Mark Policinski is celebrating his 26th year as a CEO, the past fourteen years with the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments (OKI). Prior to OKI, Mr. Policinski held senior-level positions in the private sector, including CEO of the Brown Publishing Company and vice president of The CoStar Group.

Before moving to Cincinnati, Mr. Policinski worked in Washington, D.C., as a senior economist for The Joint Economic Committee on Capitol Hill and as the associate deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce under President Ronald Reagan. Mr. Policinski has served on many public and private sector boards. Currently, he is a member of the board of directors for the Mill Creek Council of Communities, the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Association of Regional Councils and, most recently, was appointed chair of the Ohio Rail Development Commission by Governor John Kasich. He is the 2014 recipient of the Walter Scheiber Leadership Award, given to the CEO of a regional organization for outstanding leadership and advocacy by the National Association of Regional Councils. He has also judged for the Annual McCloskey Business Competition for the University of Notre Dame. For the past 14 years, Mr. Policinski has been named as one of the 100 Most Powerful Leaders in our region.

Dr. Mohammad "Mo" Shakouri is a Silicon Valley investor, entrepreneur, and international executive with over 25 years of experience in communications and electronics industry.  Dr. Shakouri is well-versed in formulating large-scale partnerships and introducing broadband network initiatives to emerging markets and communities. As an internet connectivity evangelist, Dr. Shakouri has been working with leading Silicon Valley internet and tech companies.  He serves as Dir Community Broadband Joint Venture Silicon Valley, as Chairman of the WiMAX Forum and is Founder and CEO of Microsanj.  Dr. Shakouri earned his Ph.D in Electrical Engineering & Applied Physics from Stanford University, and a BSEE from San Jose State.

Jean Rice works with federal agencies and national associations on new broadband initiatives, including tribal connectivity and broadband summit, dig-once, broadband and economic development, community connectivity indices and public private partnerships. For NTIA’s Recovery Act grant program, Ms. Rice worked with over $700 million in grants to deploy broadband networks in tribal, rural and underserved areas. She is a member of the Federal Smart Grid Task Force. Previously, Ms. Rice was CEO of the telecommunications consulting firm for governments Rice, Williams Associates.

Franco leads a team of experts responsible for the go to market strategy for education & research, health & human services, revenue management and Smarter Government. Franco and his team guide government officials at every level – U.S. Higher Education, U.S. federal, U.S. state & local, and in Canada – to effectively use modern cloud-based solution and emerging technologies to help government organizations deliver on their mission. In addition to working with customers, Franco authors, publishes white papers and articles on leveraging technology to drive business value for governments. He is also a frequent speaker at government conferences. He is a graduate of McGill University in Montreal, Canada and has completed an Advanced Certificate for Executives in Management, Innovation, and Technology at MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, USA.

Director of MOST AERO Labs and co-Director of UAV MASTER Labs conducting research in the following areas: Genetic Fuzzy AI, Collaborative UAV control and task planning, multi-agent decision making, UAV operations for enhanced situational awareness and resource allocation, disaster management using UAVs, estimation and control for feedback aerodynamic flow control, active vibration suppression, system identification of rotorcraft & morphing VTOL aircraft

As OKI’s Strategic Initiatives Manager, Robyn is responsible for the analysis of contemporary issues and opportunities affecting transportation planning for the region. She manages cutting edge transportation studies related to freight, economic development, transit and technology. Robyn holds a Masters degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, a Bachelor of Arts degree with Cum Laude honors in Art History, Criticism & Conservation from Florida State University, and a Certificate of Historic Preservation Studies from the University of Georgia-Athens. She has been a member of the American Planning Association since 1992 and received her American Institute of Certified Planners status in 1997. Recently, she was appointed as the Metropolitan Planning Organization Council’s representative to the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s Freight Advisory Committee.

