Kenji Nishikawa is an active member of the AUTOSAR steering committee and General Manager of E/E Architecture and Vehicle Network Development at Toyota Motor Corporation. He follows Lorenz Slansky, Senior Manager for Network, Function and Communication Architecture at Daimler AG, Mercedes-Benz Cars Development as chairman. In this position, Nishikawa is in charge of administration, finances, internal coordination and AUTOSAR business development for the general nine-month term of office.
“First, I would like to thank Lorenz Slansky for his commitment during his tenure in office,” says Kenji Nishikawa. “AUTOSAR is well accepted as a worldwide standard, but we don’t want to stop there. We will continuously improve the quality and features with a strong focus on stabilization of the standard.”
As software engineer with many years of experience in software development for chassis control systems, Nishikawa joined Toyota in 1990. Since then he has been responsible for design and development of software control systems. In the course of his career, he worked at Toyota Motor Europe in Brussels, where he enlarged his intercultural skills.
Stefan Rathgeber, new deputy-chairman is an electrical engineer in computer science and the Head of Software, Corporate Systems and Technology at Continental Automotive GmbH. He held the position of AUTOSAR Spokesperson in 2016.
“It is my privilege to hold another principal representative position at AUTOSAR”, said Stefan Rathgeber. “I am committed to the continued strategic development of the AUTOSAR platform. We are continuously improving the software standards, which makes me proud.”
Graduated in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Hanover in 1995, Stefan Rathgeber has more than 22 years of experience in the field of software development. From 2000 to 2009, he was employed in various positions at Harman/Becker Automotive Systems GmbH, lastly as Head of Department Software Development Automotive Infotainment-Systems. When joining Continental Automotive GmbH in 2011, he became Head of R&D Software of the business unit Instrumentation and Driver HMI. Since 2015 he is Head of Software at Corporate Systems and Technology.
Dr. Thomas Scharnhorst has been confirmed as spokesperson, the position he has held since January 2017. The well-respected industry insider and former Director of the E/E Architectures and Concepts Department at Volkswagen AG will continue to represent AUTOSAR at conferences and in all media relations as well as in interviews and other publications.
“After ten years of absence from the consortium, I re-joined to work as spokesperson for AUTOSAR again in January 2017”, says Thomas Scharnhorst. “I am impressed to see the progress AUTOSAR has made, the history it has written and what the development partnership has achieved since its founding in 2003. I will continue to support the success story of AUTOSAR as a spokesperson and looking forward to the new releases of the Adaptive Platform, which will be announced soon.”
Scharnhorst obtained a degree in physical engineering from the Technical University in Berlin, followed by postgraduate studies of aero- and astronautics at MIT in Cambridge. In 1980, he joined Volkswagen’s R&D department, where he served in numerous different positions, such as Director of the E/E Architectures and Concepts Department. He was appointed AUTOSAR spokesperson in 2004 during his time at Volkswagen. Subsequently, Scharnhorst became CEO of Carmeq GmbH, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen AG focusing on the development of vehicle software and electronics. Currently, in addition to being an associate at WiTech-Engineering, Scharnhorst organizes seminars on safety in the field of vehicle electronics.
Further information:
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