Poland Day 2021

PD2021

SILICON VALLEY POLAND DAYS 2021 –  Digital Accelerated World After Pandemic

 

Subjects:

  • Mixed Reality, AI, IoT & Big Data
  • Energy, Climate, Transportation & the Future of Smart Cities
  • Fintech
  • Technology and Medicine in Healthcare,
  • Integration and consolidation of universities,
  • Education and communication during and after COVID.

Registration:

 

Agenda

Wednesday – October 27th

🇱🇷7:00 AM – 8:00 AM (PDT) / 🇵🇱16:00 – 17:00 (PL) Plenary Session

Moderator: Lukas Grabiec (Senior Product Counsel at Wing (an Alphabet Company), BoD USPTC)

  • Piotr Moncarz (Chair, US-Polish Trade Council; Adjunct Professor, Stanford University; Senior Fellow, Exponent)
  • Jerzy Orkiszewski (President, US-Polish Trade Council; VP of Engineering, Cutera)
  • Mariusz Tomaka (President, US-Polish Trade Council, Poland)

🇱🇷8:00 AM – 9:00 AM (PDT) / 🇵🇱17:00 – 18:00 (PL) Mixed Reality, AI, IoT & Big Data

Moderator: Robert Hryniewicz (Director of Product Marketing, Cloudera)

🇱🇷9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (PDT) / 🇵🇱18:00 – 19:00 (PL) Energy, climate, transportation

Moderator: Piotr Moncarz (Senior Fellow, Exponent; CEO Geothermic Solution LLC)

 

Thursday – October 28th

🇱🇷7:00 AM – 8:00 AM (PDT) / 🇵🇱16:00 – 17:00 (PL) Technology in Healthcare 

Moderator: Jerzy Orkiszewski (Director, Cutera)

🇱🇷8:00 AM – 8:30 AM (PDT) / 🇵🇱17:00 – 17:30 (PL) Smart city in a post-COVID culture

Moderator: Michael Lepech (Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University)

🇱🇷8:30 AM – 9:30 AM (PDT) / 🇵🇱17:30 – 18:30 (PL) Fintech Re-Imagined

Moderator: Aleksandra Gren (Board Member, Fiserv Polska and BoS mBank)

🇱🇷9:30 AM – 10:30 AM (PDT) / 🇵🇱18:30 – 19:30 (PL) Medicine and Healthcare

Moderator: TBA

 

Friday – October 29th

🇱🇷7:00 AM – 8:00 AM (PDT) / 🇵🇱16:00 – 17:00 (PL) Cooperation of Professionals Poland – Polonia

Moderator: TBA

🇱🇷8:00 AM – 9:00 AM (PDT) / 🇵🇱17:00 – 18:00 (PL) Education and communication during and after COVID

Moderator: TBA

🇱🇷9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (PDT) / 🇵🇱18:00 -19:00 (PL) Integration and consolidation of universities

Moderator: TBA

HONORARY PATRONAGE

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Speakers

Prof. Piotr Moncarz Adjunct Professor, Stanford School of Engineering, Exponent, USPTC
Lukas Grabiec Senior Product Counsel at Wing (an Alphabet Company)
Prof. Michael Lepech Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
Aleksandra Gren Board Member, Fiserv Polska and BoS mBank
Clay Bullwinkel Founder and CEO, Silicon Valley Flow LLC, Tech Entrepreneur and Consultant
Mariusz Tomaka Board Advisor - Business Development, Euvic

