Opening / Keynote Session

Mr. Amano joined Toyota Motor Corporation in 1982 and started his career as a factory automation engineer, developing industrial robots and manufacturing operation management systems. Then he expanded his areas covering transportation. He was involved in a variety of projects on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) both in Japan and overseas. He assumed the position of President and CEO of ITS Japan in 2009. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of ITS World Congress and the Secretary-General of ITS Asia-Pacific since 2009. He was a Visiting Professor at the Advanced Mobility Research Center of the University of Tokyo from 2014. After retirement from those positions in 2022, he assumed the Representative Director of Mobility Innovation Alliance Japan, to facilitate collaboration across the academic disciplines, industrial sectors & jurisdiction.

Since 2022, Mr. Andrea DE CANDIDO is leading the work on for the Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM) dossier in the frame of the Directorate General for Research & Innovation of the European Commission. In this role he manages the relations with the CCAM Public-Private Partnership the European Commission has set up to support the transition towards automated mobility.
Mr. De Candido first joined the Commission in 2013 in the Unit dealing with the development of European Research Infrastructures where he was mainly responsible for supporting International collaboration among large scale facilities. In 2017 he moved to DG HOME where he managed the Unit dealing with Research and Innovation in the civil security dimension. 
Before joining the EU Institutions Mr. De Candido had a 25 year long career in the Italian Army from which he retired in 2013 with the rank of Lt. Colonel. 

Mr. Greg Winfree was appointed Agency Director of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) in December 2016. TTI is a state agency and the largest and most comprehensive higher education-affiliated transportation research institute in the United States, with $74.7 million in research expenditures and about 700 employees. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Texas A&M School of Law. Greg served for almost seven years at the U.S. Department of Transportation, most recently as Assistant Secretary of Transportation overseeing the department’s research and technology agency. He is a member of the Presidential National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board sponsored by NASA, the Texas Connected and Automated Vehicle Task Force, the ITS America Board, & the TRB AV Forum.  A lifelong attorney, Greg previously served in the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He received a Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Science degree from St. John’s University.