Toyota Mobility Foundation Announces Six Finalists for the City Architecture for Tomorrow Challenge

• Sixteen teams of innovators, from 9 countries, developed proofs-of-concept
  (PoC)s of their innovative data-driven solutions towards improving
  mobility and city planning in Kuala Lumpur
• Six Finalists
  were selected by a panel of judges and will receive a US$125,000 grant
  each to develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) as a ready-to-implement
  solution 

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA – Media OutReach – 27
January 2021 – Six solution ideas were announced as finalists
for the City Architecture for Tomorrow Challenge (CATCH) program. The Toyota Mobility foundation (TMF)
launched CATCH in February 2020 with a global call for dynamic, intelligent and
data-driven solutions to address mobility and city planning challenges in Kuala
Lumpur.

Despite the continuing impact of COVID-19, the CATCH program progressed
through the application stage in May, receiving over 90 entries from 20+
countries. Then the Semi-Finalist stage finished in December. In this stage with
tremendous support and insights from our strategic and data partners, the Semi-Finalists
obtained an understanding of Kuala Lumpur’s mobility issues for their Proof of
Concept (PoC) development over a 6-week period. An esteemed panel of 8 judges
from various fields of expertise such as government, sustainable mobility,
venture capital, technology, and industry virtually assessed the 16 Semi-Finalists.
After careful consideration and based on the feedback from the judges, TMF
identified six teams as Finalists rather than five teams as originally planned.
The following six teams are deemed to be best suited to CATCH’s problem
statement and the five assessment criteria of creativity, feasibility,
sustainability, desirability and technicality. These teams will be asked to
further develop their MVPs, and at this stage each will receive a grant of US$125,000
of financial support to drive testing and implementation of intelligent
data-driven, connected solutions, aimed at a more efficient, innovative, secure
and sustainable city of Kuala Lumpur.

 

The six finalists are as follows:

Company Name	Country	Solution Description
GeoSpock	UK	Analytics database technology enabling smart city data fusion to power advanced multimodal transport optimization
Hayden AI Technologies	USA	Artificial intelligence powered data platform that helps innovative cities to improve traffic safety and efficiency
KERB	Malaysia/ Australia	P2P/B2B parking management platform to increase parking supply around transport hubs, track real-time data and optimize commuters’ journeys
Liftango	Australia	Defeating traffic congestion at the source: Demand-responsive first mile commuter transport in Bandar Sunway
Numina	USA	Privacy-first computer vision solution to measure multimodal traffic flows and identify opportunities to improve pedestrian safety
RUNWITHIT Synthetics	Canada	Synthetic KL, a live, geospatial, interconnected synthetic modelling environment for designing targeted, impactful mobility solutions

Conceptualizing
Data-Driven Innovations to Reality

TMF will continue to work together with strategic partners including Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL), the Malaysia
Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and its data partners — Prasarana,
MapIT, and Grab — to support the finalists until the selection of a final winner in April-May 2021. This
support includes the financial grant by TMF and incubation and mentorship provided by experts
and judges supporting this CATCH program.

Yu Chuan Hock, Director of Urban Transportation of KL City Hall (DBKL) commented: “Kuala
Lumpur City Hall is looking forward to a practical and workable solution to be
implemented to ease congestion and disperse traffic more effectively.”

Ir. Dr.Karl Ng, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) commented: “These
entries show how amazing such innovations can be produced, and even thrive,
when data is readily made available.”

Pras Ganesh, Director
of Programs of TMF commented: “CATCH was designed to grasp ground breaking innovations,
and we were impressed by the ideas of 16 strong Semi Finalists who showcased new
data driven mobility and city planning focused solutions.  Though it was very difficult to narrow down
the selection, as Toyota Mobility Foundation, we are very excited about the six
Finalists and what they can deliver in the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage
to improve the quality of life of the residents of Kuala Lumpur.”

Through CATCH, TMF strives to unlock human-centric, data-driven
innovations toward Toyota’s mission of ‘Producing Happiness for All’ through ‘Creating Mobility for All’ for residents
of Kuala Lumpur.  Moreover, TMF hopes to
utilize the insights gained through this challenge to solve mobility issues in
other regions and countries in the future.

To find out more visit www.tmf-catch.org/

About Toyota Mobility Foundation

The Toyota Mobility Foundation was established in August 2014 to support the development of a more mobile society. The Foundation aims to support strong and equitable mobility systems. It utilizes Toyota’s expertise in technology, safety, and the environment, working in partnership with universities, government, non-profit organizations, research institutions and other organizations to address mobility issues around the world. Solutions till date have aimed at resolving urban transportation problems, expanding the utilization of multi-modal mobility, and developing solutions for future generations.