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VERGE San Francisco Revs Up Focus on Connected Cars and Sustainable Mobility

VERGE San Francisco Revs Up Focus on Connected Cars and Sustainable Mobility

Published 09-24-13

Submitted by GreenBiz

The near-term future of vehicles — smart, clean, connected and increasingly efficient — will be at the forefront of a four-day conference in San Francisco, taking place October 14-17 as part of the city’s Innovation Month.

VERGE San Francisco, the flagship in a global event series produced by GreenBiz Group, will bring together 800 professionals, city officials and tech entrepreneurs to explore how the convergence of technologies — specifically, energy, information, building and transportation technologies — is creating new opportunities for cities and businesses to enhance their services while reducing their environmental footprint.

“Sustainable Mobility,” one of the event’s six tracks, will be at the heart of nearly 30 mainstage conversations, workshops and tutorials. Topics include “Accelerating the EV Infrastructure,” “Creating Cleaner Fleets,” “Turning Cars into Batteries,” “The Future of Parking” and “The Role of Vehicles in Demand Response.”

“The next generation of vehicles, including cars, trucks and commuter vehicles, embody the convergence that is VERGE,” says Joel Makower, GreenBiz Group’s Chairman and Executive Editor. “They leverage information and communications technology, integrate with the energy infrastructure and are woven into the built environment. Our success in creating smart mobility systems will be key to creating sustainable cities and communities.”

Among the featured speakers in the Sustainable Mobility track are executives from Ford, General Motors, Enterprise, JB Hunt, BNSF Railway, Eaton Corp., Sempra Utilities, PG&E and SFMTA. The program also includes founders, CEOs or senior executives of transportation technology companies including Vision Fleets, Streetline, Waze, Descartes Systems, Roadify, NRG eVgo, CollaboratEV and Zimride.

All told, the VERGE SF program will feature more than 220 speakers, including Apple sustainability chief Lisa Jackson, eBay data center lead Dean Nelson, Jones Lang LaSalle CEO Lauralee Martin, SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive, RMI cofounder Amory Lovins — and executives from Akamai, AT&T, Dell, Deloitte, GE, Google, Sprint, Microsoft and others. Entrepreneurs from startups such as Bloom Energy, BrightFarms, Junar, Nest Labs, and STEM will discuss their partnerships with cities, utilities and others.

In addition to the conference sessions, VERGE SF will feature VERGE Interconnect: a standalone microgrid and interactive showcase, created by an ecosystem of renewable and distributed energy-generation technologies. The project is being produced in partnership with the City of San Francisco and other corporate partners, using all off-the-shelf equipment. VERGE Interconnect will illuminate the potential for distributed energy and smart systems as a standalone, reliable and cost-effective power resource.

For more information about VERGE San Francisco, visit http://www.greenbiz.com/events/verge/2013/10/san-francisco.

About GreenBiz Group
GreenBiz Group’s mission is to define and accelerate the business of sustainability. It does this through a wide range of products and services, including its acclaimed website GreenBiz.com and daily e-newsletter GreenBuzz; webcasts on topics of importance to sustainability and energy executives; research reports, such as the annual State of Green Business; the GreenBiz Executive Network, a membership-based, peer-to-peer learning forum for sustainability executives from Fortune 1000 companies; and conferences such as the GreenBiz Forum and VERGE.

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GreenBiz

GreenBiz Group is a media and events company that advances the opportunities at the intersection of business, technology and sustainability. Through its website, three annual events (GreenBiz, VERGE, Circularity), peer-to-peer network and research, GreenBiz promotes the potential to drive transformation and accelerate progress — within companies, cites, industries and in the very nature of business.

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