Piotr D. Moncarz, Ph.D., P.E., NAE, born and raised in Poland, graduated from vocational high school program in road and bridge construction in Poznan, Poland, receives Ph.D. degree in earthquake engineering at Stanford University. Registered professional engineer in civil engineering in numerous U.S. states and Canadian provinces; member of the National Academy of Engineers.  Adjunct Professor, Stanford University; Senior Fellow and Principal Engineer, Exponent, Inc., an international science and technology public corporation initiated in Silicon Valley; President and CEO, Geothermic Solution LLC, green energy, disruptive technology company. With an engineering career focused on failure analysis and failure prevention led and participated in hundreds of studies, remediation and research projects. He is active in academic programs, consulting work, and international business from power plant development projects, energy technologies and economics, electro-mobility, to high-tech ventures. former  Board member of the Polish National Center for Research and Development, formerly Academic Director and co-organizer of Top 500 Innovators program at Stanford University; co-organizer and leader of Stanford University/Silicon Valley workshops for Polish industry and government leaders.  Decorated by the President of Poland with the Officer Cross of Polonia Restituta. He is a frequent speaker in venues pertaining to system safety and performance, engineering knowledge transfer, trends in technologies, innovativeness, sustainable development, and stimulation of international cooperation and competitiveness.

Lukas Grabiec is Senior Corporate Counsel at Wing (an Alphabet company) and for the past 14 years held senior positions at Uber (Autonomous Vehicle team), GoDaddy, Microchip Technology, Intel Corporation, and Honeywell International. Lukas was recognized in the legal community as the “Up and Comer” Attorney of the Year for 2012 by the Association of Corporate Counsel and Arizona Business Magazine and also was selected to the prestigious School for Leaders (Szkoła Liderów) program in Warsaw, Poland sponsored by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Office of the President of Poland. He is heavily involved in various organizations including being the Chairman of the State Bar of Arizona In-House Counsel Committee, current Director and founding member of the US-Poland Trade Council (USPTC) Office in Arizona, Mentor at the US-Poland Innovation Hub in Silicon Valley, and frequent lecturer across the U.S. and Europe including at Cambridge University, the University of Arizona, the Stanford Center for Professional Development at Stanford University. Lukas received his Juris Doctorate (JD) from Case Western Reserve University, his MBA from École de Hautes Études Commerciales (EDHEC) (France), a B.S. in Political Science from the University of Houston Honors College as well as a Certificate of Polish Studies from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. During law school he worked with the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone and wrote briefs helping prosecute War Criminals. This UN project which was organized by Case Western, American University and the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Lukas has been featured or interviewed by CNBC, TVP (Telewizja Polska) POLVISION – Kulisy Suksesu (tv program), Arizona Attorney Magazine, Gazeta.pl, Tygodnik Angora, FoxSports, Sport.pl, and Przeglad Sportowy.

Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University. Professor Lepech’s research focuses on the integration of sustainability indicators into engineering design, ranging from materials design, structural design, system design, to operations management. Such sustainability indicators include a comprehensive set of environmental, economic, and social costs. Recently his research has focused on the design of sustainable high performance fiber- reinforced cementitious composites (HPFRCCs) and fiber-reinforced polymers (FRPs), the impacts of sustainable materials on building and infrastructure design and operation, and the development of new life cycle assessment (LCA) applications for building systems, transportation systems, water systems, consumer products. Along with this he is studying the effects that slowly diffusing sustainable civil engineering innovations, and the social networks they diffuse through, can have on achieving long term sustainability goals.

Country Manager for Fiserv Poland (NASDAQ: FISV) responsible for new tech initiatives for major EMEA-based financial institutions, with a focus on CEE. Recipient of the Goldman Sachs-Fortune Global Women Leaders Award. Global Ambassador at Bank of America GAP Mentoring Program (2019). 20 years experience in financial technology in EMEA.  Advisory Board Member of Vital Voices Poland and a Trustee of the Vital Voices Europe Board in London, UK, advocate of women’s leadership and women in tech initiatives. BA in International Relations from University of British Columbia in Vancouver, MSc in Policy Making from the London School of Economics

