We started The Wharton Future Mobility Club (aka Whartonomous Vehicles) to help MBA students prepare for one of the greatest periods of mobility innovation.
The way we move around is evolving at an unprecedented speed and the impact of these changes will affect people and businesses around the world. Mobility of the future will, among many other things, change how cities are designed, optimize supply chains, and create new business opportunities.
The mobility landscape has already evolved tremendously since we started our MBA program in August 2017. Since then:
- Waymo has more than doubled the number of miles its cars have driven autonomously, eclipsing 10 million real-world miles
- Dockless electric scooter companies, some of which had no major external funding, have combined valuations in excess of $3bn today
- Uber and Lyft provided approximately 5 billion rides globally per year
The Wharton Future Mobility club engages students interested in tomorrow’s mobility ecosystem. The club focuses on connecting students to ideas, innovations, technologies, and policies that are rapidly advancing in the mobility industry, and to the many challenges that still remain.
The club will address mobility topics across all business sectors including, but not limited to: autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, ridesharing, micro-mobility (bikes, scooters, etc.), drones, trucking and logistics, urban policy and planning, and supporting infrastructure.
Our goal is to build a community interested in engaging in this disruptive topic and increase related academic and career opportunities at Wharton.
Why now?
We believe we are at an inflection point within the transportation and mobility industry. Ride-hailing, electric vehicles, micro-mobility, full autonomy, and new transportation paradigms are shifting the way businesses, governments, and entrepreneurs think about a fundamental problem in daily life — how we get from point A to point B.
Aided by a series of independent yet critical breakthroughs in technologies including machine learning, energy storage, compute, sensing, mapping, and communications, companies large and small are closer than ever to creating the Jetsons-like future we as a civilization have dreamed of since the early days of science fiction.
As Wharton MBAs, understanding core shifts in markets and business environments is a critical skill we wish to hone and bring with us on our future endeavors. As such, we want to create a channel to discuss these shifts as they occur in real-time, and to prepare ourselves for a truly mobile future.
What have we done to date?
In the 2017–2018 academic year, the inaugural year for the Club, a variety of events both local to Philadelphia and transnational in SF were organized to increase awareness and engagement:
- Bay Area Autonomous Vehicles Trek: Our group led a 15-student Autonomous/Electric Vehicles Trek to SF to meet with leading companies including Waymo, Zoox, Maven (GM), Voyage, NIO, and Tesla. This trek gave many students their first direct introduction to these companies, and the group received unparalleled access to the leaders of the mobility revolution.
- Informational Lunch Session: 30+ students attended Future Mobility information session, where we introduced the organization and our goals for the next year
- Connected Peers with Industry Knowledge: Students with insight or experience in the AV/EV industry hosted small group dinners to knowledge share and meet interested classmates. These dinners encouraged discussion and sharing of ideas and opinions among members, generating more awareness and expertise overall.
- Identified Career Prep Resources: From our collective direct experiences, we have developed a database of contacts for alumni in the mobility industry and a list of great interview prep resources to better prepare members for career success in this emerging industry
What’s Next?
We have developed a list of “What’s Next?” items to focus on for the club’s future:
- Thought Leadership: The club intends to develop thought leadership in the mobility space through a series of blog posts collecting our thoughts on the industry. These posts will be collaborative and aim to involve as many insights and thoughts from members as possible
- Cross-Penn Initiatives: Given the breadth and depth of resources across the University of Pennsylvania, the club intends to coordinate with various centers of expertise on events designed to educate members beyond purely business ideas. These will include events with engineering and law school students as well as events featuring professors from different disciplines discussing different mobility-related issues
In general, we plan to organize events/activities and work on special projects under three categories: Community, Academic, and Career.
- Community outreach activities: Engage and grow the MBA student community to increase awareness and collaboration.
- Academic / education-based activities: Provide MBA students with opportunities to gain insights into future mobility issues inside and outside of classroom.
- Career development activities: Support student’s career search in mobility-related positions
Who are we?
Future Mobility members are MBA students interested in the dynamic future of mobility and transformation. We include former product managers, engineers, investors, consultants, bankers, and academics. We believe in a radical change to the state of mobility and want to share knowledge and insights as this change occurs.
Future Mobility Board Members are enthusiastic about the future mobility, and have spent the last year developing deep expertise on the industry through the Autonomous/Electric Vehicles Trek, networking with industry experts, and partnering with alumni, faculty and career advisers to collate career resources for students interested in mobility.
Overview of our 2Y board, and their current positions:
Lehren Mackay
- Summer Internship: Argo AI, Strategy and Business Development Intern
- Role on Board: Co-President
Isabelle Ji
- Summer Internship: Tesla Energy, MBA Intern
- Role on Board: VP of Social Programming
Mike Hamilton
- Summer Internship: Google, MBA Intern
- Role on Board: Co-President
Tal Bar-Or
- Summer Internship: Magic Leap, Business Development Intern
- Role on Board: VP of Career Development
Peter Ortez
- Summer Internship: Data Collective Venture Capital, Summer Associate
- Role on Board: VP of Marketing, Partnerships and Outreach
Ankit Sirohi
- Summer Internship: Cruise Automation
- Role on Board: VP of Finance
To launch the Wharton Future Mobility club, our board members received valuable mentorship from Wharton alumni, many who laid the groundwork of our organization. A few of our mentors we’d like to highlight:
Nazik Zhumalieva
Founding board member of the Future Mobility club, and lead of the 2017 Autonomous/Electric Vehicles Trek, Nazik played a critical role on campus by mentoring students who were interested in moving into mobility.
Full-time role: Finance on Waze Carpool, Google
MBA Internship: Finance at Zoox
Kennan Cronen
Previous co- President of the Sustainable Business Coalition, Kennan pivoted to mobility, specifically ride-sharing, due to his interest in cleantech and the impact transportation systems have on our environment. Over the past two years, he has mentored several of our members who are interested in the intersection of sustainability and mobility.
Full-time role: Product Manager at Lyft Premium
MBA internship: Product Manager at Lyft