Optimus Ride

Website http://optimusride.com

Founded 2015

Follow

Overview

Optimus Ride Inc. is an MIT spinoff company based in Cambridge, MA that develops self‑driving technologies to enable safe, sustainable, and equitable mobility solutions. We are designing a fully autonomous (level 4) system for electric vehicle fleets. We combine over 30 years of interdisciplinary university research in self‑driving technologies (DARPA Urban Challenge), electric vehicles (CityCar), and Mobility-on-Demand Systems.

Video Pitch

Management Team

Co-founder

Ramiro Almeida

Ramiro Almeida has been appointed Professor and Director of The Innovation Lab at MDC. He recently spent three years conducting research at the intersection of innovation, social transformation, technology and entrepreneurship at the MIT Media Lab. He was awarded the prestigious Loeb Fellowship at the Graduate School of Design. With MIT colleagues, he is working on designing self‑driving vehicle systems.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Ryan Chin

Dr. Ryan C.C. Chin is a leading expert in the area of Smart Cities and Urban Mobility Systems. He was the Managing Director of the City Science Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, where he lead MIT's research on urbanism, transport, energy, and big data analytics. He developed several electric vehicles including the MIT CityCar – a foldable, electric, two-person vehicle, which Time Magazine named the “Automotive Invention of the Year” in 2007.

Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer

Albert Huang

Dr. Albert Huang received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2010. He was a technical lead on MIT’s self‑driving car entry to the DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007, and his research has focused on perception and autonomy for robots. He was previously the software architect at Rethink Robotics, and also the lead navigation and perception engineer on Project Wing - the drone delivery program operated by Google[x].

Co-founder, President, and Chief Scientist

Sertac Karaman

Dr. Sertac Karaman is an Associate Professor at MIT. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 2012 from MIT, and joined MIT faculty immediately after. He was on MIT’s team that built a self‑driving car and competed in the DARPA Urban Challenge (2007), and his research group developed a number of self-driving vehicles since then. He is the co-author of several technical articles in the broad area of robotics.

Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer

Jenny Larios Berlin

Jenny Larios Berlin is a veteran of car sharing technology and operations, having worked previously for the disruptive Zipcar. As a General Manager, she introduced Zipcar operations into several university campuses nationwide. She created the strategic vision and managed the sales, marketing, and operations teams to deliver groundbreaking mobility solutions. She earned her MBA and a Master’s in City Planning from MIT in 2015.