Technology can let us visualize and see things that might not otherwise be clear. It answers hard questions: what does the user want to see, or what does the future of global trade look like? From technical infrastructure to biology, the way we think about vision and visualizations will only continue to evolve.Â
Join us for 4 TED-style talks exploring these topics, and discuss with fellow engineers, designers, and product managers from around the Bay. We’ll be cruising in a boat out on the San Francisco Bay! There will be plenty of time for networking and relationship building over the course of the evening, along with food and beverages.
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James Chen is the Chief Technology Office at Flexport, a role he's filled twice before — at Jenzabar and Rakuten. He's a big-picture technologist who thrives helping companies grow. While at Rakuten, James managed an organization of 1,500+ people.
Most recently, he was a Director of Technology at Amazon where he led the Global Logistics team. Now at Flexport, James leverages his experience to drive product vision and technology strategy.
Silvia Vergani leads the Research team at Flexport. She possesses over 15 years of experience in research, and is passionate about using design to impact beliefs and behaviors. Silvia’s research work has been featured in multiple major media outlets, including The New York Times, CNN, Wired, FastCompany, and The Pacific Standard.Â
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Prior to Flexport, Silvia worked at IDEO, two MIT startup companies and at management consulting firms, and was a researcher at the University of Venice, Italy. She worked as an adjunct professor at the University of Padua, Italy, and as a teaching assistant at Harvard University.
Emma Alexander is a postdoc at UC Berkeley's Center for Innovation in Vision and Optics, a cross-disciplinary research center that brings together expertise in electrical engineering, computer science, vision science, and optometry. She is studying human perception of depth and color to develop next-generation display technologies. This work combines mathematical modeling, software development, and shining lasers in people's eyes on purpose.
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Before arriving in the Bay, she completed a PhD in computer science at Harvard. Inspired by the jumping spider, her graduate work developed a provably unique and practically robust class of computational cameras that observe differential changes in defocus to measure scene depth and velocity with high computational efficiency.Â
Ankur Dahiya is the engineering manager for backend infrastructure at Flexport. His teams are responsible for Cloud Infrastructure and Developer Experience - their mission is to make other engineers more productive and allow them to focus solely on feature development! He started as an engineer and built some of the foundational Infra at Flexport - primarily CI/CD, Staging and Containerization.
Prior to joining Flexport, he worked on Notifications Infra at Twitter and was one of the initial engineers on Facebook Videos. Ankur holds a Bachelors in Computer Science from IIT Delhi.
Susy is an experienced logistics professional and leads Flexport.org, a cross-functional group within Flexport that ensures that sustainable solutions are integrated across the company. She is passionate about matching corporate assets to the needs of nonprofit organizations to tackle humanity’s biggest challenges. Prior to joining Flexport, Susy worked in corporate strategy and sustainability management at Deutsche Bahn/DB Schenker, one of the largest mobility and logistics companies in the world. Susy lived in Europe and Asia for her undergraduate studies and holds an MBA from UC Berkeley.
You’ll hear brief talks exploring the relationship between technology and vision, get a close up look at a container port as we pass by the Port of Oakland.
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Tech Talks at Sea is free to attend, but it’s an invite-only event. Spots will fill up fast, so let us know if you’re interested in attending today! Â
Flexport is dedicated to holding events where everyone is comfortable and has fun, as written out in our Code of Conduct.
Flexport is the modern freight forwarder. Flexport uniquely delivers a combination of advanced technology, physical logistics infrastructure and human expertise, providing fast and predictable transit times, visibility and control, and lower supply chain costs to logistics and supply chain professionals across the globe.
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First to market with a purpose-built cloud software and data analytics platform, Flexport today connects almost 10,000 clients and suppliers across 109 countries, including established global brands like Georgia-Pacific as well as emerging innovators like Sonos. Flexport offers a full range of services, including ocean, air, truck and rail freight, drayage and cartage, warehousing, customs and trade advisory, financing, and insurance.