Dr. Burkhard Huhnke is the VP of Automotive Strategy at Synopsys. Prior to joining the company in early 2018, he was SVP of Product Innovation & E-Mobility at VW, based in Silicon Valley, where he synchronized VW’s innovation activities and alliances to identify new concept ideas, business models and partners in the U.S. and had end-to-end ownership of the electric vehicle platform in North America. He initiated the Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Center (VAIL) at the Stanford University Campus together with Stanford Professors Thrun, Nass and Gerdes. He was the project leader for the autonomous car Volkswagen Passat Junior, participating in the DARPA Grand Challenge and the Pikes Peak hill climbing driverless Audi TTS. His positions in the U.S. and Germany included Senior GM, Electronics System Integration and Whole Vehicle Integration. Dr. Huhnke studied electrical engineering at the University of Braunschweig. His dissertation about optical distance measurement was awarded the International Measurement Prize. Dr. Huhnke serves as Research Fellow for the Hult Business School in San Francisco and is a member of the Board of Advisors at the College of Engineering at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville and the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee–Chattanooga.