Tag: Varanasi

Business

Varanasi Launches Dollar9M Challenge for Global Crowd Flow Innovators

Jun 28, 2024 by Sujata Muguda 0 Comments #BENGALURU, #Global Crowd Flow Innovators, #Shri. Akshat Verma, #Toyota Mobility Foundation, #Toyota Mobility Foundation’s $9m Sustainable Cities Challenge, #Varanasi, #Varanasi Municipal Corporation

Bengaluru, India 28 June 2024 – As part of the Toyota Mobility Foundation’s $9m Sustainable Cities Challenge, Varanasi has launched a global call for innovators to find data-driven solutions to make the city safer for the millions of people who visit every year for pilgrimage. The Varanasi Challenge is looking for solutions that will allow the city to better manage the growing influx of annual visitors, while making the city more accessible for tourists and local residents, particularly older people and people with disabilities.

Launch Event_Varanasi Sustainable Cities Challenge

Located on the banks of the Ganges River in northern India, Varanasi is widely known as the “spiritual capital” of the nation. The old city of Kashi within Varanasi is one of India’s most important pilgrimage sites, with millions of people visiting every year for religious and cultural reasons. The inflow of tourists, however, when coupled with the city’s narrow, winding lanes and dense urban fabric, raises potential questions around safety and overcrowding. Previous reports have suggested that Varanasi attracted around 70 million visitors, which reiterates the need to enhance the city’s safety and accessibility, especially as most tourists are middle-aged and elderly people.

As part of the Sustainable Cities Challenge, Varanasi is inviting innovators from around the world to develop innovative crowd management solutions that make it easier to accommodate its visitors and make the city safer and more accessible for both residents and visitors alike.

Leveraging technology, data analytics, urban design, behavioral psychology, and crowd science, can provide insights into crowd dynamics and flow, enabling better crowd management and reduced congestion.

In addition to a share of $3 million of implementation grant funding, participants in the challenge will gain exclusive insights into the workings of this historic city and a real-world understanding of user-centered design.

Shri. Akshat Verma IAS, Municipal Commissioner, Varanasi Municipal Corporation, said:

“We are very excited to be involved in the Sustainable Cities Challenge. Millions of people visit Varanasi every year for religious, spiritual and touristic activities alike. Our leadership is committed to make Kashi safer and more accessible for all. We look forward to working with emerging innovators from around the world and hope that this challenge will help us identify technologies and the solutions that will benefit citizens, pilgrims and tourists of Varanasi. Kashi, one of the oldest surviving cities in the world, has various opportunities for it to be at the forefront of innovation in participatory and holistic development.”

Pras Ganesh, Executive Program Director, Toyota Mobility Foundation, said:

“We are truly looking forward to working with Varanasi on their City Challenge and seeing how innovators from around the world can deliver mobility solutions in this historic and holy city. As Toyota Mobility Foundation, we work under the three principles of innovation, partnership and leaving a sustainable legacy, and believe that this project has the potential to develop innovative but human centric crowd management solutions that can also be applied to other cities facing similar issues.”

Kathy Nothstine, Director of Cities and Societies at Challenge Works, said:

“As an important site of pilgrimage, the population of Varanasi grows exponentially throughout the year as people come to visit. This presents challenges for the city. The Sustainable Cities Challenge is a global call for innovative solutions and means that visionaries from across the world can work to develop solutions to these challenges.”

Pawan Mulukutla, Executive Director of Integrated Transport, Clean Air & Hydrogen, Sustainable Cities and Transport, WRI India said:

“In 2022, Varanasi’s floating population was estimated to be 35 times of its local population. By strategic interventions and effective crowd management measures, the thriving heritage city of Varanasi can become a torchbearer of sustainable mobility for other tourist destinations globally. The Sustainable Cities Challenge fosters technology-driven innovative solutions aimed at transforming the public spaces and streets of the city. The Challenge seeks innovative mobility solutions that can be tested, adapted and scaled to suit local contexts, while advancing low-carbon mobility across geographies.”

