Flying Cars? The Future of Transportation

Culture is to a company as community is to a city: it's about values, innovation, serendipity, participation, upward mobility, and attraction of smart startups and the creative class. Tony Hsieh is applying his successful Zappos corporate culture model to help build the most community-focused large city in the world in the place you would least expect it: downtown Las Vegas. Research has shown that every time the size of a city doubles, productivity and innovation per resident increases by 15 percent; but when companies get bigger, productivity per employee generally goes down. With this new $350 million Downtown Project, Hsieh is creating a unique hybrid of corporation, community, and city to drive productivity and innovation both for Zappos as well as the city itself. Speakers: Tony Hsieh, David Brooks

Transportation is trending from the “me”-mentality of single occupancy vehicles to the “we”-mentality of the sharing economy. Is collaborative consumption the future of transportation? Innovations in peer-sharing transit systems such as bike sharing and car sharing are gaining momentum in cities across the world. Gabe Klein's work in both the public and private sector, and his unique experience launching Divvy Bike Share in Chicago, Capital Bike Share in DC, as well as with Zipcar, make him an authority on the subject. How are these systems providing equitable access to public transit in new ways? What new opportunities does the sharing economy provide? Is this cultural shift presenting a unique opportunity to reconsider the ways that organizations can induce mainstream transportation alternatives, moving toward the new collaborative frontier? Gabe Klein and Sommer Mathis

Information has the potential to revolutionize your travel experience. The building blocks of a connected infrastructure are already being put in place with services like Parker to help people find parking spaces, bikesharing apps like Spotcycle, Uber-like taxi companies, and many local transit apps. The potential is huge, but so are the challenges. There are issues around the sharing of information; how will transit data be used, and should it be sold? Will our smartphones dictate how we get around in the future, and what will cities and governments have to do to make that happen? This session will discuss some of the issues around technological innovation, regulation, and multi-modal transportation. Speakers: David Alpert, Zia Yusuf, and Jon Stewart

Hydrogen fuel cells. Electricity. Biofuels. Petroleum. Natural gas. Hybrids. The debate about fueling our vehicles marches reliably onward. With staunch advocates for so many fuel alternatives, how do we decide what we will use in the future? What are the benefits and drawbacks to each? Who is responsible for making policy that, in the end, might not please all the different stakeholder groups? Speakers: Jaycie Chitwood, Niel Golightly, Daniel Sperling, and Meghan L. O'Sullivan,

Americans took over 10 billion trips on public transit in 2012—that’s the highest number since 1957. At the same time, 2013 has been dubbed the year of the bikeshare as more and more cities establish their own bikeshare programs. As Americans in both urban and rural communities increasingly demand a wider range of transportation options, what can local and federal transportation planners do to give them what they want? Ray LaHood will offer his vision of what the next generation of transportation looks like—from high-speed bullet trains to smart cars capable of talking to one another. You can be sure that it won’t be your grandparents’ transportation system. Speakers: Ray LaHood and Ronald Brownstein

Vehicle design innovation is no longer simply about making a pretty car. As urbanization continues at a rapid pace across the globe, new business models and advanced vehicle technologies like autonomous cars, self-righting motorcycles, fully electric engines, and pre-collision safety systems are permeating the landscape in response to this growth and reshaping the total driver experience. How will the vehicle of the future interact with an urban area and improve the lives of its inhabitants? How do we develop local and national policies to regulate intelligent transportation? What changes need to be made to our nation’s infrastructure to appropriately manage these new technologies? Speakers: Lawrence Burns, Danny Kim, Jim Pisz, and Alexis Madrigal

Traffic safety is a blend of people, vehicles and the driving environment overall. As technology makes it possible for cars to operate themselves entirely, this session will explore the intelligent transportation environment of the future, and the unfolding policy, infrastructure and social hurdles that will present themselves. Is driver-less the answer or is Silicon Valley underestimating the complex environment autonomous technologies present? Speakers: Chris Hostetter Scott Tong

United Airlines chairman, president and CEO Jeff Smisek will talk about what’s next on the horizon for the fast-paced, rapidly evolving airline industry. This discussion will cover the evolution of the airline business, the travel experience, aircraft technology, alternate fuel sources, and more. Jeff Smisek Andrew Ross Sorkin

Virgin Galactic is the world’s first commercial spaceline. How did this project first see the light of day? With the help of stunning images and footage, Stephen Attenborough will chart its progress to date, including the latest from the ongoing test flight program. Is Virgin Galactic the spark that could light the fire of a vibrant new industry that could help to meet some of the most pressing challenges faced on Earth in the coming decades? Will you be the company’s next customer on a trip to space for an exhilarating, life-changing experience? Stephen Attenborough