The Chicago Connectory hosted the second edition of a mobility hackathon on October 19 & 20th, 2018. Promoted by Bosch and KPMG, students from various universities developed business models and pitches that were presented to local judges. 

The hackathon challenge was to change the way Chicago moves by creating a solution that reduces pollution, reduces congestion, increases mobility for low-income neighborhoods and optimizes the flow of multi-modal travel options. During the 26-hour hackathon, approximately 40 students broke into 11 groups and used their skills to develop an idea for the challenge. 

On the final day, the 11 groups had five minutes each to present their pitches to the judges. In the end, there were three winners: Best overall idea, best pitch and best execution.

Best Overall – the Roiti team for their pitch, “Feel Your City”. It consisted of implementing sensors in train and Divvy bikes to collect data like GPS information, movement and CO2. 

Best Execution – AMBER’s pitch focused on free rides for underprivileged patients in low income neighborhoods to doctors and hospitals when necessary. These rides would be insured or paid as administrative cost by doctors. 

Best Pitch – The Wildcats team proposed “2TheRescue”, an app that notifies weather and climate disasters. They integrated existing tools, such as Facebook crisis response and FEMA alerts to help with rescue, evacuation and crisis control. 

Read more about the mobility hackathon here.