

Dr. Potter’s work embodies the intersection of neuroscience, engineering, and imagination, inspiring new generations of makers, scientists, and designers to rethink what it means to build and collaborate with living systems.