Robert Shorten
Chairperson
Robert Shorten is Professor of Cyber-physical Systems Design at Imperial College London and Professor of Control Engineering and Decision Science at UCD. He was a co-founder of the Hamilton Institute at Maynooth University, and led the Optimisation and Control team at IBM Research Smart Cities Research Lab in Dublin Ireland. He was the Irish member of the European Union Control Association assembly, a member of the IEEE Control Systems Society Technical Group on Smart Cities,
Russell Vickers
CEO
Prior to his appointment as CEO of FMCI, Russell was an Engineering Manager at Jaguar Land Rover, where he led a team focusing on the new revenue opportunities that are enabled as vehicles move towards an increasing automated and connected future. Based in Shannon, he is also the Chair of the Testbed working group as part of the CAV Ireland initiative, this work led to the proposal for FMCI. His background is in ASIC Design and Communications, and his previous companies include Parthus Technologies, Texas Instruments, Ericsson and Intel.
Wassim Derguech
COO
Prior to joining FMCI as a COO, Wassim was a product owner and agile delivery lead at Jaguar Land Rover Ireland where he was leading the SRE team responsible for the deployment solution of the cloud infrastructure for managing real-time vehicle data. Wassim worked as the technical manager at Derilinx, an SME that develops Open Data solutions for clients (such as the Irish Government, Central Statistics Office, the World Bank group and others) interested in publishing, linking, analysing and visualising their data using Linked Open Data principles. He also worked as a research scientist at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics, National University of Ireland, Galway where got his PhD and worked as the technical lead and solution architect for various national and European projects.
Dennis Hamann
Chief Commercial Officer
Dennis Hamann is the Chief Commercial Officer for Future Mobility Centre Ireland (FMCI) where he continues to build on his rich experiences in the areas of wireless broadband technology, enterprise solutions, applied sensor data capture, and data science applications. Starting his career as a Mechanical & Industrial engineer specializing in Operations and Data Analytics and then subsequently completing an advanced MBA at Northwestern University, Mr. Hamann spent 14 years at Hewlett Packard leading early development of digital imaging and enterprise mobility solutions which then led to him championing initial digital photography endeavors at Kodak. He then transitioned to a purely entrepreneurial career serving in founder/co-founder/c-suite roles in startups driving product categories ranging from imaging ASICs, wireless content distribution, IoT (internet of things), autonomous mobility, and premium consumer lifestyle products.
Liam Conneally
Director
Liam Conneally is the Director of Economic Development in Clare County Council with responsibility for Economic Development, Planning, Property, the Clare Local Enterprise Office and the Shannon Municipal District. A public servant for 30 years Liam has worked in various professional and senior management roles in local and regional government in Ireland. As Senior Planner in Limerick City he played a significant role in the Limerick 2030 DAC set up and that Council’s assembly and of strategic economic site. He is a member of the Business Committee and chairs two national working groups. He is a member of the new Office of the Planning Regulator’s national planning knowledge group and is a lead professional in spatial and economic planning.
Orlaith Borthwick
Director
Dr. Borthwick has over 20 years senior management experience across the public and private sector. Key attributes include effective relationship development and management, building and managing successful collaborations, strategic mapping and management, balancing the needs of multiple stakeholders in complex environments. Currently, Orlaith is heading up the establishment and development of a new Services Centre at Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT) in Careers and Employability.
Tomás Ó Síocháin
Director
Tomás was appointed CEO of the Western Development Commission (WDC) in October 2018. The WDC is a statutory agency and investment fund that promotes economic and social development in the Western Region. He was previously External Engagement Programme Manager for NUI Galway where he led the integration of Shannon College of Hotel Management into NUI Galway. He represented the university on a number of regional fora and was the inaugural Chair of the Regional Skills Forum West.
Caolan Bushell
Director
Caolan is the Vice President of Business Development for Mergon Group (www.mergon.com), has over 18 years’ industry experience partnering with high profile automotive and medical device customers across Europe, North America and Asia. Prior to his current role, Caolan worked internationally in South Carolina, USA for Mergon for 7 years. While in South Carolina, Caolan built an extensive network and long term partnerships with many US based automotive entities.
Dick Meaney
Director
Dick Meaney is the former Senior Vice President of the Industrial, Healthcare and Consumer Business Group of Analog Devices Inc (ADI). Dick joined Analog Devices Limerick in 1979 as a design engineer and throughout his 37 year career has held leadership positions in engineering and business, culminating with his most recent position managing a multi-billion dollar business group. Prior to that Dick led a worldwide R&D organization of over 2000 engineers, that brought over 200 industry leading new products to market every year.