Each App solution celebrated Ford’s “City of Tomorrow” vision by providing city-specific solutions to city specific needs and today’s urban challenges – from real-time assistance via internet services, reducing traffic congestion by crowdsourcing data to finding parking solutions
Launched in partnership with Devpost in January, the innovative mobility initiative for the city of Indore drew an enthusiastic response, receiving over 40 tech solutions from software developers in India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Morocco, and Romania.
“Going beyond vehicles, Ford is working with cities around the world to help address growing mobility challenges. Our continued involvement in local city initiatives is another example of working towards our vision to help make people’s lives better through world-class vehicles and mobility solutions,” said John Larsen, director, Ford Smart Mobility, Asia Pacific.
The vision of the ‘City of Tomorrow’ where everyone has universal and safe access to mobility was brought alive by Ford as it announced the winners of Hack & Roll Indore App Challenge.
Given the increasing stress due to road fatalities and congestion, road safety issues have been a serious concern in Indore. All ideas and submissions, therefore, were therefore judged through the criteria of improving road safety. This judging involved assessment by through the online voting as well as by an expert panel comprising Ford, transport specialists and city officials.
Commenting on the success of the program, P. Narahari, District Collector, Indore said, “Ford Motor Company has created a platform where the world’s best minds have got together to address Indore traffic issues. I congratulate all the winners. I appreciate Ford Motor Company for this excellent initiative and I expect to continue working with them to make Indore an even better place to live in.”
Winners’ details of Hack & Roll Indore App Challenge are as follows:
Travis (Traffic Realtime Assistance via Internet Services): Developed by Prasang Sharma, Travis became the recipient of Grand Prize Winner (US$ 15,000), Best Student App (US$ 3000) and Best Indore Resident App Winner (US$ 1,500).
The integrated application provides real-time assistance to multiple users – be it pedestrians, drivers or passengers. Covering four modules, the app has an inbuilt feed offering alerts related to accidents and traffic jams. The pedestrian mode on the app notifies users about road intersections, dangers and other hazards within a 20m range. The parking finder function in Travis guides users to free parking spaces while the Geo Taxi Meter function helps passengers track their commute route on a map with real time fare calculator.
Apprise: Developed by Mehedi Hasan Masum from Bangladesh, Apprise Mobile with its crowdsourced interface won the Second Prize (US$ 7,500). As a community app based on crowdsourcing, Apprise App create a network of interactive users and help the concerned authorities to know safety issues raised by users. With its feedback mechanism, the App allows authorities to take action to resolve these issues and end users to mark them resolved.
Green Road: Developed by Sahil Virmani, the Third Prize (US$ 3,500) in the challenge went to this community-based app to that makes the road safer by identifying risky spots real time while engaging the user and alerting others to avoid the route.
ParkKing: Designed by Pooja Maheshwari, the Most Popular Choice Award (USD 3000) winning App helps encourage parking discipline among citizens and manages their bookings & violations online. As a 360-degree parking solution offering each stakeholder with the desirable information and control, ParkKing offers an App for citizen and parking site (for an embedded device) along with management and analytics console for the City Traffic Department.
“Our continued involvement in Indore and success of the App Challenge is a remarkable demonstration of fostering an environment of open innovation,” R Mahadevan, director, Smart Mobility at Ford said. “Each entry in the competition was created with the purpose of solving urban challenges, and it was indeed heartening to see people from other countries coming forward to find solutions for Indore.”
The App Challenge is part of Smart Mobility initiatives undertaken by Ford as part of its partnership with World Business Council for Sustainable Development under Sustainable Mobility Project (SMP2.0).
“Ford’s work with Indore and a group of leading mobility companies is a great example of how a city can partner with business to bring better transport for its citizens. The SMP indicators used by Indore can help other cities to do the same,” said Joe Phelan, director, WBCSD India.
