Dr. Stefan Heck is CEO and co-Founder of NAUTO, the Palo Alto-based smart car and urban mobility company. NAUTO’s proprietary, computer vision-enhanced system is an affordable way to upgrade any car to get network and safety features previously only available in high-end luxury cars. Dr. Heck is also Consulting Professor at the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University, teaching courses and conducting research on innovation, energy, and resource economics. He directs the Energy Transformation Collaborative (ETC) a new program applying the talent of the Stanford community and Silicon Valley to develop and deploy novel solutions to the world’s most vexing energy problems. Through specially-designed year-long curricula, students, faculty, industry practitioners, and policy-makers work together to design and launch innovative projects that can be scaled and replicated.
Previously he was a Director (senior partner) at McKinsey and co-founded and led the Cleantech and Sustainability practice.
Stefan is on the Innovation Advisory Board of United Technologies, the board of the Biomimicry Institute, the advisory boards of New World Capital, Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, and the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford and has published a book Resource Revolution: How to Capture the Biggest Business Opportunity in a Century.
He is a sought-after speaker and has recently appeared at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Re/Code Mobile, The VERGE/Green Business conference and more to discuss topics ranging from clean tech and enegy to the future of transportation and urban mobility. His views and ideas often appear in news media, including in The New York Times, Engadget, Green Business Report and more.
Stefan received his Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from UCSD and a B.S. with honors in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. His research focused on deep learning.