Urmson and Richards will talk about balancing innovation and public safety, how to put autonomous vehicles to widespread use and ensuring that the technology benefits the public good.

Other speakers include Philip Koopman, a CMU professor known for his work in automated vehicle safety; Bryant Walker Smith, a law and engineering professor at the University of South Carolina who studies the risk of and trust needed in new technologies such as self-driving cars, and Yvonne Lopez-Diaz, a vice president at HNTB Corp. and one of ENO Transportation Institute’s 10 Leading Women to Watch in Transportation. More speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.

Urmson earned a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and taught there as an assistant professor. He helped CMU’s 2007 Tartan Racing team win the DARPA Grand Challenge. He helped start Google’s self-driving car program and later served as the project’s Chief Technical Officer.
More>>