JingChi Announces Tony Han as CEO, Mr. Dian Kang and Dr. Takeo Kanade as Advisors

Business Wire

GUANGZHOU, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- JingChi today announced Tony Han became CEO of the Company, Qing Lu became President & CFO, Yan Li became CTO, Qingxiong Yang became VP Engineering, and Li Zhang, former SVP of Cisco China joined the Company as VP Operations. To further strengthen the leading position in technology and its capability of commercialization, JingChi also appointed two strategic advisors – Dian Kang, former Chairman & CEO of New China Insurance, and Dr. Takeo Kanade, Professor of Carnegie Mellon University and elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Tony Han was the former Chief Scientist of Baidu's Autonomous Driving Unit. Tenured Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Missouri (MU). Original contributor of DeepSpeech2, selected as one of ten breakthrough technologies in 2016 by MIT Technology Review. Winner of multiple worldwide challenges in computer vision and machine learning.

Qing Lu was the former CFO of Velodyne LiDAR, global leader in LiDAR development and manufacturing, used by nearly all autonomous driving companies. Former CFO of multiple Silicon Valley startups, including Symbio, Seven Networks, LitePoint, PortalPlayer, etc. with successful exits in one IPO and two acquisitions.

Yan Li was the former head of the autonomous driving engineering team of Ucar US. Previously worked at Facebook and Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA). Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Qingxiong Yang was the former Senior Director of the autonomous driving engineering team at Didi Chuxing. Former tenure-track assistant professor at the City University of Hong Kong. Published 30+ top vision papers with more than 5,000 total citations. Developed NonLocalFilter algorithm and applied it to win second place during the 2012 China Future Intelligent Vehicle Challenge.

Li Zhang previously served in Cisco China for more than 19 years as SVP and Chief Staff to CEO of Cisco's Greater China region. As VP Operations, Zhang is responsible for the company's strategic operations, market development, government and media cooperation, as well as autonomous vehicle operations in China. Mr. Zhang holds a MBA from the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University.

Dian Kang, a Chinese business consultant expert announced by JingChi, graduated from Beijing University of Science & Technology (formerly Beijing Institute of Iron and Steel) and received a master's degree in economics from the Graduate School of China Academy of Social Science in 1984. He is currently visiting professor of Sun Yat-sen University and University of International Business and Economics, visiting scholar of U of Cambridge, and strategic advisor to the Reinsurance Group of America (“RGA”) with $53 billion in assets. Mr. Kang Dian once served as Chief of Overseas Investment of China International Trust and Investment Corporation (“CITIC”), Vice President of China Agribusiness Trust & Investment Corporation (“CATIC”), Deputy General Manager of China National Packaging Corporation, Vice President of Guangdong Enterprise (Holdings) Ltd (“GDE”), Chairman and Managing Director of Guangdong Capital Holdings (“GDC”), Chairman of Guangdong Securities Ltd (“GDS”), Chairman of Guangdong Asia Insurance Co, Chairman & CEO of Springridge Investment Management Ltd., Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Shenzhen Development Bank (SDB), Chairman & CEO of New China Life Insurance Company Ltd (“NCI”), and Chairman of New China Asset Management Co., Ltd. Under the leadership of Mr. Dian Kang, Xinhua Insurance successfully completed the dual-listing of NCI in Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges as the biggest IPO of Asian Financial company in 2011, ranking the top 3 in China's insurance market, and NCI was shortlisted for Forbes Global Top 500 in 2014. Mr. Kang’s honors in the Chinese business community include: China Insurance Quote “China’s Insurance Person of Year 2011”; “The Most Influential Leader of the Listed Companies” by Ta Kung Pao; “The Insurance Person of Year 2012” by China Business News; “The Financial Person of the Year” by China Business Journal in 2014, “Pioneer in Creativity and Intelligence of the Year” by International Finance News in 2014; “Top 10 Leading Figures of Year 2014” by China Economic Net; “The Insurance Person of Year 2015” by China Business News; “CEO Gold Medal of Year 2015” by Arbor CEO Rankings.

Dr. Takeo Kanade joined JingChi as a technical advisor in the field of artificial intelligence. Professor Kanade received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1974 and was the first generation of computer vision researchers. From 1992 to 2001, he served as the founding director of the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University and trained more than 200 researchers, laying the foundation for CMU’s academic position in the field of robotics. His papers have been cited more than 100,000 times, and there are a number of technical patents named after him. His extensive research in computer vision and robotics since 1980 has laid the foundation for today's autonomous vehicle projects. CMU's Robotics Institute invented the world's first autonomous prototype in 1984. Professor Kanade received honors including: Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fellow of the American Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Fellow of the International Computer Society, and Fellow of the American Artificial Intelligence Association. He also won several awards including: Kyoto Prize, Benjamin Franklin Medal and Bauer Award, C&C Award, Okawa Prize, ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Prize, Joseph Engelberger Award, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Award, and ICCV Azriel Rosenfeld Lifetime Achievement Award.

Under the leadership of Tony Han, Yan Li and Qingxiong Yang, JingChi's R&D team has grown from 10 to more than 80 engineers in less than a year in US and China, covering MIT, CMU, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, UIUC, UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC, Columbia University, UC Irvine, Georgia Tech, Northwestern University, Pierre and Marie Curie University, National University of Singapore, Hong Kong University, City University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University, Pecking University China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Zhejiang University, Fudan University, Beihang University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an Jiaotong University and other top universities in the world. The team includes dozens of senior industry experts in the field of autonomous vehicles (from Baidu, Didi, Ucar, Velodyne LiDAR, Uber, Apple, Samsung, Ford, Renault and other related companies). Our engineers have achieved outstanding results in the world's top computer competition including Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest (“ACM-ICPC”), more than 20 people won gold medals in Asian regions. JingChi's technology has been rapidly iterated with key breakthroughs. Completed are complex road tests in Guangzhou, Anqing, and California, and has carried out trial operations in many areas in Guangzhou Bio-Island and Anqing High-tech Development District.

JingChi's board of directors and investors firmly believe that under the leadership of Tony Han, Qing Lu, Yan Li, Qingxiong Yang, and Li Zhang combined with the guidance of business consultant Dian Kang and technical advisor Professor Takeo Kanade, JingChi team will continue to strive and innovate to realize the vision and mission of commercialization of driverless vehicles in China.

About JingChi:

Founded in 2017 by Dr. Han Xu, Qing Lu, and Dr. Yan Li, together with a group of talented passionate individuals, JingChi has emerged as the leading Chinese autonomous driving startup aiming to be the first company to achieve large-scale, commercial deployment of fully Level 4 autonomous vehicles in China. JingChi is committed to using deep learning to deliver fully autonomous vehicles that operate without human intervention by using a combination of LiDAR, cameras, and radar sensors along with artificial intelligence to perceive the driving environment and navigate the quickest and safest path to the final destination. JingChi is developing software and systems for fully autonomous vehicles in order to deliver a safe, robust, and convenient MaaS (Mobility as a Service) to the public. Please visit http://jingchi.ai for more information.