Many brilliant people are working to enable autonomous vehicles to drive while avoiding collisions. We have great respect and appreciation for their groundbreaking work to build the sensors, software, and systems necessary to ensure autonomous vehicles avoid collisions. Our user experience work complements their work perfectly.
Mass adoption of self-driving vehicles is our passion. Using design methodology to understand user experiences, we identified pain points that could hinder the adoption of autonomous vehicles. We have focused our work on overcoming several of these pain points.
We realize our solutions will have the greatest impact not as stand-alone systems, but rather as elements integrated into the products and services of much larger players in the autonomous vehicle market. As a result, we seek to collaborate with the industry leaders.
We believe several companies will soon offer autonomous vehicles (that successfully avoid collisions) to the general public. Avoiding collisions is clearly essential, yet addressing the additional adoption barriers is necessary to convince a majority to give up manual vehicles in favor of autonomous vehicles and to smooth the integration of autonomous vehicles into society. We believe the ultimate winners in the autonomous vehicle market will be the companies that provide the best autonomous vehicle user experience.1
Our solutions will help your company offer the best autonomous vehicle user experience.
Our Team
Eric Wengreen
Co-founder
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Eric studied design at Stanford and has Stanford degrees in engineering, management science, and law. After graduating from Stanford in engineering, Eric was a design engineer at Guidant, which was acquired by Boston Scientific. At Guidant, Eric earned two Technology Assessment Grant Awards and a “SPOT” award for innovation.
Eric later joined Medtronic where he worked as a principal engineer in the advanced technology group. Eric earned a Stock Options Award, multiple Certificates of Excellence, and an Individual Performance Program Award. Eric’s breakthrough work on “insertable” cardiac monitoring systems helped launch a new generation of products and led to many patents.
Eric founded Innovelis, which has launched dozens of products, including a TotalMount Apple TV mount that is sold in Apple Stores around the world.
Wes Schwie
Co-founder
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Wes has an engineering degree, M.B.A., and J.D. from the University of Minnesota. Wes worked as an engineering manager at ReSound where he managed all new product launches and a team of engineers and technicians. Later, Wes joined Medtronic where he served as the lead mechanical engineer for three new product launches and also served as the Released Products Board Chairperson where he led a team of engineers to analyze and resolve issues affecting market released products.
After working for many years as an engineer, Wes became a patent attorney but remained very active in launching new products. Wes was a founding team member of Innovelis, which is a thriving consumer-products company.
Wes enjoys fitness, playing card games, and writing comedy sketches. Notably, Wes has an American record in rowing that he set in 2014 and he was a collegiate All-American during his time at the University of Minnesota. Wes is passionate about transportation safety and efficiency.
Talia Childs
Project Manager, founding team member
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Talia is responsible for managing several ongoing projects at Drivent. Some of her work is listed on this website, and some of her work is still confidential.
Talia is passionate about enabling autonomous vehicle to outperform manual vehicles in the eyes of both early adopters and the majority of potential customers. Her attention to detail and data-driven mindset have led to remarkable progress. Talia has a degree in accounting from Flagler College.
Andy Froberg
Project Manager, founding team member
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Andy studied business and information systems at the University of Washington. Andy is passionate about putting technology to work in ways that best fit customer needs.
If you run into Andy outside of work, you might hear him engaged in conversations about blockchain and other emerging technologies. Andy is also a talented photographer.
1 This website may include predictions, estimates or other information that might be considered forward-looking. While these forward-looking statements represent our current judgment on what the future holds, they are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Please keep in mind that we are not obligating ourselves to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events.