THE FINISH LINE NEWSLETTER
April 9, 2021 Issue
2021 GAMIC FINALS
Join 1000+ Attendees
Monday April 12, 2021
-Speakers Profiles
-Judges
-Finalist Profiles
-Agenda
2021 SPEAKERS
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION

EV STUDIES BY J.D. POWER

Brent Gruber, Senior Director of Global Automotive, at J.D. Power, will speak to the suite of EV Studies J.D. Power has developed and illustrate some highlights from the three studies that have been released thus far:

  • Electric Vehicle Consideration (EVC),
  • Electric Vehicle Experience (EVX) Ownership
  • Electric Vehicle Experience (EVX) Home Charging

These studies essentially follow the path of what the criteria is for consideration/non-consideration and, once consumers do make EV purchases, what were the deciding factors, the positives/negatives of ownership, and ultimately how do we improve the charging experience. These factors are the dominant aspects of EV ownership. All of this is done under the premise of what can we do to help industry stakeholders get out in front of this before we reach mass market adoption. 

The competitors at the 2021 GAMIC Finals and the audience of TIER 1 and OEM Executives will benefit from better understanding the end consumer of their product and how their products may help OEMs go to market.  

Brent Gruber currently leads the global automotive supplier practice at J.D. Power. He is responsible for representing J.D. Power within the automotive supply industry and consulting with clients on finding research based solutions to help grow their businesses through improving products and the customer experience. He graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a BBA in Marketing.
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION

The Unique Potential of Corporate Venture Capital
 
Marco Marinucci is the Co-Founder and serves as Partner, Head at HELLA Ventures.

HELLA Ventures is investing in global mobility solutions, partnering with startups to bring tomorrow’s innovations to life. HELLA Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of HELLA, seeking to invest in early stage companies while providing industry expertise and market access as a smart money, strategic investor. HELLA Ventures’ core task is to maximize the value creation for startups and HELLA by combining expertise and taking the best out of both worlds. 

Marco Marinucci is also a Board Observer at AEYE (NASDAQ: CFAC), Oculii, Ridecell, Brighter AI, and Excelfore. Prior to co-founding HELLA Ventures in 2016, he was running automotive D&D and manufacturing programs in Germany and Detroit. He holds a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative University Stuttgart and an MBA in Global Business from the University of Hamburg. He also completed the coursework for a Ph.D. in Business & Management from the University of Gloucestershire.
Adam Jansen
Marc Bouchet
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION

Plug And Play Detroit

Adam Jansen is leading Plug and Play Detroit. Prior to joining Plug and Play, Adam worked as a Senior Commercial Manager for Adient, a Tier 1 automotive supplier, where he managed the development, manufacture, and transaction of vehicle seating components to Tesla and multiple Silicon Valley tech giants. Outside of work, Adam is a private pilot and he enjoys flying loops and rolls in his aerobatic airplane on the weekends. Adam has a BBA from UW-Green Bay, an MBA from University of Southern California (USC), and a Master’s degree in Sustainability from Harvard University.

Marc Bouchet is an investor with Plug and Play Ventures focused on finding and funding early-stage startups in the mobility and industrial technology sectors. By training, he is an aerospace engineer with a degree from Case Western in Cleveland, OH with prior work at General Electric. He is also an avid sailor with thousands of miles logged on racing yachts with professional teams. Marc is relentlessly focused on building things where his technical background and love of people intersect - from racing teams to communities of founders to corporate innovation initiatives.

Plug And Play runs over 50 industry-themed accelerator programs a year in cities around the world. They invest in over 260 start-up companies a year and co-invest with the world’s best Venture Capital Firms. In addition they supercharge the innovation of over 400 global industry-leading corporations. The Plug And Play network consists of 30,000+ startups, 500+ world-leading corporations, and hundreds of venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies across multiple industries. Together with their partners, they are creating a unique ecosystem designed to develop and implement tomorrow's technologies.

Five (5) of the seventeen (17) 2020 - Plug And Play Detroit Batch (0) Portfolio Companies were past GAMIC Award Winners & Competitors.
2021 JUDGES

  • Craig A. Barnes
  • President of CAB Consulting LLC.

