Dr. Victoria Coleman is USAF Chief Scientist and former Director of DARPA. She serves as Senior Advisor to the Director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at UC Berkeley where she is leading microelectronics technology policy. Prior to DARPA she served as the Chief Executive Officer of Atlas AI P.B.C, a Silicon Valley startup that brings world class AI solutions to sustainable development. By combining satellite data with other data sets, Atlas AI’s proprietary deep learning models create actionable insights for governments, NGOs, and commercial companies. Prior to joining Atlas AI, Coleman was the Chief Technology Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that supports Wikipedia, where she oversaw the organization’s Technology department and technical roadmap, and was responsible for the evolution, development, and delivery of core platforms and architecture. In this role, Dr. Coleman worked to ensure an accessible and performant technology infrastructure and anticipate scale and capability challenges for the Wikimedia projects.
She was previously a Senior Vice President at Technicolor where she served as the CTO of the Connected Home Business. Prior to Technicolor she was Senior Vice President R&D for Harman's Infotainment Division. As Vice President Engineering at Yahoo! she was responsible for membership services, presentation layer technologies and developer relations. At Nokia as Vice President, Emerging Platforms she led a multi-disciplinary team creating strategic products including the Nokia Z Launcher and the Nokia X line of smartphones. As Vice President, Software Engineering at HP Palm GBU leading the webOS Platform team she built the HP Touchpad. As Vice President with Samsung's Advanced Institute of Technology in charge of the Computer Science Laboratory in San Jose, CA she initiated the development of Tizen and the Samsung Knox line of smartphones. She was previously Intel's Director for Security Initiatives and the Director of the Trust and Manageability Laboratory in Intel's Corporate Technology Group. She joined SRI International in 1998 after 10 years as a tenured professor in the University of London. She became the founding Director of SRI’s System Design Laboratory in 1999. She was a member of the Defense Science Board, a member (and founding Chair) of DARPA's Microsystems Exploratory Council, a member of Lockheed Martin's Technology Advisory Group, a member of Airbus Industries Starboard and a member of Santa Clara University’s Advisory Board for the Department of Computer Engineering. She also served on the Board of Directors of the Public Library of Science.
From 2015, as the Director-General for Nuclear Accident Disaster Response, Minister's Secretariat, managed government programs aimed at resolving the Fukushima nuclear accident, including the decontamination of the nuclear power plant and treatment of contaminated water.
From 2018, played a key role in the government-wide economic growth strategy while serving as the Senior Councilor at Cabinet Secretariat.
More recently, while serving as Deputy Commissioner for Natural Resources and Energy Policy at Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE), was closely involved in international negotiations in the energy policy area, which contributed to the development of systems to ensure the stable supply of resources and energy.
After long-nights of research and brainstorming, we founded Lightyear in 2016. The company has grown exponentially, we have over 34 patents pending, over 100 early pre-orders, first driving prototypes and working towards production for a first Exclusive Series of cars and setting up the High-Volume Series. Lightyear is prepared to make a dent in the universe by putting a high comfortable 4-seater car on the Earth, free from the grid, enabling clean mobility for everyone everywhere.
In the summer of 2017, I was lucky to be selected as one of the 90 people from all corners of the planet to participate in the Singularity University Global Solutions Program with the goal of accelerating companies that solve climate change. As a participant, I was coached by the world’s best thought leaders, entrepreneurs and investors in leading transformative companies. This leadership program is recognized as one of the most forward thinking in the world and provides access to a network of more than 10,000 highly successful individuals and alumni of Singularity University.
With a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and a master’s in automotive technology, Lex was the team manager and co-founder of Solar Team Eindhoven. Solar Team Eindhoven has won the last 4 editions World Solar Challenge Cruiser Class by designing, building and competing with most efficient multiple seater vehicles on the planet. More than 35 students helped to get our first car on the road.