The 2019 edition of VEDECOM to the Future, the Institute’s internal Corporate day, took place on Thursday 21 February at mobiLAB. Recently installed in these brand new premises, VEDECOM used the occasion to celebrate its 5-year anniversary with all its employees.

A treasure hunt to get to know mobiLAB

The annual VEDECOM to the Future day began in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere for all of the Institute’s employees. Following the traditional welcome over coffee and a croissant, the work groups formed at the 2018 session were invited to report back on the results of their year’s reflection. All the participants were then given a badge and a logbook as they split into teams to go and explore their new building by means of a treasure hunt making use of their artistic, literary, scientific and sporting talents. It was an opportunity for everyone to get their bearings a bit more in the maze of corridors and different levels of this 7,100m² building, of which VEDECOM occupies 75%.

An anniversary under the sign of optimism

The gallant treasure hunters returned at lunchtime ready to start the afternoon in a plenary session. The employees gathered in the PSA Motorsport auditorium, whose buildings adjoin mobiLAB, to attend the dynamic presentation by the positive conference speaker Yves de Montbron who spoke about optimism. “When we think positively, we can find solutions to everything,” emphasised the speaker who maintains that optimism is primarily a state of mind. A theme in tune with this group of researchers and the rapidly growing Institute which, 5 years after being founded, has almost 200 employees, half of whom are under 30 years old.

The day finished with a birthday cake to celebrate five years of VEDECOM and honour its longest serving employees.

Read also : Official opening of the mobiLAB, the new head office for VEDECOM

On 11 February 2019, VEDECOM, the French department of Yvelines, and Rambouillet Territoires signed a partnership agreement to conduct studies on the train stations in Gazeran and Rambouillet. The goal was to identify current and future parking opportunities to promote intermodal transportation. In time, this work should also help optimize product offer and transportation management strategies in rural areas within Yvelines, which are typically located far from service and employment centres. Residents of these areas do not regularly use intermodal transportation methods.

This experiment uses Altaïr Mobilités, an innovative decision-making tool developed by the VEDECOM Institute. This multi-source solution uses ground-breaking AI technologies to combine the diverse range of mobility data that are now available, including GPS data from cars, demographics, public transit ticketing information, mapping, smartphone applications, and more.

This agreement is part of the Department of Yvelines’ work to facilitate the roll-out of innovative mobility services through its region. The department has provided the VEDECOM Institute with 20 million euros for the 2014-2023 period.

On 14th February, mobiLAB hosted its first Open Innovation Challenge, a meeting between experts from VEDECOM and 13 start-ups and SMEs that could be potential partners or collaborators for an autonomous shuttle project.

The event, organised by VEDECOM in tandem with the competitiveness centre Mov’eo, aimed to identify the innovative solutions, technologies, and contributions developed by start-ups and SMEs to create a supervised driverless shuttle service. The spectrum of innovation themes examined was broad: mobile objects and basic building blocks, passenger/traveller interfaces, and associated services (information, reservations, products, cybersecurity, and more).

Combining skills to accelerate innovation

‘In addition to our historic collaboration with major companies, strengthening our relationships with SMEs is a major factor in our development plan. We have to support their activities and transmit our innovations to them’, Philippe Watteau, the VEDECOM managing director, stated during the day’s introductory remarks.

Marc Charlet, the Mov’eo managing director, added: ‘I really like this quote from Saint-Exupery: “The most wonderful job for man is the job of uniting men”. That’s what we would like to do by encouraging collaborations and combining skills’.

A two-stage process

The day was divided into two parts. The morning was dedicated to 5-minute pitches during which each company could present the project or activity for which they had been selected to all participants present. It was an opportunity for everyone to discover unexpected innovations: benchmark activity and prototyping of strategic vehicles, cybersecurity systems, autonomous plug-in solutions for recharging electric vehicles, sound design, connected kiosks, public transportation projects with autonomous vehicles, a bio-inspired approach to image processing or software for controlling a cursor with head movement, and use of FM channel data to pilot a large number of objects, among others.

After a period of informal discussions, the day continued with individual discussions between SMEs and VEDECOM experts.

A promising day

‘The SMEs we met were very high quality. I appreciated how some of them had visions or projects in line with the needs of our clients. The day was very well organised so you could see many projects over a short period of time. I thought the set up of this event was very promising’, François Fenal, a VEDECOM Tech project manager observed.

Stéphanie Coeugnet-Chevrier, an ergonomics researcher and manager of the ‘Accessibility and Ergonomics of New Mobility Solutions and Human-Machine Interactions” team, went further, stating: ‘This event was very stimulating. The SMEs were interesting and could potentially open new opportunities for research and collaboration for VEDECOM.’

The SME representatives had similar observations and enthusiastically contemplated suggested collaboration opportunities.

It was therefore a successful day with the potential for stimulating joint projects that may materialise. There will undoubtedly be future editions of this event.