Christopher Rezendes has helped hundreds of companies to investigate, develop and market complex technologies through unique and often uncommon approaches in a broad range of target markets. Rezendes has nearly 22 years of experience analyzing, advising or operating mission-critical technology businesses. throughout his career, he has worked with some of the largest and most respected companies in the industrial, embedded, defense, infrastructure and information technology industries. His clients have included nearly 75% of the Electronics Business Top 100 original enterprise manufacturers (OEMs), most of the Information Week 100, and every tech-focused member of the Fortune 500. Rezendes’ has supported a broad range of suppliers and integrators with technology development and commercialization strategy development and prosecution. More than half of this work has been mobile and wireless related with an expanded focus on device level networks including analyzing the deployment of clouds in down-range, public safety and other austere environments. His career includes experience in defense and dual-use technology industries as a private consultant and contractor supporting DARPA projects and selected intelligence and operations agencies. He managed or contributed to a number of Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and allied Military of Defence opportunity assessments and commercialization requirements analyses. At INEX Advisors, that client profile is now complemented by a wide range of start-up and early-stage companies operating in or around IoT and M2M as well as a number of Web 2.0 and 3.0 solutions and killer enabling technologies.

Zack Huhn is the founder of Venture Smarter and the Chair of the IEEE Smart Cities Standards Subcommittee. In 2016 Zack launched Regional Smart Cities Initiatives to help smaller and medium-sized communities realize smart city success stories just like major cities. The initiative is rooted in using best-practices planning tools, technology standards, and solutions that promote interoperable connectivity, mobility, and resilience. In line with UN Sustainable Development Goals, Zack coined the phrase “Smart City Development Goals” and created a support ecosystem to help leaders leverage smart and connected technologies to compress the time to realizing desired SDG’s and related outcomes. Through this lens, Zack encourages leaders and communities to use technology as a tool to improve outcomes for people - creating better places to live, work, and visit regardless of socioeconomic, geographical, or physical barriers. By sparking equitable social mobility, Zack believes that smart city solutions will be the key driver of economic development and growth in our cities and regions in the years and decades to come. It is these passionate efforts that earned Zack a spot on the list of Top 50 Global Leaders in Smart Cities, among other awards and recognitions.  

Dr. Jiaqi Ma is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management of the University of Cincinnati. Prior to that, he is a Project Manager and Research Scientist working at the FHWA Turner Fairbank Highway Research Center. His areas of expertise include smart mobility, Connected Automated Vehicles, Intelligent Transportation Systems, traffic modeling and simulation. He has led, managed and participated in many research projects funded by USDOT and state DOTs, covering a wide range of areas including bottleneck identification and reduction, Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, Benefit/Cost analysis of Traffic Incident Management Strategies, and vehicle automation-based Speed Harmonization, etc. He is a Member of the TRB Standing Committee on Vehicle-Highway Automation, and Co-Chair of IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society Technical Committee on Smart Cities and Smart Mobility.

NIST GCTC Utilities Supercluster Leadership

As the transportation policy & coalition manager for the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, Pete Metz oversees a coalition of business leaders advocating for expanded investment in transportation that connects people to jobs, education and healthcare and supports a talent rich workforce. The Chamber is focused on communicating the business case for expanded transportation, including investment in infrastructure projects, expanding access for public transit, and preparing our region for the future of transportation. In this role, Metz helped lead the development of the Cincinnati Mobility Lab, a public-private partnership between transit authorities, government entities, and Uber. Metz also manages the Transportation Business Coalition, a consortium of senior business leaders engaged on developing and implementing a vision for our region’s transportation. Prior to joining the Chamber, Metz was the chief of staff to Cincinnati Vice Mayor David Mann where he worked on a wide range of issues, including housing, economic development, and transportation and is a veteran of both local and statewide political campaigns. Additionally, Metz spent time in Washington, DC, where he worked on federal transportation policy at Transportation for America. A native Cincinnatian, Metz studied political science, urban geography, and urban governance at The Ohio State University.

Darryl Haley manages the departments responsible for transit service planning development and scheduling, operations, and maintenance. Mr. Haley most recently served as Interim General Manager. He was previously Executive Director of Development, responsible for short and long range planning, customer relations, and transit and ridership development. Prior to joining Metro in 2005, Mr. Haley held positions in the health-care distribution industry and financial institutions, where he earned many awards for leadership in operations, sales, and profit improvement. Mr. Haley holds a B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Cincinnati and is a Cincinnati native and graduate of Withrow High School. He is a member of the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO).