Keynote Speakers

Dr. Paolo Burgio

MUNER Delegate and Professor

“Enzo Ferrari” Department of Engineering UNIMORE University

 Autonomous Driving and the Smart City: technology and innovation in the Emilia Romagna region

During the talk I will show the latest updates on the Emilia Romagna ecosystem with respect to Connected Autonomous Vehicles, with an eye on the use case in the city of Modena. I will briefly show what is the status of the art in such technology, and how the vehicles and the city work together to provide services to citizens and improving the safety of our streets. I will show how we set up an educational system for teaching such technologies to young students and researcher, within the Motorvehicle University of Emilia Romagna.

Dr. Robert NShorten

Professor of Cyber-physical Systems

Imperial College London

Dr. Niels de Boer

Nanyang Technological University

UITP: The International Association of Public Transport

 Evolution of assessment methods for autonomous vehicles

CETRAN has been assessing autonomous vehicles on behalf of the Singapore Land Transport Authority which is part of the process for issuing a Special Purpose License which allows trial deployment of AVs on public roads. These assessments are evolving rapidly due to a combination of lessons learned and differences in profile of the vehicles coming in for trials. There is a shift from mainly physical testing complemented by simulation towards the a more data focussed approach where AI will be used to evaluate real world trial data. This is expected to accelerate deployment especially for vehicles proven in other locations with different traffic rules and conditions. This presentation will go into the evolution of the processes and into the data and analysis which is expected to accelerate the deployments.

Bio:       Niels de Boer is currently the Chief Operating Officer of ERI@N, and also the Senior Programme Director of the Centre of Excellence for Testing & Research of Autonomous Vehicles – NTU (CETRAN). Niels has been the lead of CETRAN since 2016 and has been working with the Singapore Land Transport Authority to develop technical standards and regulations to enable trial testing and deployment of Autonomous Vehicles on public roads. Other research includes assurance of perception systems, safety of AI in autonomous systems and validation of behavioural safety in autonomous vehicles.

Prof. Luis Le Moyne

Professor at Institut Supérieur de l'Automobile et des Trasports

University of Bourgogne

 A comprehensive frame for transport efficiency

When transporting goods and persons, studies focus on different aspects of mobility and seldom consider transport as a three-or-more topic, that concerns simultaneously vehicles, infrastructure and users. It therefore adresses technological, economical and social aspects that are difficult to comprehend in a global evaluation. What would be the best transport solution for a given situation ? Train, plane, car, ship... answers seem often obvious but may require deeper insight. We propose a frame to characterise efficiency of transport solutions from infrastructure to use, allowing to set milestones in the policies for choice and development of solutions and technologies in vehicles and related charging or rolling infrastructures.

Horst Pfluegl

Vice President for Corporate Research Coordination - AVL

 Driving the Future: Collaborative Research for CO₂-Neutral and Digital Mobility

The automotive industry is rapidly evolving towards CO₂-neutral and digitalized mobility. Key technologies such as electrification, automated driving, and software-defined vehicles (SDVs) are reshaping the landscape. This talk, presented by AVL, highlights the importance of collaborative research across countries and value chains—from academia to industry—as a strategic enabler of this transformation. Supported by the European Commission and national member states, such cooperations are vital to ensure Europe’s competitiveness and innovation leadership in the automotive industry. The session will explore achievements to date, future pathways, and what is needed to succeed in this collaborative journey.

Bio: Horst Pfluegl is Vice President for Corporate Research Coordination at AVL, where he oversees global research activities and strategic collaborations with international stakeholders and funding networks. He studied electrical engineering at Graz University of Technology, specializing in control and automation technology. Since joining AVL in 1995, he has held various leadership roles in software development and research, including managing major EU-funded projects such as ENABLE-S3, HiPerform, ASTERICS, and OBELICS. Horst is actively engaged in shaping European research agendas through his involvement with EARPA, EPoSS, 2Zero, and ERTRAC.

András Csepinszky

Senior Manager

ERTICO

 AI 4 Mobility – an overview of AI and CCAM activities within ERTICO

Paul Mitchell

President and CEO

Indy Autonomous Challenge 

Christoph Unterreiner

Automotive Business Development Manager

Nvidia

Scientific Committe

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Günther Prokop

Professor Automotive Engineering

Technische Universität Dresden

Dr. Michael Noest, MBA

Chairman

IESTA, Institute for Advanced Energy Systems

Tomislav Mihalj

Head of Verification & Validation Research Group at Institute of Automotive Engineering

Graz University of Technology

Dr. Andrea Major

Professor

Neumann János University

Zoran Ren

Vice-Rector for Science and Research

University of Maribor

Horst Pflügl

Vice President for Corporate Research Coordination

AVL

Thierry Hoijtink

Chief Executive Officer

Institut Supérieur de l'Automobile et des Transports

Prof. Francesco Leali

Full Professor

“Enzo Ferrari” Department of Engineering UNIMORE University

Dr. Utku KALE

Expert in the Mobility and Transport Unit

European Commission 

Prof Dr Artūras Kilikevičius

Chief Research Fellow

Vilnius Tech

Assoc Prof Dr Jonas Matijošius

Chief Research Fellow

Vilnius Tech

Dr Tadas Žvirblis

Chief Research Fellow

Vilnius Tech

Dr Edwin Geo Varuvel

Chief Research Fellow

Vilnius Tech

Prof. Dr. Melih Yildiz

Aerospace Engineering

Erciyes University

Dr. Daniel Watzenig

Professor of Autonomous Driving

Technische Universität Graz

Dr. Rahul Razdan

Chief Executive Officer

Razdan Research Institute

Thierry Hoijtink

Chief Executive Officer

Institut Supérieur de l'Automobile et des Transports

Stefan Kanya

Director Business Development Central & Eastern Europe

AVL

Organizing Committee

	Dr. Zoltán Weltsch	Chair of Conference
	Letícia Pekk	Chair of the Organising Committee
	Fanni Csikós	Member of the Organising Committee
	Gábor László Tóth	Chair of the Scientific Committee
	Richárd Peszleg	Member of the Scientific Committee
	Gergő Sütheő	Member of the Scientific Committee
	Peter Anthony Simon	Chair of the International Committee
	Viktória Panker	Member of the International Committee