Event Date: Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Time: 8:30-10:00 am
Location: Mid-America Regional Council [Lewis & Clark Room], 600 Broadway Blvd #200, Kansas City, MO 64105, USA
Admission: Free

Our October meeting will focus on policy and strategy developments around autonomous vehicles. Rafael Carbonell, from Harvard Kennedy School, will deliver a remote presentation on their AV Policy Initiative, the AV Policy Scrum, and experiences working in Boston and Toronto. We have been working with Rafael and MARC to plan an AV Policy Scrum in Kansas City, scheduled for October 24-25. His full bio is below.

Following this presentation, Amanda Graor will discuss the results of MARC’s Autonomous Vehicle Task Force that were released last week. Amanda, who is transitioning from her planning role in air quality and transportation to MARC’s first Chief Innovation Officer, presented earlier in the year on the AV Task Force, outlining the approach. The resulting white paper she will discuss, “Driving Change: A Policy and Planning Framework for Autonomous and Connected Vehicles in Greater Kansas City,” can be found here.

(Note: This reflects a programming change. We will feature the Avis Mobility Lab and Olathe’s work with connected infrastructure at a future date.)

Rafael Carbonell bio

Rafael M. Carbonell became the Taubman Center Executive Director in August 2017, where he works to advance its mission to support public sector leaders in improving the governance of states, metropolitan areas and cities. Rafael previously served as Deputy Director of the City of Boston’s Office of Business Development, where he implemented a new small business innovation initiative and led the development of the City’s first-ever small business strategic plan, which was unveiled by Mayor Marty Walsh in 2016. Prior to that, Rafael was Executive Vice President in launching and running Thrive, the first regional economic development enterprise for the eight-county Madison, Wisconsin region. Rafael also previously served as Director of Regional Economic Development for the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, and as Director of Marketing & Business Development for Livra.com, a technology startup he helped launch in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which is now one of Latin America’s largest online market research platforms. Rafael is fluent in Spanish, holds a B.S. in Marketing from Boston College and was a Ford Foundation “Regional Sustainable Development Fellow.” He currently serves on the Board of Governors of The Hotchkiss School in Connecticut.

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Every month, we bring together a group of stakeholders in the area of Transportation and Mobility to hear about technology and innovation projects happening in the region–and occasionally related topics from outside the Greater Kansas City area. Our stakeholders include transit planners and agencies, city and state government officials, engineering firms and other corporate partners, startups working on transit and mobility projects, and other civic organizations. The meetings are open, though not widely broadcast. KC Digital Drive is partnering with the KC Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) to program and plan the meetings. They generally happen on the third Wednesday of the month, 8:30-10:00 am at Mid-America Regional Council (MARC).

We send out an email agenda and calendar invite to this stakeholder list, which we loosely call the Mobility Innovation Team. If you wish to be added to the email list, please send a note to adeacon@kcdigitaldrive.org.