  • Massimo Aliberti
  • Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Bologna, Italy

  • Doug Neal
  • Co-Founder and Managing Director of eLab Ventures

  • Jeff Varick
  • Founder and CEO of Brandmotion, LLC.

  • Dr. Mazen Hammoud
  • Director of Global Propulsion Strategy and Planning with Ford Motor Company

  • Tony Cannestra
  • Director of Corporate Ventures for DENSO International America (DIAM). 

11 - GLOBAL FINALISTS
Gilles Meyer - CEO
Actronika - Paris, France

Based on more than 30 years of research by our co-founder, Vincent Hayward, Actronika has developed haptic technologies that enable tactile feedback to be seamlessly integrated in any human-machine interfaces. Actronika provides more intuitive haptic human-machine interaction tools to respond to new consumer expectations for a safer, more seamless and comfortable user experience:
  • Be reassured through haptic feedback while driving
  • Decrease visual attention-grabbing distractions by using only touch
  • Replace mechanical buttons with customizable tactile clicks and true-touch buttons, etc.
Duygu Yılmaz, Co-Founder & CEO

Biolive, Istanbul, Turkey

Biolive - Biological and Chemical Technology Industry and Trade Inc., Istanbul, Turkey is a biotechnology company that produces and sells bioplastic granules from olive seed waste and 100% plant-based vegan leather with the highest plant-based content in the world; also designs and develops the technical production process.

Biolive products can be used in the electronics industry, automotive industry, food packaging, organic toys and other baby products, textile, vegan leather production, and many other fields such as medical visor. Biolive achieves 11 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals organized by the United Nations. 
ChargeNet - EV Fast Chargers - USA
Tosh Dutt - CEO
ChargeNet - Los Angeles, CA - USA


ChargeNet is the electric vehicle (EV) charging station of the future. Their patent-pending, AI-driven Software as a Service (SaaS) technology is highly scalable and integrates DC Fast Chargers, solar PV and energy storage with retailer POS offerings to create a faster, more interesting and robust charging experience. It’s a seamless experience for EV owners, and also a win for retailers and our planet.

ChargeNet has built a software platform that integrates and optimizes EV Fast Chargers, solar and energy storage with point-of-sale systems at restaurants and retail locations. ChargeNet is developing charging stations along major transportation corridors that will combine access to sustainably minded “fast-casual” and “quick-serve” restaurants with fast-charging services powered by renewable energy.  
Hyperspec AI - Autonomous Sensor Mapping - USA
Sravan Puttagunta - CEO
Hyperspec AI - SanFrancisco, CA - USA

Hyperspec.ai provides Synthetically enhanced AI cameras for machine vision applications.

Hyperspec.ai provides a high performance computing pipeline for vision sensors. It uses specialized hardware alongside a parallel computing architecture to support up to 24 cameras and several peripheral sensors on a single edge deployment with 100 watts power consumption.
Bastien Beauchamp - CEO

!important, Ann Arbor, MI USA

!Important is the new digital safety belt that can solve the major road fatality problem once and for all. It detects & protects vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, wheelchairs, e-scooters, bicycles, motorcycles, etc from collision with vehicles.

The unique technology detects smartphones and IoTs position, applying artificial intelligence to predict movements. And if a collision is predicted, alerts are sent to the driver on the HMI or HUD screen, finally it can trigger the ADS/ADAS system if needed.

!important started in 2018, the company based in Ann Arbor, MI is now at the commercial phase with OEMs and Tier 1s. 
Peter Deppe - Co-Founder & CEO
Kuhmute - Flint, MI - USA

KUHMUTE is the Universal Charging Infrastructure for Micromobility, able to park & charge shared and personally owned versions of any escooter, ebike, delivery robot, wheelchair and more.

Our goal is to bring the reliability and experience of full-size EV charging to Micromobility here within North America and Europe to any vehicle smaller than a car.

