FYI this should be a really interesting conference.  I’ll be presenting at a couple of sessions.

MOVING MINDS: The Next Transportation Infrastructure

November 9 – 12, 2009

Primary Location: Michigan League, U of M Campus Ann Arbor. 911 N. University Ave. 734-764-0446.

It’s a pivotal time for transportation — in the U.S., in Southeast Michigan, and worldwide. Half the world now lives in city regions. By 2020 that figure will rise to 2/3, challenging current transportation models and policies while at the same time opening exciting new opportunities for business and innovation.

Moving Minds: The Next Transportation Infrastructure will bring top researchers together with business leaders, entrepreneurs, practitioners and policy makers from around the world and across the U.S. to advance new thinking and to accelerate implementation of systems-based New Mobility solutions and infrastructures.

Special focus: “Moving Minds” — understanding the cultural, psychological, and aspirational underpinnings of our relationship to transportation (for both users and leaders), and responding with innovative systems, policies, and business models that address these values sustainably, equitably and compellingly. Primary Sponsor: Ford Motor Company.

Highlights:

• Llew Wells, former West Wing producer – on “moving minds”
• Scott Page, world-renowned systems scholar on diversity, resilience, and national security
• Florencia Serrania, former head of Mexico City’s transit system – on connectivity
• Amit Kapoor, Chair of India Competitiveness Institute and Harvard Business School
• Joint sessions with UM Urban Land Institute on the transport & real estate revolutions
• Naveen Lamba, IBM Global Industry Leader for Intelligent Transportation Systems
• Robin Chase, Founder & Former CEO, ZipCar
• Focused sessions on: business opportunities, pilots, research, and capacity building

The SMART Summit provides a platform for collaboration among leaders from private sector, public sector, non-governmental organizations and academia, who undertake pilot projects, research, education, and global learning exchange on a range of pressing issues and opportunities related to the future of transportation in city regions around the world. For background on SMART: http://um-smart.org

Video footage of last year’s summit:    http://um-smart.org/resources/conference/video.html

2009 SMART Moving Minds Summit:    http://um-smart.org/resources/conference09/overview.html