Mr. Clay A. Bullwinkel is Founder and CEO, Silicon Valley Flow LLC, an advisory firm in IT venture management.  For 35 years Clay has pioneered new businesses with measurable new value for customers, employees, and stock holders.  His disciplines cover general management, finance, team recruiting and building, product development, product management, sales and marketing.  He currently specializes in building companies through game changing rehabilitation and acceleration of product development, product management, and sales for companies in voice, text, and graphical communications.  Solution coverage can be consumer, professional, enterprise, or all.  He is a former executive of 3Com (network interfaces, protocols, infrastructure, and network management) and Hewlett Packard (vertical market solutions marketing).  More recently he was CEO of Aiton Caldwell Inc., a VoIP telecommunications venture with its parent in Gdansk, Poland.  In 2003 Clay co-founded the U.S. Poland Trade Council, and is a member of its Board of Directors.  Since 1983, seven years before official conversion to capitalism, he has been working with Poland-based businesses, including with Univex of Krakow, for which he co-designed audio products which influenced Apple’s iPod.  He has his B.A. and M.B.A. degrees from Stanford University.  He speaks intermediate Polish and German.  A 4th generation San Franciscan, Clay resides with his wife Denise in nearby Portola Valley.  They have two professionally employed daughters.  With family and friends he enjoys history and science fiction reading, gardening, hiking, fly fishing, and a variety of sports including participation in middle distance foot races.

Mariusz Tomaka is active as organizer, co-founder, and CEO of innovative electronic and software companies in Poland focused on local and international markets. He specializes in building and running innovative companies – startups – focused on international markets and leading teams of engineers and managers to achieve challenging technology and business objectives. Prior to current activities at EUVIC he worked as  CEO (PL) for DisplayLink in Poland and VP in Cambridge UK,  as Area Manager – Poland at Neubloc, board adviser – share holder at ABF sp. z o.o. Mariusz is a President of US-Polish Trade Council in Poland and extended board member in USA, he is a Chamber Council Member at The Polish Chamber of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Mariusz is Vice-president of OG at Telecommunications and Polish Information Processing Society.

Paul Marca retired Assoc. Vice Provost and Director of Stanford Center for Professional Development
Robert Hryniewicz Director of Product Marketing, Cloudera
dr Rafał Stroiński Senior Partner, B2RLaw Jankowski, Stroiński, Zięba
Prof. Andrzej Nowak Chair, Dep. Civil Faculty Engineering, Auburn University
Prof. Krzysztof Dyczkowski Dean of Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań
Dominik Schmidt Managing Director, QVT Investment

He has spent 29 years in various roles at Stanford and currently directs a portfolio of over 250 graduate and professional courses annually to industry. He has been instrumental in developing and implementing an international portfolio which includes Singapore, China, India, Korea, Malaysia, Brazil, United Arab Emirates and in numerous European countries including France, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. In 2013, he launched a joint online non-credit certificate program between the School of Engineering and the Graduate School of Business: the Stanford Innovation and Entrepreneurship certificate. This is the first formal online education cooperation between the schools. He has also developed a number of innovative university-industry and university-university partnerships to extend Stanford’s educational reach with effective ‘go-to- market strategies’, including the award-winning Stanford Advanced Project Management program and the Strategic Decision and Risk Management program. Paul has also advised universities, corporations and governmental organizations how to develop and extend education as a means to sustain innovation. Externally, Paul has served as an advisor to numerous startups including xBrain, providing the automotive industry a connected car platform. Paul serves the International Association for Continuing Engineering Education (IACEE) as a council member and First Vice President. He has also presented keynote speeches and workshops around the globe on connecting innovation, strategy and execution. Paul has a B.A. in Communication, with an emphasis in Television & Film production, from Stanford University.

Robert is the Director of Product Marketing at Cloudera driving messaging and technical content on the Enterprise Data Cloud (EDC) and the integrated data lifecycle. Prior to Cloudera, Robert was an AI evangelist at Hortonworks, CTO at Authentise (a 3D printing security & analytics startup at Singularity Labs), Software Engineer at Cisco, NASA et al. Robert’s graduate work at Case Western Reserve University focused on AI & robotics, including early work on autonomous vehicles. He is a frequent speaker at enterprise data conferences.

