Ford Opens Its Silicon Valley Lab

By Logan Utsman on Monday, June 18th, 2012

As a major global manufacturer, Ford Motor Company must do more than just piece together automobiles in order to be truly successful. Pushing the envelope of innovation is one of the reasons the automaker has managed to stay afloat, break records and earn accolades. In order to go even farther, Ford recently opened its all-new Silicon Vally Lab to strengthen its technology advancements for the present and the future.

Serving as what Ford calls, “a local touch point”, the Lab is located in the heart of California’s Palo Alto. In order to develop the best of automotive technology, the Bay Area technology companies and startups can access the work with Ford’s Silicon Valley Lab. “We want Silicon Valley to view Ford as a platform that is open, accessible and ready for their innovative ideas and technologies,” said Paul Mascarenas, chief technical officer and vice president of Ford Research and Advanced Engineering.

“With many of the finest forward-thinking minds in the world located in the San Francisco Bay region, the Ford Silicon Valley Lab is ideally positioned to interact with and forge connections to local innovators and grow the relationships with our current partners,” said Venkatesh Prasad, general manager of the Silicon Valley Lab. At first, three key vehicle areas will be focused upon for developement. Big data such as vehicle sensing technologies, open-source innovation that looks at a car like a clean platform and the user experience so a driver can be as much with a vehicle as possible.

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