Uber, Utopia and varsity partner to boost urban transport
Apollo Abraham
INNOVATION: Uber and Utopia, an urban mobility innovation group has partnered with the University of Nairobi to launch the Mobility Challenge, as part of the varsity’s Innovation Fellowship.
They said the challenge aims at encouraging students to develop solutions to address diverse congestion and transportation hurdles in Nairobi.
One of the challenges tackled was that of safety in public transport especially for women, so a team of six comprising students from the University of Nairobi and Aalto University in Finland developed a campaign to address the issue.
The team combined expertise in engineering, business and design and their proposed solution was Service Conductor, a digital training programme for conductors and operators in the matatu industry on topics such as customer service and harassment.
The second project, Mwendo Mtaani, piloted social campaigns to address the challenges faced by persons with disabilities when using public transport .
Dr Tonny Omwasa, director of the University of Nairobi Innovation Hub welcomed the partnership with Uber and Utopia, saying it would provide insights and support to the students working on the projects addressing challenges in urban mobility.
