Israeli honored by Automotive Hall of Fame for ‘revolutionizing industry’

Mobileye CEO is recognized for his industry-leading contributions to advanced driving assistance systems and other autonomous driving solutions.

By Brian Blum, Israel21c

Mobileye founder and CEO Prof. Amnon Shashua was honored by the Automotive Hall of Fame with the organization’s Mobility Innovator Award in Detroit’s Automotive Hall of Fame on July 21.

The Automotive Hall of Fame was established in 1939 to perpetuate the accomplishments of the early automotive pioneers including W.O. Bentley, David D. Buick, Louis Chevrolet, Walter P. Chrysler, André Citroën, Enzo Ferrari, Soichiro Honda, Armand Peugeot, Ferdinand Porsche, Louis Renault and Ratan Tata.

The Mobility Innovator Award, introduced in 2021, seeks to recognize “the outstanding work individuals have accomplished introducing new technologies and services that are redefining mobility.”

Shashua’s work with Mobileye certainly fits the bill.

He founded Mobileye in 1999 when “no one in the automotive industry believed that a single front-facing camera could achieve the level of performance and robustness needed for a system that would prevent or mitigate collisions,” Shashua said at the time.

Mobileye was acquired by Intel in 2017 for $15.3 billion. The Silicon Valley chipmaker was seeking a way into the autonomous driving market, which has since become Mobileye’s main focus.

Intel – through Mobileye – now competes directly with Apple, Waymo, Tesla and others. Intel announced at the end of last year that it planned to take Mobileye public in 2022 at an estimated $50 billion valuation.

“Amnon’s biggest contribution to the automotive industry was laying the groundwork for a safer, greener and data-driven future – decades before such a vision would be deemed anything but a fantasy,” Mobileye’s chief legal officer Liz Cohen-Yerushalmi said.

“I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that he has revolutionized the automotive industry forever,” she declared.

Shashua started his career at Hebrew University, where he is still active in the computer science department.

He has racked up a series of industry citations, including being named last year as Automotive Driving Executive of the Year by Automotive News.

In addition to being CEO of Mobileye and a senior vice president at Intel, he also cofounded OrCam Technologies, which develops wearable devices to assist the visually and hearing impaired; AI21 Labs, which uses artificial intelligence to improve the way we read and write; and One Zero Digital Bank.