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Futurist Ray Kurzweil to Open SAE 2015 World Congress & Exhibition

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Ray Kurzweil, author of How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Huma

Honda announced today that world-renowned American inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil will be the opening speaker at next month’s SAE 2015 World Congress & Exhibition. Honda, the company providing Executive Leadership for the 2015 World Congress, will be sponsoring Kurzweil’s speech because it relates to the event’s chosen theme of “Leading Mobility Innovation.”

“The visionary spirit of Ray Kurzweil is a perfect match for the kickoff of the world’s most important gathering of automotive engineering talent,” said Erik Berkman, executive vice president of Honda North America and general chairman of the 2015 World Congress. “Our industry is in the midst of a period of rapid and surprising change and we are excited to bring his challenging ideas to energize this Congress.”

A director of engineering at Google, Kurzweil is leading the development of machine intelligence and natural language understanding. One of the leading experts on artificial intelligence, Kurzweil has predicted that in the first half of the 21st century, AI will surpass human intelligence. He has also authored five best-selling books and is one of the world’s foremost futurists.

The SAE 2015 World Congress will be held April 21-23 at the Cobo Center in Detroit, and will feature 1,500 presentations and the release of over 1,400 technical papers. Other keynote speakers will include ExxonMobil senior technology adviser Tahmid Mizan, and Continental VDO Automotive executive board member Helmut Matschi.