3 college student groups win Toyota Mobility Challenge
The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez teams were awarded $25,000 each to develop projects that improve transportation on the island.
Three groups of college students won the Toyota Mobility Challenge, a competition organized by the automotive company that seeks to challenge the creativity of students and offer them the opportunity to develop innovative projects that improve mobility in Puerto Rico.
The three winning groups were from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus (known as UPRM). The University will receive $25,000 to develop each project and invention for the students.
The Toyota Mobility Challenge is a program of the Toyota Foundation, which encourages university students to generate inclusive connectivity solutions in transportation and promote advances in personal mobility.
University teams can address their proposals within the four pillars of the program: Transportation, Health, Energy and Sustainability, and Social Planning.
“In this third edition, we’re recognizing three groups of students with the vision of generating real solutions for mobility in Puerto Rico. These projects validate our global corporate mission of creating a better society, with better mobility,” said Toyota de Puerto Rico Marketing Manager Gerard Berlinski.
Mobility innovators
In the Social Planning and Public Health categories, one of the winners was the Transportation UPRM group with its “Mobility without limits” project, an autonomous, electric vehicle with solar recharging capacity. Students identified challenges in transportation, infrastructure and urban planning as opportunities to optimize vehicle flow.
The uncertainty and coordination challenges of public transportation inspired the second team, ARUDI, who were recognized for their “App for Dynamic Bus Routes” proposal. This application seeks to calculate the optimal route for boarding long-distance passengers.
The application will offer an interface through which users can enter their location in real time, as well as the origin and destination of their trip. It will provide detailed information on schedules, availability, reservations, payments, driver ratings and vehicle conditions.
Finally, under Social Planning, the group called SmartPark was recognized with its proposal RumSpotWatch, a mobile application to transform parking management in the UPRM. Students contemplate integrating computer vision and artificial intelligence technologies. The idea is developed to optimize the allocation of spaces and student safety on campus.
“Precisely because we know and live the mobility challenges we face in Puerto Rico, we continue to offer this program through which we promote this much-needed innovation in the accessibility, transportation and mobility of our island,” Berlinski added.
The proposals were evaluated by a jury from different disciplines — Jocelyn Capeles from the Puerto Rico Community Foundation; Aldo Briano, COO and Co-Founder of Skootel; Rody Rivera Rojas, from Enactus Puerto Rico; the president of the Puerto Rico Society of Engineers of, Maritza Zambrana-Crus; Toyota de Puerto Rico public relations specialist, Saskia Gómez; and Angélica M. Rubí-Figueroa and Mily Hernández from the Comstat public relations firm.