Rafał is an advocate registered with the District Bar Association in Warsaw and a US-qualified attorney admitted in the state of New York. He holds an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. in Law from the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Warsaw. He was also a Fulbright Commission and Polish Science Foundation Visiting Scholar at Stanford Law School. Rafał is one of the three founding and senior partners of B2RLaw. He has over twenty years of experience in the practice of law. Prior to establishing B2R legacy firm JS Legal, for several years he was a partner at the Warsaw office of a leading international law firm where he set up and managed the capital markets practice and was one of the leaders of the private equity practice. Rafał has held positions on various Supervisory Boards (including Vice Chairman of PFRVentures, the largest Polish fund of funds (2016-2018)), and is a founding and board member of the Harvard Club of Poland.

A graduate of the Warsaw University of Technology, in the United States since 1976, currently the dean of Civil Faculty Engineering at Auburn University. Before that, he was a professor at the University of Nebraska, University of Michigan and the State University of New York. His main scientific field is the theory of reliability and its applications. He made a fundamental contribution to the development of the American AASHTO bridge standard and ACI 318. Prof. Nowak is an honorary doctor of the Warsaw University of Technology, an honorary professor of the Cracow University of Technology, he received the title of professor from the hands of the President of the Republic of Poland. He is the president of the Polish Council Engineers in North America, and was awarded the Officer’s Order of Polonia Restituta, Moisseiff Medal (American Society of Civil Engineers), Bene Merentibus Medal (Warsaw University of Technology) and Casimir Gzowski Medal (Canadian Society of Civil Engineering). Prof. Andrzej S. Nowak is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and Fellow of the American Concrete Institute. He is the supervisor of 41 doctoral students.

Dean of Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

His main research interests are computational intelligence methods in decision making, computer vision and natural language modeling. Currently he is working on an intelligent decision system supporting the diagnosis of ovarian cancer – OvaExpert. He received Microsoft Research Azure Award (2015) and IBM Faculty Award (2010). Member of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society and European Society for Fuzzy Logic and Tech­nology (EUSFLAT). He has many years of experience in IT project management. Co-founder and longtime CEO of an IT company producing and implementing an ERP class system. He is a graduate of the Top 500 Innovators program at Stanford University (2012). He was a co-organizer of US-Poland Innovation HUB.

Managing Director, QVT Investment. 24 years in the semiconductor industry, primarily in the reconfigurable logic, advanced memory and wireless communications sectors. Led large teams in taking complex semiconductor designs from concept to product to customers. Owned P&L responsibility, developed new technologies, filed 100+ patents and 50+ papers. Currently focused on evaluating companies and technologies for investments. Technology Investing, Specialties: RFIC Design, Analog Design, Communication system design, Power management, RF power electronics, International Project Management, Hand Held Device Design.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Prof. Piotr Moncarz Chairman, USPTC; Adjunct Professor, Stanford University
Dr. Jerzy Orkiszewki President, USPTC; Senior Director of Engineering at Cutera
Mariusz Tomaka President, USPTC Poland; Board Advisor - Business Development, Euvic
Dr. Robert Barski Jacob of Paradies Academia in Gorzów Wielkopolski,
Prof. Krzysztof Dyczkowski Associate Professor, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
Gregory Grabiec Head of US-Poland Investments and Initiatives, USPTC; US Strategic Partnership Catalyst, Euvic

