The Center for Entrepreneurship’s TechLab immersive fellowship series recently welcomed new cohorts, companies, and instructors. .
TechLab at Mcity is a Company-in-Residence program (company-sponsored technical projects housed at Mcity and the U-M Ann Arbor campus) for early stage advanced mobility companies in the connected autonomous vehicle (CAV) industry through the work of elite and technically-skilled students.
In January the program held a kickoff event at the Honda R&D Center in Ann Arbor to welcome the new cohort of students, mentors, and startups to the program, the Center for Entrepreneurship community, and the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“The 2020 cohort is the fifth cohort of the program, representing a major step forward beyond the pilot phase,” said Nick Moroz, CFE assistant director or entrepreneurial practice. “It was fantastic to team with Honda R&D on the kickoff event which featured Mcity vehicles, representatives from the six sponsoring companies, and many important people from the autonomous vehicle field.”
TechLab at Mcity places a heavy emphasis on student learning by matching transportation startups with student teams interested in applying classroom learning to practical technology development.
The program benefits tremendously from a collaboration with the preeminent advanced mobility public-private partnership, Mcity.
“TechLab at Mcity is core to Mcity’s mission to aid industry and educate our students, to help move transportation innovations out of the lab and into our communities safely and with benefit to all,” said Greg McGuire, associate director for Mcity. “We are tremendously proud to be a partner with CFE in this effort.”
This year’s teams will be working on a range of projects from new sensor technology, mapping, and perception. The 2020 cohort companies are May Mobility, Refraction AI, Point One Navigation, Innoviz, Seoul Robotics, and Humanising Autonomy.
May Mobility, Innoviz, Refraction AI, and Humanising Autonomy are returning members.
Along with new students and mentors, the program welcomes two new co-instructors Douglas Moore, Product Integration Manager, City Solutions at Ford Motor Company, and Eric Wingfield, Mobility Strategist at Ford Motor Company.
“This is a unique time for engineering students where they get to build technologies that will change our future,” said Wingfield. “Doug and I are excited to support them as they develop skills on real-world technology projects with exciting startups.”
The kickoff was an event that brought the entire TechLab at Mcity community together. Mentors and company representatives from as far away as Seoul, Korea attended to meet with the student teams.
“This particular cohort and instructors touch nearly all aspects of the technological landscape that is driving advanced mobility,” said Moroz. “These companies and students are without a doubt going to do great work during the program.”