Connected Car Hackathon '16

Phillip is the Director of Plug and Play IoT and Director/Co-Founder of Plug and Play Mobility, two global innovation platforms headquartered in Silicon Valley. The program has partnered with companies such as Mercedes, Bosch, Panasonic, Fujitsu, Ford, Samsung, and Honeywell to select the top startups in the Internet of Things and Mobility space.

Phillip founded and organizes Internet of Thursdays, an event that join industry experts, corporations, entrepreneurs, and big players within IoT and Mobility to discuss about the latest trends in technology. Utilizing his Japanese background, Phillip also manages Japanese corporate partners and has built a bridge between Japanese corporations and Silicon Valley.

Prior to Plug and Play, Phillip worked for a Japanese trading company focused on bringing new ventures from the U.S. to the Japanese market.

Phillip graduated from San Diego State University with a B.A. in Economics and a minor in International Business.

Christian Kurzke is a technologist, entrepreneur and car enthusiast. He is the cofounder and CTO of Cognomotiv a stealth startup in the automotive and artificial intelligence space.

Before founding Cognomotiv, Christian was the Technical Program Manager of Google's Android Automotive program which brought the power of smart phones to the car.

Throughout his career Christian worked on embedded software - from Sun Microsystems and Motorola to Google's Android team.

Christian holds an MBA and a Masters degree in Computer Science.

Narayan has been a technologist since he was eleven years old, so he definitely fits the bill as Mojio’s CTO. He is responsible for Mojio's open platform and oversees all things technology. As an intellectual property expert, he has successfully built trademark, copyright and patent portfolios throughout his career. Mojio is Narayan’s fourth startup, and prior to co-founding Mojio he co-founded Mindquake Software, Digital Snaps, Vitrium System and Brainify.com.

Before going entrepreneur, Narayan worked on high profile, household name products for Microsoft (Word & Excel), as well as Adobe (PageMaker, Acrobat & Illustrator). Narayan is an avid sailor, amateur astronomer and a father of two future rocketmen - they would sign up to colonize Mars in a heartbeat.

Dream Car: The yet-to-be-invented, 2 seat, electric convertible sports car