Three international and two Spanish projects reach the final of the MUBIL Mobility Awards
In this third edition of the awards, 36 projects were submitted. The winners will be announced at an event on 26 October
The MUBIL Mobility Awards, which seek to boost initiatives in the field of smart and sustainable mobility, have already selected the five projects that will move on to the final phase. The technical committee, made up of technicians from BIC Gipuzkoa and MUBIL, has had to make its selection from the 36 entries submitted, 10 of them international. This is an improvement on last year's participation and demonstrates the growing international recognition of these awards.
The finalists are Hoop Carpool, from Madrid (Spain), which presents a platform for carpooling with people who live and work or study nearby; Ridergy, from Luxembourg, which proposes a B2B (business-to-business) SaaS (software as a service) for efficient and reliable electrification of fleets; Smart Kiwi, from London (UK), which has presented a SaaS that analyses historical data and predicts future demand patterns in real time; Smobery, from Guriezo (Spain), whose proposal includes smart stations and a global charging and battery exchange solution for light mobility; and Up&Charge, from Bagneux (France), with a hands-free automatic charging system for all electric vehicles.
Once the five finalists have been selected, the two winning projects will be announced at an event 26 October, which will be led for the third consecutive year by Antonella Broglia, a global icon in the field of social innovation. Over the course of the event, the finalists will present pitches to the audience detailing how their initiatives are going to shape the mobility of the future. But first, in the morning, the finalists will have to defend their projects before the panel of judges.
The winners and runners-up will share a prize of €16,500, plus a further €18,500 in funding for the winning projects to be developed in partnership with actors from the Basque smart and sustainable mobility ecosystem. They will also have the chance to participate in the MUBIL Hub workspace for 12 months, as well as the opportunity to gain publicity and have their own stand at MUBIL Mobility Expo, a professional meeting point in southern Europe for the sustainable mobility industry.
Major companies such as CAF, Irizar e-mobility, Petronor, GKN Automotive and Iberdrola will be participating in these awards, along with institutions such as the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council, the Spanish Government, the Basque Energy Agency, the Euskadi Mobility and Logistics Cluster, EIT InnoEnergy, EIT UrbanMobility, and professional associations such as AEDIVE and the Gipuzkoa Chamber of Commerce.
The panel of judges is made up of Arturo Pérez de Lucía, Director General of AEDIVE and Vice-President of AVERE; Carolina Rodríguez Arias, Head of Promotion at ENISA (Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism); Ignacio Martín, director at Repsol, of the Acerinox Sustainability Committee and Repsol Renovables; Imanol Rego, CEO of Irizar Group; Jokin Lopetegi, head of Corporate Development and New Business at CAF; Marisa Arriola, managing director at BIC Gipuzkoa; and Xavier Sánchez, partner at ENION Venture Partners.
MUBIL brings together the efforts of public and private agents that promote initiatives in the field of smart and sustainable mobility in the Basque Country. It was created within the Etorkizuna Eraikiz initiative of the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council and is supported by the Basque Government and the EVE (Basque Energy Agency). Its main lines of activity include facilitating collaboration between actors, knowledge management, technological infrastructure, and entrepreneurship. In addition, MUBIL's definitive headquarters in San Sebastian (Gipuzkoa) is scheduled to come into operation in January 2024. It will house 10,000 m2 of cutting-edge facilities and testing laboratories, as well as having a further 38,000 m2 in the surrounding area where initiatives of other agents, such as CEIT, CIDETEC, TECNALIA, VICOMTECH and the City Science Lab Gipuzkoa project in partnership with the MIT Media Lab group, will be set up.
In the second edition held in 2022, the winners of the MUBIL Mobility Awards were Green Eel from Madrid and Nemi from Catalonia. The former was awarded for its flexible and portable sustainable electric energy storage and supply system, while the latter was recognised for its commitment to enabling public transport in low-density areas by means of a software solution that allows for flexible bus services.
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