Piotr D. Moncarz, Ph.D., P.E., NAE, born and raised in Poland, graduated from vocational high school program in road and bridge construction in Poznan, Poland, receives Ph.D. degree in earthquake engineering at Stanford University. Registered professional engineer in civil engineering in numerous U.S. states and Canadian provinces; member of the National Academy of Engineers.  Adjunct Professor, Stanford University; Senior Fellow and Principal Engineer, Exponent, Inc., an international science and technology public corporation initiated in Silicon Valley; President and CEO, Geothermic Solution LLC, green energy, disruptive technology company. With an engineering career focused on failure analysis and failure prevention led and participated in hundreds of studies, remediation and research projects. He is active in academic programs, consulting work, and international business from power plant development projects, energy technologies and economics, electro-mobility, to high-tech ventures. former  Board member of the of the Polish National Center for Research and Development, formerly Academic Director and co-organizer of Top 500 Innovators program at Stanford University; co-organizer and leader of Stanford University/ Silicon Valley workshops for Polish industry and government leaders.  Decorated by the President of Poland with the Officer Cross of Polonia Restituta. He is a frequent speaker in venues pertaining to system safety and performance, engineering knowledge transfer, trends in technologies, innovativeness, sustainable development, and stimulation of international cooperation and competitiveness.

Since 1989 in Silicon Valley he has been working for a variety of biomedical device companies: Cutera, Inc., Ellex Medical, Lumenis, Inc. and Medical Group of Coherent, Inc., where he has been providing the technology and business leadership serving in various engineering, management and executive positions. He is a pilot with commercial and instrument ratings. PhD and MS in Biomedical Engineering, Warsaw Technical University, and École Nationale Supérieure de l’Electronique et de ses Application in Cergy, France.

Mariusz Tomaka is active as organizer, co-founder, and CEO of innovative electronic and software companies in Poland focused on local and international markets. He specializes in building and running innovative companies – startups – focused on international markets and leading teams of engineers and managers to achieve challenging technology and business objectives. Prior to current activities at EUVIC he worked as  CEO (PL) for DisplayLink in Poland and VP in Cambridge UK,  as Area Manager – Poland at Neubloc, board adviser – share holder at ABF sp. z o.o. Mariusz is a President of US-Polish Trade Council in Poland and extended board member in USA, he is a Chamber Council Member at The Polish Chamber of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Mariusz is Vice-president of OG at Telecommunications and Polish Information Processing Society.

Robert Barski, PhD –Since 2016 assistant professor at Jacob of Paradies University located in Gorzów Wielkopolski. Graduate TOP 500 Innovators Program of Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Graduate of Technical University in Zielona Góra Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Doctor of technical sciences in the field of construction and operation of machines. In the years 1990-2015, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Zielona Góra. In the years 2006-2015 Director of the Academic Enterprise Incubator at the University of Zielona Góra. CEO at Smart Data Lights Sp. z o.o. in Katowice. Has many years of experience related to entrepreneurship, technology transfer and vehicle construction. Associate of the Center for and Technology Transfer of the University of Zielona Góra. Scientific interests: academic entrepreneurship, ecological aspects of the use of internal combustion engines, methods for measuring and limiting
the toxicity of internal combustion engines, electromobility and IoT. Member of the US-Polish Trade Council, member of the Polish Business and Innovation Centres Association in Poland and member of the Polish Scientific Society of Combustions Engines.

Dean of Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

His main research interests are computational intelligence methods in decision making, computer vision and natural language modeling. Currently he is working on an intelligent decision system supporting the diagnosis of ovarian cancer – OvaExpert. He received Microsoft Research Azure Award (2015) and IBM Faculty Award (2010). Member of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society and European Society for Fuzzy Logic and Tech­nology (EUSFLAT). He has many years of experience in IT project management. Co-founder and longtime CEO of an IT company producing and implementing an ERP class system. He is a graduate of the Top 500 Innovators program at Stanford University (2012). He was a co-organizer of US-Poland Innovation HUB.

