The City RAPTOR Istanbul Is Now Accepting Applications For A 90,000 Euro Urban Mobility Competition
Original publication: Istanbul, May 11 2022
The CITY RAPTOR ISTANBUL, funded by EIT Urban Mobility (European Institute of Innovation and Technology) and developed in collaboration with Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Farplas Automotive, Fark Labs, and BGI, is now accepting applications. The CITY RAPTOR ISTANBUL is calling for startups to present their products and ideas to solve Istanbul’s three major urban mobility challenges for a total of €90.000 in prize money.
Rapid Applications for Transport (RAPTOR) is a competition that swiftly creates and tests solutions to niche urban mobility challenges. Participants compete to provide the most innovative, feasible, and impactful solutions. RAPTOR is funded by EIT Urban Mobility, an initiative of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union.
The primary goal of the City RAPTOR Istanbul is to promote local entrepreneurs by funding innovative ventures that develop solutions to the three urban mobility challenges that the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) wants to resolve. Initiatives accepted into the project will benefit from the data and resources provided by the project partners for the future solution development, as well as training and mentorship services.
Urban Mobility Challenges that IMM aims to resolve:
- How to improve taxi driver license inspection
- How to avoid taxi passenger discrimination in regards to distance and identity
- How to optimize and integrate the Sea Taxi System into the current public transport system
The program will accept technology-oriented startups with innovative solutions in the identified target challenges. Ultimately, three winning firms will each receive €30.000. Furthermore, as a result of the evaluations completed by EIT Urban Mobility, IMM, Farplas Automotive, Fark Labs, and BGI, ideas ready for pilot deployment will be tested in Istanbul.
Deadline: June 30 2022
City RAPTOR Istanbul Program Timeline
- Call opening: May 3, 2022
- Call closing: June 30, 2022
- Notification of First Stage Evaluations: July 8, 2022
- Panel Evaluations for Second Stage: July 12 – 15, 2022
- Panel hearing: July 12 – 15, 2022
- Communication of results: July 20, 2022
Do you have an innovative solution to one of the urban mobility challenges in Istanbul?
Visit the official City RAPTOR website and apply now! https://limbic-devel.c.wetopi.com/city-raptor-2
You may download Project Comm Materials here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OqKLh3oiIuDs8vXAVgs0sK3P4vpXDuxR?usp=sharing
For more information, please contact: Ms. Zeynep Paksoy: [email protected]
About EIT Urban Mobility
Innomotion is a project under the support of EIT Urban Mobility.
EIT Urban Mobility, an initiative of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union, aims to accelerate solutions and the transition towards a user-centric, integrated and truly multimodal transport system. As the leading European innovation community for urban mobility, EIT Urban Mobility works to avoid fragmentation by facilitating collaboration between cities, industry, academia, research and innovation to solve the most pressing mobility challenges of cities. Using cities as living labs, its industry, research and university partners will demonstrate how new technologies can work to solve real problems in real cities by transporting people, goods and waste in smarter ways.
About Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality
Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) holds a very important place in the local administration organization of Istanbul. Its area of responsibility encompasses the entire provincial territory, which spans a total area of 5,343 km2. IMM has 25 municipal enterprises, 2 subsidiary public utility corporations (Transport Authority and Water & Sanitation Authority) and 43,500 employees in total. It is responsible for a wide variety of areas including environment, natural-gas supply, energy, infrastructure, planning and development, IT, transportation, community services and vocational education, health-wellness, food & catering, culture and tourism.
IMM is able to develop projects, especially on urban transport subjects such as public transport, traffic management, passenger guidance systems, passenger information systems, journey planning, etc. and besides that, research & development projects on freight transport and rail transport operations (light rail operators).
IMM also has an interest in projects on the areas of, among others, road transport and multi -modal transport as an end user.
About Fark Labs
Fark Labs is a global innovation and transformation hub that aims to build a better future for all. It leverages its parent company Fark Holding’s 54 years of industry expertise and its forward-thinking perspective to help corporations lead innovation and startups navigate the mobility ecosystem. Fark Labs is a hands-on incubation, acceleration, and investment hub supporting entrepreneurs from idea to launch. Established and run by entrepreneurs, Fark Labs understands the complexities and hardships of building a startup. From aspiring founders to growth-stage entrepreneurs, it can scale your vision into a successful business.
About Farplas Automotive
Farplas Automotive is a Tier 1, full system solution partner in developing and manufacturing innovative polymer systems integrated with electronics and software solutions. One of Turkey’s top 250 industrial companies, Farplas has been the solution partner of automotive industry leaders for more than 50 years. With an annual revenue of €200M, it operates in seven countries with four R&D and technology centers, seven production facilities, and 2,000 employees.
About Building Global Innovators (BGI)
BGI is a Portuguese deep tech startup accelerator born from a public-private partnership between MIT Portugal
and ISCTE to foster the transfer of knowledge from research and universities to the market. Currently, the company organizes programs distributed in three main areas: education, acceleration and innovation.
