With a team of engineers, Paul Moller works on the Skycar, a combination car and jet, as well as the M200, a saucer-shaped hovering car. He also develops next-generation engines to power these and other amazing vehicles.

Why you should listen

Paul Moller is the president, CEO and chair of Moller International, a company devoted to engineering the combination of automobile and jet known as the Moller Skycar. His company also works on the M200, a low-flying disc, or volantor, that may go into production later in 2009. (As cool as it looks, the M200 has serious applications as a rescue vehicle.) A partner company, Freedom Motors, builds the Rotapower engine.

Moller developed the Aeronautical Engineering program at UC Davis while a professor there from 1963 to 1975. In 1972 he founded SuperTrapp Industries, and also led the group that developed the Davis Research Park Complex between 1975 and 1983. He's been working on VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) personal vehicles since the late 1960s.

Paul Moller’s TED talk