All of this technology is designed and manufactured right here in Flint, Michigan, USA

MazLite Inc. - Class A Paint Line Optimization - Canada
Amirreza Amighi, PhD - CEO
MazLite Inc. - Toronto, ON - Canada

MazLite Inc. in partnership with leaders in the field of Computational Fluid Dynamics, collaborated to develop the the foundation of a new enterprise around an innovative advanced optical instrument for measuring micron-sized particles and droplets from aerosol sprays, at a tenth of the price of similar products on the market.

Mazlite can monitor and fully characterize fast processes and multi-phase systems (sprays, powders, bubbling liquids, emulsions,etc.,) providing a tool for monitoring, quality control and optimizing production processes in automotive coatings and Class A Painting.

Abou Laraki - CEO & Co-Founder
Monk AI - France

Monk AI is an AI software solution. The company uses computer vision and deep learning techniques to detect damages, evaluate the condition of a car and assess the cost of repair. They are currently operating internationally in the insurance, automotive and mobility industries by bringing trust and efficiency.

Nikolay Ilyin - Founder

PeerF - Moscow, Russia

PeerF develops patented micro-component automotive EcoOS technology, designed for ecosystems.

It kills OS slavery unbundling software development. Components, reusable across ecosystem cut 50% of IoT development costs. Applications can be composed, like Lego, with reusable across whole ecosystem micro components, which can be delivered through marketplace model with one-click integration.

Developers can build purpose-built operating systems in weeks reusing their work and apps, which now just work for years no matter of OS version used.
Steven Chung - CEO & Co-Founder

ReJoule Inc. - Signal Hill, CA - USA

ReJoule’s fast battery diagnostics enables a more accurate measurement of the battery's health. Even after battery prices have fallen over 85% since 2010, uncertainty on battery health leads to wasted time, money, and resources along the battery’s life cycle. 

As batteries power more of our cars and buildings, more advanced diagnostics helps bring battery costs down and accelerate electrification. ReJoule's proactive system dynamically adjusts for optimal performance to increase usable battery capacity and improve safety. By enabling a step-change in the world’s understanding of how batteries perform,

ReJoule makes battery systems cheaper, safer, and more sustainable. ReJoule’s research efforts are funded by the National Science Foundation and California Energy Commission.
Vishal Bajpai - CEO & Co-Founder

SecureThings - Los Altos, CA - USA

SecureThings provides a real-time cybersecurity solution for connected vehicles. The multi-layered cybersecurity solution protects vehicles beginning from the telematics unit, ECU security to the in-vehicle network security. The solution is adaptive and builds intelligence using machine learning-based algorithms.

AGENDA
12:00 - WELCOME

12:15 - Mazlite Inc. - Toronto, Canada

12:35 - Actronika - Paris, France

12:55 - Secure Things - Sunnyvale, CA, USA

1:15 - PeerF - Moscow, Russia

1:35 - Rejoul - Signal Hill, CA, USA

1:55 - Monk AI - Paris, France

2:15 - KEYNOTE - Marco Marinucci, Hella Ventures
The Unique Potential of Corporate Venture Capital
2:45 - BioLive - Istanbul, Turkey

3:05 - !Important - Ann Arbor, MI, USA

3:25 - ChargeNet - San Diego, USA

3:45 - Kuhmute - Flint, MI, USA

4:05 - Hyperspec AI - San Francisco, CA, USA

4:25 - KEYNOTE - Brent Gruber, J.D. Power
EV Studies By J.D. Power

4:45 - Plug And Play Detroit, Adam Jansen & Marc Bouchet
2021 Highlights

4:55 - 2021 GAMIC FINAL Awards, David Stout

Support & Sponsor
GAMIC 2021
 
You and your organization are invited to actively support GAMIC and the applicant companies. GAMIC is a non-profit organization run by an all volunteer board with all financial and service support going directly to improve the attendee and competitor experience.

Please contact GAMIC EXECUTIVES at:


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Each year we recruit key automotive executives that are also interested in applying to be a INDUSTRY JUDGE in our quarter finals, semi-finals or our Final event held during the SAE World Congress.
GAMIC SPONSORS
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