Mr Vikram Gulati, Country Head and Executive Vice President for Corporate Affairs and Governance, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, said:

“Towards the realization of our mission of generating “Mass happiness”, we at Toyota are constantly working towards creating Mobility for All by adopting sustainable, practical, and innovative solutions. The Varanasi Innovating Crowd Flow Challenge exemplifies this commitment that aspires to the creation of a city that is more accessible, safe, and inclusive in-line with the real local mobility needs. We are truly excited about this project, as it promises to scientifically and systematically streamline the unique mobility needs of the magnificent city of Varanasi.”

Varanasi is one of three cities to host challenges, alongside Detroit, USA and Venice, Italy. Over 150 cities from 46 countries around the world entered the challenge after the call to cities was first launched in June 2023.

Applications for the Varanasi Challenge are open from today until the 5th of September. Up to ten semi-finalists will be selected in November 2024 and receive a grant of $50,000 each. Companies will have the opportunity to directly engage with city leaders, end users, and beneficiaries to customize their solutions and demonstrate them on-ground in the city.

In May 2025, up to five finalists will be granted $130,000 each to test their solutions in a larger area of the city over an extended period to assess their impact and further customize their solutions. In March 2026, up to three winners will be selected to share final implementation funding of $1.5 million to further scale their solutions in the city.

Business

Varanasi, Detroit, and Venice Chosen to Host Global Challenges in Toyota Mobility Foundation’s Dollar 9m Sustainable Cities Challenge

May 30, 2024 by Sujata Muguda 0 Comments #Akshat Verma, #Detroit, #fostering healthi, #Maharashtra, #Mobility Innovation, #Morris Ceron, #Mumbai, #Tim Slusser, #toyota, #Toyota Mobility Foundation, #Varanasi

Mumbai, Maharashtra -30 May 2024 – Varanasi, Detroit, and Venice have been selected to host innovation challenges as part of the Toyota Mobility Foundation’s Sustainable Cities Challenge. The goal of the $9 million global initiative is to help cities accelerate toward sustainable mobility, fostering healthier and safer urban environments while enhancing people’s ability to commute, work, study, and access services. The cities, located in the United States, India and Italy, were chosen from a shortlist of 10 cities announced in November 2023.

Over 150 cities from 46 countries entered the Challenge after the call to cities was first launched in June 2023 and over the last months, the list was narrowed to 10 and now 3 cities. The City Challenges will be launched for innovator entry over the next two months, inviting global innovators to access a share of $3 million in funding per city to demonstrate their solutions.

Three Selected Host Cities
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India
Launching in late June 2024 – Varanasi is located on the banks of the Ganges River in northern India and is the “spiritual capital” of India. A revered pilgrimage destination, the city sees visitors from across India as well as abroad. This influx of visitors, while vital to strengthening the city’s tapestry of faith and culture, is leading to increased concerns about safety and crowding. The Varanasi City Challenge aims to generate innovative, data-driven solutions incorporating elements of technology and design that make crowded areas of Varanasi’s old city (Kashi) safer and more accessible for religious tourists and local residents alike including vulnerable members of the population.

Akshat Verma, IAS, Municipal Commissioner/Chief Executive Officer, Varanasi Municipal Corporation/Varanasi Smart City said:
“Participating in the Toyota Mobility Foundation’s Sustainable Cities Challenge presents an exciting prospect for Varanasi. This initiative offers us a valuable chance to explore technical and design-related avenues for enhancing mobility within our city, benefiting both our residents and the growing influx of tourists. By collaborating with innovative minds, we aim to bolster Varanasi’s reputation as a premier global tourist destination. We eagerly anticipate the opportunity to work closely with TMF, their partners, and experts to achieve this goal.”

The Varanasi City Challenge will launch in late June 2024.

Detroit, Michigan, USA
Launching on May 29, 2024 – Known worldwide as the ‘Motor City,’ Detroit is working to show the world that sustainable mobility is part of what makes this ‘Motor’ move by seeking innovators who can help the City deploy clean and cost-effective mobility solutions as part of this transition.

The Challenge is focused on Eastern Market, the nation’s largest food production and distribution center, where a growing residential and commercial presence means that the City wants to explore solutions that help preserve the health and well-being of the Eastern Market community as it carries through with expansion plans. More specifically, the Detroit City Challenge will seek solutions that reduce fossil fuel use and cut costs of freight operations in the Eastern Market, by increasing efficiencies and unlocking opportunities for clean freight technologies.

