Hover Cars & Hard Problems

Prith touched on some of the “secret sauce” ingredients, including a focus on sustainable innovation versus disruptive innovation. Another critical ingredient? Creating a specialized team that focuses on innovation, instead of adding the task of innovation to team members’ existing roles and responsibilities. Finally, Prith discussed the central idea of his book: Fostering continuous innovation by creating an open, collaborative environment that brings together companies, universities, research labs, and other partners to leverage the unique strengths of each stakeholder.

“Unleashing Innovation: The Case for Academia in Innovation” focused on Prith’s background in academia and some of the incredible innovations — including mRNA vaccine technologies — that have come from decades of university research and investment. Prith talked about how to form successful partnerships with academic institutions, as well as how universities are changing the ways in which they encourage, measure, and reward faculty innovations.

Prith sits down with Curt Chan, Josh Poley and Mary Kate Joyce, to talk about the fundamental idea of innovation: What does it actually mean? Is the term used too loosely? Prith shared an important qualifier: In order to be truly innovative, a new product or service needs to solve a problem and add value. Prith also discussed the difficult, disciplined process of writing, the authors who inspire him, and a modern innovation that he believes will be truly transformative: quantum computing.

Vance Hilderman, a pioneer and entrepreneur in aviation safety, sits down with the HCHP team to discuss how AI and VR come together in the evolving industry of autonomy, along with how aviation safety and automotive safety share similar chemistry and hard problems. 

Steve Bouley, a retired VP of the Space Launch Systems Unit for Aerojet Rocketdyne, engages in conversations about Aerospike engines, space marvels, and hypersonic propulsion of the future. The HCHP team dives into Steve's aspirations and inspirations around space technology, the direction of space systems and how it will propel the colonization of new territories; but of course the hard problems that will be endured throughout the journey of space exploration.

As they say, 'if you're in control, you're not going fast enough.'  The HCHP Team sits down with Aram Goganian, Chief Engineer at Predator Cycling, and talks about his 'move' in competitive track cycling, to Olympic Oopies, and how he's transforming the cycling industry through the power of digital simulation.

Will fully autonomous cars dominate and be accepted in the transportation market soon? The HCHP team discusses with John Zinn, the Director of Customer Excellence at Ansys, how autonomous vehicles operate and the many aspects to nail down before they can be used on roads. From conversations on the SR-71 Blackbird, sensor data, teaching teenagers to drive, and changes in vehicle design and experience, fundamental questions on autonomous vehicles are answered. 

Kevin Flood, the leader of digital mission engineering at Ansys engages in conversations about engineering marvels and digital developments to expect for the future. The HCHP team dives into Kevin’s insights on space colonization, 5G technology, how digital inventions have changed society norms, the New Horizons mission to reach Pluto within nine years, and solutions to hard problems. 

There are many paths to a career in technology. Janice Casagrande, Sales Director at Ansys, talks about her passion for engineering, and taking a different trajectory with sales, leveraging her technical background for different career paths. Curt, Josh, and MK delve deeper on the topic of Janice's involvement with a non-profit organization, such as women in technology. At the end, we covered topics around how she leads a team, and the importance of mentorship.

Who is Jane Trenaman?  We call her 'The most interesting woman'.  The team at HCHP talk with Jane about her successes of multiple technology companies, what makes her tick, and the most important thing to her, family.  Throughout her career, she not only has been a given back to the engineering community, but inspired so many future engineering to go down a similar path.