TRA2020 virtual Strategic session: Industrialising innovation.

Dr. Heidi Korhonen is working on innovation at ecosystem level and supporting innovation and business creation in the transformation of industries, particularly servitisation and transition towards data intensive economy. She is the Chair of the TRA2020 Organising Committee and a member of the TRA2020 Management and Programme Committees. 

Currently she works as a Senior Scientist in Foresight-driven Business Strategies at VTT. Prior to this she worked as the Research Team Leader at VTT’s Transport and Mobility team. She holds a D. Sc. (Tech.) degree from Aalto University, Finland. Her doctoral thesis on service innovation highlighted that innovation not only encompasses products and services but wider ecosystems where humans and the society are essential actors and beneficiaries.

Keith Sequeira is Head of the Governance and Coordination unit of the European Innovation Council (EIC) taskforce in the Research and Innovation Directorate General of the European Commission. He is responsible for the team supporting the EIC Advisory Board, preparing the EIC work programmes, hosting the EIC Programme Managers and overseeing communication activities. From 2016 to 2020, Keith was senior advisor to Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for research and innovation, on open science and open innovation, including Horizon Europe, scientific advice to policy, and the European Research Council. He was previously in the Cabinet of the Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn and has worked in the European Commission on monitoring national policies, Horizon 2020, the 7th Framework Programme, the Innovation Union flagship initiative, innovation indicators and public procurement of innovation.  He has previous experience in the UK government (bioscience, trade, finance and international S&T policy) and a private company (advising on public private partnerships and public sector spin outs). Keith studied physics at Cambridge University and has a doctoral degree in innovation studies from the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the Sussex University.

Elsa Lopez Formoso joined the European Investment Bank in 2016 and is currently working at the Equity New Products and Special Transactions Climate Division (ENPST Climate). Before joining EIB, she worked for more than 10 year at Santander Gobal Banking and Markets, leading Project & Structure Finance projects in Europe and Latin America. She has always been involved in the Infrastructure and Transport arena, with experience both as lender and as advisor to both private and public entities. Elsa focus are transactions at the cross roads of the energy and mobility sectors, both with an innovative angle. Elsa holds a JD in Law and MsC in Business Administration from the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas – ICADE in Madrid (Spain). 

Sauli Eloranta, M. Sc. (Tech.), began working as Professor of Practice at VTT on 1 January 2020. Eloranta, elected the CTO of the Year in Finland in 2019, comes to VTT with a long experience of promoting technology and digitisation in industry and maritime transport.

Before VTT, Eloranta acted as Head of Innovation and Technology at Rolls-Royce Marine, later Kongsberg Maritime. Eloranta earned the CTO of the Year title granted by the Federation of Finnish Technology Industries for his merits as an active influencer in the Finnish innovation scene and promotor of autonomous marine traffic. He chaired the One Sea Autonomous Maritime Ecosystem in 2016-2019. Sauli chairs the Business Finland digital advisory board and is a member of the transport sector growth programme. In addition, he has been involved in supporting the collaboration of the private sector and societal actors.

In his role as Professor of Practice, Eloranta will focus on the overall resilience of the Finnish society. His area also covers cyber security, autonomous systems and smart transport & mobility. Recently, Sauli has given program management support to Finland´s Ministry of Economics & Employment (TEM) in establishing domestic production of face masks for public health care.

Neil Pedersen has been Executive Director of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) since 2015. In that role he provides executive direction and leadership to TRB’s technical activities, including its annual meeting of over 13,000 transportation professionals, its more than 200 technical committees, its conferences, and its publications; its peer reviewed policy consensus studies; and its multimodal cooperative research programs. Prior to joining TRB, Neil spent 29 years at the Maryland Department of Transportation, where he served the last eight years as State Highway Administrator and Governor’s Highway Safety Representative. Over his career, Neil has been involved in volunteer leadership roles in both TRB and the American Association of Transportation Officials (AASHTO). He chaired a number of TRB and AASHTO committees, including serving as Chair of TRB’s Executive Committee in 2011.

Jens-Philipp Klein is Managing Partner at Atlantic Labs, one of the most active early-stage venture capital funds based in Berlin. He has more than 10 years of experience in building and supporting technology-driven companies from the very beginning. Jens-Philipp is particularly excited about transformative mobility and automotive tech startups. He currently serves on the board of Cluno (car subscription), Vimcar (fleet management tech), Enway (autonomous city service vehicles) and Wandelbots (industrial robot technology).

Prior to Atlantic Labs, Jens-Philipp co-founded Phonedeck (mobile phone CTI) and Jacky Media (mobile affiliate network, acquired in 2016). He holds a degree in Business and Economics from Witten/Herdecke University and studied at the University of Gothenburg.

Juan Vicen is the Co-Founder and Chief Communications Officer at Zeleros, the European company leading the hyperloop development, a new transport system that could decarbonize the intercity mobility in distances between 400 and 1500km reaching speeds up to 1000km/h. Their novel integration of technologies in the vehicle allows to reduce drastically infrastructure costs and to operate at safer pressures for the passengers. Zeleros has raised substantial private and public support, and is currently preparing the creation of a Hyperloop Development Center in Spain, accelerating the standardisation and regulatory processes to achieve the safest and interoperable hyperloop network in Europe to expand the limits of the TEN-T.