Gregory Grabiec is a consultative problem solver with a creative, analytical and agile mind. He has a 22-year career managing global projects of $300,000,000+ for corporations, foundations, NGOs, and high-net-worth clients. His expertise is in creating bespoke strategic and operational solutions to drive market impact for the healthcare, biotech, non-profit, financial and IT sectors in both the United States and Europe. For the past 9 years, Gregory has focused on integrating business paradigms between US and Polish markets through consulting, coaching and engaging with innovative companies. Most recently, he has worked on enabling IT/ICT projects between Poland and Silicon Valley. Gregory holds a BA in Biology and MBA in Finance from the University of Houston, and a Masters of International Management (MIM) degree from Thunderbird School of Global Management in Phoenix, AZ, where he was a Presidential Scholar.  Currently, Gregory is engaged as US Strategic Partnership Catalyst at Euvic and serves as Head of US-Poland Investments and Initiatives at the US-Polish Trade Council (USPTC). Gregory strives to convey a personal touch in all his endeavors.

Aleksandra Gren Country Manager, Fiserv Poland
Ela Kozera Director of Programs, USPTC
Robert Kowalski Head of Business Development Megaspace
Kamila Krawiec Program Coordinator, USPTC
Kaja Łapińska Program Assistant, USPTC
Dr. Krzysztof Szczerba Sr Principal Engineer - Finisar Corp

Country Manager for Fiserv Poland (NASDAQ: FISV) responsible for new tech initiatives for major EMEA-based financial institutions, with a focus on CEE. Recipient of the Goldman Sachs-Fortune Global Women Leaders Award. 20 years experience in financial technology in EMEA.  Advisory Board Member of Vital Voices Poland and a Trustee of the Vital Voices Europe Board in London, UK, advocate of women’s leadership and women in tech initiatives. BA in International Relations from University of British Columbia in Vancouver, MSc in Policy Making from the London School of Economics.

Ela Kozera acts as Director of Programs at US-Polish Trade Council. She has gained the managerial and organizational skills while working for various Polish and U.S. emerging growth companies. Her interests in human nature make her a personable and energetic individual who cultivates positive relationships with persons from diverse cultures and backgrounds. She has been searching constantly for beauty and simplicity in words, design and every other aspect of human expression. Her creative side and attention to detail have been expressed during her consulting, teaching, training and volunteering projects. In her professional and personal engagements, she always looks at things from all perspectives. She holds M.A. and B.A. degrees in German Studies of History and Culture from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland. She also completed her studies focused on International Business and Administration at UC Berkeley. Recently, she received her EMBA degree with honors from the University of San Francisco.

Leads customer development, sales and partnerships at open source blockchain API startup Megaspace in Menlo Park.
Previously Business Development Manager at OpenGov (a16z portfolio) the fastest growing govtech startup in the US, where he sold data productivity and open source cloud software to state, federal in the US and local governments internationally. Earlier experience includes startups (AI, SaaS), venture capital, policy and business development. He and his team
successfully led tax, R&D and higher education reforms in Poland on the advisers team to the former President of Poland Komorowski, inter alia creating Poland’s first R&D tax credit. Robert is a graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business (MBA), Stanford (MA Policy) and the London School of Economics (BSc Economics and Economic History) with highest academic honors.

BA – graduated from the Silesian University of Technology in the field of Public Administration. Between 2012-2017 Kamila had worked for InPost Finance, a subsidiary of Integer.pl Capital Group, and Wiewiorka.pl LLC, a start-up in the environmental sector where she was responsible, inter alia, for obtaining EU funds. Currently, she works as an eCommerce Consultant for several start-ups. Her professional interests include e-commerce, shipping, and innovations. Associated with the US-Polish Trade Council since 2017.

Kaja Łapińska, BSc – a student of graduate studies at the International Faculty of Engineering, specialization
Management and Production Engineering, at the Lodz University of Technology. Engaged in representing her
University and country abroad she is also a vice-chairman of IFE Alumni Association and a member of PŁ
Raptors, team building Mars rover for international competitions. The team is a part of the Student Scientific
Robotics Association SKaNeR at the Institute of Automatic Control. Apart from that, she is involved in business
development, cooperation with partners and the implementation of new production processes and their
optimization. She is interested in manufacturing techniques, machine tools and process automation. Keen to
work on the promotion of Poland she is involved in innovations development in local area, member of USPTC
Poland.

