Countdown to WMS19 - A Letter from Gunnar Froh

Today marks roughly one month until the second annual WMS, and I can already say that this year promises to be even more exciting than the last. Speakers from a wide range of companies and organizations will travel to Hamburg, unified by the common goal of accelerating the transition to sustainable mobility. CEOs such as John Krafcik of Waymo and Eckhart Diepenhorst of FreeNow, along with city officials, founders, and even a race car driver and the mayor of Hamburg, Peter Teschentscher, will join the conversation. Everyone will share insights into what they see as the most important issues in mobility today as well as how we can come together to design more sustainable and more accessible cities going forward.

A new addition to the agenda this year will be the startup stage battle, which is a great chance for early-stage startups to have their voices heard. They can use WMS19 as a platform for pitching their company’s concept and vision to an experienced jury committee. As any entrepreneur can tell you, successful stories start with a pitch - and what better place to pitch than at an event surrounded by like-minded companies, academics, policymakers and leaders in the mobility space? By the way, don’t forget to take the crowd’s response seriously: in the spirit of collaboration, 50% of the vote for the winning pitch will come from the jury, but the other 50% will be decided by WMS attendees.

I’m intrigued by the key issues we will be discussing this year, among them autonomous driving, urbanization and smart cities, the electrification of vehicles, public transportation and MaaS, next-gen mobile networks and aerial vehicle mobility.

I look forward to seeing you in Hamburg at the Überquell BrewPub on the 6th of November for our kick-off party - let’s shape the future of mobility together!

See you in Hamburg,

Gunnar