Mobility solutions to be tested in Riga
The application for the “Urban Mobility Incubator” program, in which participants will have the opportunity to develop their idea, deploy a prototype in a real urban environment, meet investors and receive support worth € 6,000, is open until May 31. The incubator is offered by innovation movement “VEFRESH” in cooperation with the Institute of Electronics and Computer Sciences, Riga City Council, co-working space “Teikums”, and supported by EIT Urban Mobility, an initiative of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union. Teams with ideas at different stages of development for climate-neutral mobility are invited to apply for the program.
Participants are invited to submit ideas that address one of the climate-neutral mobility challenges defined by the city, such as promotion of e-mobility, low-emission zones enabling, or the development of next-gen public transport stops or a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform. "The incubator program is intended for solutions that improve the city's mobility possibilities. We are equally welcoming to completely new teams with high potential ideas as well as already established startups interested in deployment acceleration. From July until September, it is planned to support up to 8 teams working on their solution’s prototype development and deployment in the VEF district. In line with the epidemiological conditions in Latvia, the participants will work either in the coworking space "Teikums" or switch to an entirely online format, " says Viesturs Celmins, head of “VEFRESH”.
Participants in their daily work will be supported by internationally experienced business, technology, and product sales mentors. The latest technological and scientific input will be provided by experienced researchers and engineers of the Institute of Electronics and Computer Science. Modris Greitans, Director of the Institute, explains: “The technological and scientific capacity that EDI intends to provide in this project will not only make it possible to understand in a short period of time whether the product is viable and realizable but will increase the value of the developed prototype. Our institute has highly qualified specialists - researchers and engineers, as well as modern equipment available in the laboratories, which will provide added value to the incubator participants.”
After the end of the 10-week program, special testing points in the urban environment will be set up in cooperation with the Riga City Council, which in May also officially declared the VEF district as one of the three pilot territories in Riga. After the deployment of prototypes this autumn, the incubator participants will pitch their solutions to invited investors to attract seed capital for further development of the product. Teams are invited to apply to the incubator by completing the application form at www.urbanmolitity.io by 31 May. Also, there will be an online Q&A session on the innovation movement's "VEFRESH" Facebook page on May 24 at 17:00, where all the uncertainties and current issues related to the participation in the incubator will be discussed.
“VEFRESH” is an innovation movement that brought together the largest companies in the VEF district in 2019 to jointly develop the territory as an urban innovation centre. The participants and supporters of the movement are “Accenture Latvia”, Institute of Electronics and Computer Science, LMT, IT Education Fund, real estate developer “Pillar”, city in the city “Jaunā Teika”, as well as VEF Culture Palace.
This project is funded by EIT Urban Mobility, an initiative of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union. EIT Urban Mobility acts to accelerate positive change on mobility to make urban spaces more liveable. For more information visit www.eiturbanmobility.eu.