Starting July 15, Ford has kicked off its 'Innovative Mobility Challenge Series' at Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai in India, Los Angeles in United States, Lisbon in Portugal, Shanghai in China, Johannesburg in South Africa, and Argentina.
As part of the challenge series, Ford has invited developers and makers to develop apps, as solutions to region-specific problems, for the eight listed regions around the world. Participants can design apps using Ford’s OpenXC program. It is a globally-accessible open-source platform. It also allows access to 15 types of vehicle data like vehicle speed, engine speed, fuel consumption, etc. This vehicle data combined with other related data will allow participants to tackle the region-specific issues.
Challenges set are unique to every region, like for Mumbai, the 'Monsoon App Downpour Challenge' is created to improve mobility during the monsoon season; for Delhi, the 'SUMURR Golden Hour Challenge' is designed to reduce the time needed to get to healthcare facilities during the 'Golden Hour'; and for Chennai, 'SUMURR mHealth Challenge' looks to improve healthcare service accessibility for rural regions in and around the city.
Prize money for Mumbai, Lisbon and Los Angeles challenges will be a total of Rs 18 lakh each and a grand prize of Rs 10 lakh for the winner of each challenge. Ford hasn’t announced prizes for the other challenges yet. A panel, comprising of Ford executives and local personnel from every city, will judge the series.