Tim Slusser, Chief of the City of Detroit’s Office of Mobility Innovation, said:
“We’re excited and honored to be one of just three cities in the world selected for the Sustainable Cities Challenge. As the only city chosen in the western hemisphere, Detroit represents over one hundred years of world-renowned innovations in transportation. As Detroit continues to grow, we want to learn how to address the ways that freight and industry can be more sustainable, while also supporting the economy in thriving areas such as our Eastern Market – especially in very cold conditions. We look forward to building out the groundwork for this project and what the next stage brings!”

The Detroit City Challenge will launch on Wednesday, May 29, 2024.

Venice, Veneto, Italy
Launching June 11, 2024 – Venice is often pictured solely as a historic city famous for its intricate network of canals. Nevertheless, the majority of the population lives and works in the mainland suburbs such as Mestre, Maghera and other motorized islands, which serve as a crucial transportation hub connecting Venice to the mainland and beyond.
With a mobility landscape that is truly multi-modal, including land and water transport, the city has invested significantly in sustainable mobility infrastructure and services. In the Venice City Challenge, the city seeks innovative solutions that shift behavior, encouraging an increased use and adoption of existing sustainable transport modes.

Morris Ceron, Director General at the City of Venice:
“I wish to thank the Toyota Mobility Foundation for choosing Venice: it is a recognition of the path we have taken to make the city’s mobility increasingly sustainable, in a complex territory where water and land are integrated, with a plurality of different means of transport. Participating in this international-level Challenge will allow us to enhance the actions already put in place, such as the significant extension of the bike lane network, implementing hydrogen and electric local public transport, introducing bike-sharing services, setting up the “smart control” for more orderly flow management, as well as offering new stimuli on how citizens, with their own behavior, can be protagonists of this change.”

The Venice City Challenge will launch on Tuesday, June 11, 2024.

The Challenge
The three City Challenges will focus on different areas of sustainable mobility relevant to their specific context, spanning the expansion of access to safe, affordable, and inclusive modes of transportation. Potential solutions could harness the power of data to create connected and resilient mobility or ecosystems or reduce environmental impact through low-carbon and renewable solutions.

The three cities have been working with Toyota Mobility Foundation alongside Challenge Works and World Resources Institute (WRI) to finalize their Challenges. They are focusing on areas of their respective mobility barriers that could be best addressed through open innovation. They have been consulting with local organizations and wider stakeholders to inform the design of their respective Challenges.

Innovators from across the globe with solutions ready to be tested are invited to respond to the specific issues of each city as each City Challenge launches over the next two months. The innovative solutions that best meet the needs of the city (or the criteria for the City Challenges), will be selected to be supported. Together, the cities and selected innovators will test, further develop and deploy solutions using real-world data, with access to transportation departments and infrastructure.

The Sustainable Cities Challenge is funded by the Toyota Mobility Foundation and has been designed in partnership with Challenge Works and World Resources Institute to bring cities and innovators together to develop sustainable, inclusive, data-driven mobility solutions fit for the future.

Pras Ganesh, Executive Program Director, Toyota Mobility Foundation, said:
“As the Toyota Mobility Foundation, we are passionate about the freedom of mobility, and the opportunities that such mobility can unlock for individuals and communities. With like-minded partners such as World Resources Institute and Challenge Works, we seek out innovative solutions to overcome the barriers that hinder these opportunities.

The Sustainable Cities Challenge, our global challenge that matches visionary cities and the most creative innovators, will now focus on the 3 incredibly dynamic cities of Varanasi, Venice, and Detroit. We will now seek out the most innovative ideas that solve these cities’ most pressing mobility issues, and ensure that identified ideas can be scaled, replicated, and amplified globally”.

Kathy Nothstine, Head of Future Cities at Challenge Works, said:
“This Challenge will help these cities stimulate creative problem-solving to address highly complex barriers to sustainable mobility. We are thrilled to be working with Detroit, Varanasi and Venice to create local Challenges that will invite brilliant innovators around the world to create lasting impact.”

Ben Welle, Director of Integrated Transport and Innovation at WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, said:
“Detroit, Varanasi and Venice all have distinct mobility barriers, but they also share the same circumstances and concerns with many other cities around the world. Their involvement in the Sustainable Cities Challenge will allow them to find an area they want to address and ask some of the world’s best innovators to help them tackle it. WRI is proud to be helping the cities in this process.”