How did you get to work today? If you’re like most of us, you sat in traffic, in a car, by yourself. We’ve grown so used to this that we assume it’s the default for getting from place to place. How often do we stop and think about how insane it is that an expensive car which can carry four people is usually transporting just one person at any given time? As you know, here at Carma, we’re pretty obsessed with igniting a baseline shift in how people think about driving. We all know things are broken, but how can we go about fixing it?
It turns out that there’s no easy answer. We’ve enjoyed a lot of success over the past couple of years, but the global challenge still remains. Changing transportation has occupied the minds and hearts of experts in the fields of technology, academia, public policy, and economics for generations — and yet, the world is still stuck in traffic. Every day, this ‘stuck-ness’, if you’ll allow us the technical term, costs commuters millions in wasted fuel, creates untold environmental destruction, and contributes to the stifling daily gridlock on roads around the globe.
So, we know there’s a problem — and here’s what we’re doing about it. Carma, in conjunction with SOSventures, sat down and decided that we wanted to hear from folks all over the world who are trying to solve this problem using the startup model. Wouldn’t it be cool if we brought the best and brightest to one place to work on transportation together? No one else was doing it, so we decided to make it happen.
We discovered a thriving ecosystem of transportation startups all over the world. As it turns out, a lot of people are working on these questions from places as far afield as Rwanda, Paraguay, India, Chile, Russia, and the US. Communities of all types are trying to tackle the failings of modern transportation systems by impressively innovative and creative means. Our offer to teams was simple: three months here in Cork at Carma HQ, $25,000 in seed funding, and access to a globally recognized team of expert mentors in transportation, startups, and technology. Interest was overwhelming and, after a fierce competition, we narrowed the field down to nine teams who will be joining us in just a few days!
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be profiling teams, giving you a chance to get to know them better and to hear a bit more about their vision for changing transportation for their communities and the world. During the teams’ three months here, Cork will officially be the global centre for carpooling innovation, which we think is pretty cool. We don’t know quite where things will go; this has never been done before! Who knows, perhaps one of our teams will even win the Carma Prize? We’re so excited to be starting out on this adventure, and we hope you’ll keep up with how things unfold as we “get there together”.