Dr. Krzysztof Szczerba is a globally recognized expert in optical communications. He specializes in high speed optical interconnects used in mega scale datacenters and supercomputers. In his interdisciplinary work he combines information and communications theory, signal processing, optoelectronic device physics, in particular Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) and high speed radio frequency engineering. He has demonstrated numerous transmission speed records in optical interconnects. His recent research interests include machine learning and neural network modeling. He has authored numerous peer reviewed publications in leading journals and talked as invited speaker at most important conferences in the industry. Apart from research he has been very actively involved in research commercialization and entrepreneurial projects. Collaboration and knowledge transfer between industry and academia has been an ever-present part of his career from the very beginning. He is an alum of the Technical University of Lodz in Poland, Technical University of Denmark and Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden. He is fluent in Swedish and has a great interest in Scandinavian history and culture.

Marek Żywno Founder- CEO, Silicon Valley Ventures
Jacek Chmielewski Research Scholar, Auburn University
Prof. Andrzej Nowak Chair, Dep. Civil Faculty Engineering, Auburn University
Sylwia Stawska Doctoral Student, Civil Engineering, Auburn University

Marek Zywno is a precision engineer. He has worked in engineering management and executive positions at semiconductor equipment companies: KLA-Tencor, Etec Systems, Nanometrics, Keysight, and others, where he architected and managed design activities of  semiconductor lithography and inspection instruments. He is CEO of Silicon Valley Ventures and an investor. Serves on the Boards of US Polish Trade Council and Robotics Inventions, and is President of Polish American Engineers Club of Silicon Valley.

He is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Auburn University, academic teacher, researcher in: transportation network planning, road safety improvement and implementation, bridge live load and fatigue analysis in the USA, Weigh-in-motion data processing and analysis, big data processing, SQL databases developer. He is a Bentley MicroStation user and application developer (MDL and VB.Net), and software developer: C++, Visual Studio, VBA, MATLAB. He prepared few four stage transport demand models in PTV VISUM, microsimulation in PTV VISSIM for cities and counties. He was involved in Florida, California, and Montana Department of Transportation research projects. Lots of professional projects for private companies and public sectors in the field of transport were prepared by him, mainly in the field of road safety improvement, road network planning, traffic prediction, and feasibility studies.

A graduate of the Warsaw University of Technology, in the United States since 1976, currently the dean of Civil Faculty Engineering at Auburn University. Before that, he was a professor at the University of Nebraska, University of Michigan and the State University of New York. His main scientific field is the theory of reliability and its applications. He made a fundamental contribution to the development of the American AASHTO bridge standard and ACI 318. Prof. Nowak is an honorary doctor of the Warsaw University of Technology, an honorary professor of the Cracow University of Technology, he received the title of professor from the hands of the President of the Republic of Poland. He is the president of the Polish Council Engineers in North America, and was awarded the Officer’s Order of Polonia Restituta, Moisseiff Medal (American Society of Civil Engineers), Bene Merentibus Medal (Warsaw University of Technology) and Casimir Gzowski Medal (Canadian Society of Civil Engineering). Prof. Andrzej S. Nowak is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and Fellow of the American Concrete Institute. He is the supervisor of 41 doctoral students.

Doctoral student in Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Auburn University.The main research focuses on bridge structures safety, traffic-induced load modeling for design, and bridge evaluation. She was involved in Florida, California, and Montana Department of Transportation research projects and also an international project with Toronto Transit Commission, Canada.  An active member of American Society of Civil Engineers and American Concrete Institute. Mentor for international students and women in engineering at Auburn University.

*Speakers list will be updated accordingly upcomming confirmations

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