The first Open Innovation challenge at mobiLAB to accelerate mobility innovations

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.