Sustainability Hackathon @ BMW

Dirk Rossberg
Head of BMW Group Technology Office USA

Dirk Rossberg studied electrical engineering at the Technical University of Munich. He holds a degree in electrical engineering, majoring in gas and fluid sensors. He started his career as an engineer at BMW in 1997 and since then has worked in ECU development, HR, and later HMI (human-machine-interface) proprietary development.

In 2006, he took over as department manager for driver assistance systems and infotainment platforms where he succeeded in rolling out a large number of innovations in series production over a very short timeframe. From March 2010 to June 2011 Dirk headed the department for infotainment platform technologies.

Since July 2011, Dirk Rossberg is head of the BMW Technology Office in Mountain View, California. Dirk was born in Munich and raised in Murnau, in the heart of the Bavarian Alps. He enjoys nature, mountain hiking and biking and loves theater and opera.

Mark Platshon
Senior Investment Advisor, BMW i Ventures

Mark is a Senior Investment Advisor to the BMW i Ventures corporate VC fund, and a Partner with Birchmere Ventures. Previously Mark was a partner in the Cleantech group at VantagePoint and a Silicon Valley CEO for 20+ years. He is co-founder of Amprius, a Lithium-ion battery company spun out of Stanford and was an early investor in Tesla. He has served on the Boards of numerous companies, including Synxis, acquired by Sabre; Everdream, acquired by Dell; ChargePoint, Embark, Solexant, Amprius, GLO, Idetek, ELO, Ancore, Zing and Capnia. Mark earned a BSE in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the University of Michigan and his MBA from Stanford University. As a Lieutenant in the Navy, Mark was on Admiral Rickover’s nuclear submarine engineering staff. Personally, Mark is a cyclist and avid automobile hobbyist.

Tony Canova
Chief Financial Officer, ChargePoint

Tony Canova has more than 26 years experience as a CFO and partner in public accounting. Prior to joining ChargePoint, Tony was Vice President of Finance, Administration and CFO of Brocade Communications, a publicly listed company that pioneered the storage area networking industry. Since leaving Brocade, Tony has focused on advising a number of venture-backed technology companies including 3 Leaf Systems, Ankena, and Qumu, serving in roles including CFO as well as advisor to the CEO. Prior to Brocade Tony served as CFO of Wireless Inc, a wireless broadband equipment manufacturer. He was also an audit partner of KPMG LLP where he focused on audits, mergers and acquisitions, and IPOs of a variety of technology companies. Tony holds a B.S. in Accounting from Santa Clara University. When Tony takes a break from the numbers he likes to get lost in the backcountry of the Sierras highmarking his snowmobile. That’s ok, we didn’t know what that meant either. Thanks for clarifying, Wikipedia.