Helping students create smart and sustainable mobility innovations

Part of our journey to becoming a leader in mobility solutions is understanding that sometimes the best solution is to leave the car at home.

 

For example, our quest to ensure every person is free to move and pursue their dreams is what led us to create the ‘Park the Car’ campaign.

 

It’s also why Ford Motor Company Fund, the philanthropic arm of our company, has been working with its international grant-making partner, GlobalGiving, to run a Ford Fund Smart Mobility challenge since 2018.

 

The initiative encourages students from leading European universities to come up with ideas that help people move around more easily and independently. Participants must develop proposals that provide sustainable urban mobility solutions, while taking into account the daily obstacles people face and providing clear benefits to the local community.

 

The winning projects receive a grant to help their idea realise its potential. To-date, Ford Fund has distributed grants totalling more than €260,000.

 

This year’s overall winners are CYCLe from TH Köln (Cologne University of Applied Sciences), Mind My Bike from Loughborough University, Atria Move from Universitat de València (University of Valencia), and Step Art from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Polytechnic University of Madrid).

 

Top ideas from the class of 2022

 

Just like ‘Park the Car’, many of this year’s Ford Fund Smart Mobility Challenge winners were focused on encouraging people to use their cars less and make shorter journeys using more sustainable methods, including walking, cycling or electric scooters.

 

Atria Move’s second-hand electric scooter project proposed to purchase pre-owned scooters, repair and certify the condition of each, and then sell directly to customers – giving a second life to scooters that would otherwise be scrapped.

 

The CYCLe team is seeking to help younger generations become more aware of the value of energy, while generating electricity to charge their mobile devices, and keeping fit. The concept uses pedal-powered generators linked to an app that displays their output and can compare it to the power used by their devices or modes of transport.

 

Mind my Bike aims to help people feel more secure when using their bike. The team’s safe, weatherproof bicycle parking facilities support people who want to cycle to work or study, but fear their bike may be stolen or vandalised.

 

Step Art is seeking to encourage safer travel to school on foot for children, using specially designated routes marked by easy-to-follow signs. At stops en route, children have the opportunity to get creative by contributing to public murals by drawing on LCD screens located at each stop. This helps them become more aware of their surroundings and create safe habits, while also stimulating young imaginations.

 

Checking in with past winners

 

Since 2018, the Ford Fund Smart Mobility Challenge winners have been using their grants to help turn innovative concepts into reality.

 

Miivo (previously called MyWay) was our overall winner from Valencia in 2021. The initiative sought to centralise multiple urban transport tickets into a single interface, making multi-modal public transport journeys simpler.

 

“What would have been simply an idea turned into a promising start-up thanks to the funds we received from the Challenge,” said the members from Miivo. “Our idea continues to evolve, and now boasts over 1,000 registered users. We firmly believe that Miivo can change the way people move around, and help to motivate users to reduce their carbon footprint from printed matter.”

 

Our winner from Cologne in 2020 had similar motivations. Lynes (formerly Liquid Grid) is an app that allows users to collect points for using different modes of transport, and gain rewards. The scheme encourages use of public transportation, shared bicycles and hired e-scooters – helping ease congestion and helping users reduce their CO₂ emissions from car use.

 

Another of our winning teams from Cologne, this time in 2021, RheinSharing, created a concept that would harness hydropower generated from the river Rhine, and use it to supply energy to vehicles in the surrounding area.

 

Since being recognised by the Challenge, RheinSharing has secured two further grants from the SmartCity Cologne GO programme and Rheinergie, and Kölner Rahmen by Köln Business. They have also signed an agreement with Ford Werke located on the river Rhine in Cologne to further develop their concept.

 

“The Challenge not only gave us crucial funding, but it allowed us to develop our ideas freely and truly strengthened our team dynamic,” said Felix Roder and Marcel Heilich from RheinSharing. “Things have moved very quickly since then, with testing and further funding, plus our partnership with Ford’s Niehl plant – where electric vehicles can actually be charged via power generated directly from the Rhine, when the project comes to implementation. Now we focus on continuing to grow our vision, and, eventually, expand into other countries after a successful implementation with Ford.”

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