Start listening to ‘crazy’ startup ideas - Startup ambassador Prince Constantijn pleads for our industry to give startups a voice

Intertraffic Amsterdam 2018 opened with a packed ceremony earlier today. The show kicked off with speeches by Carlo van de Weijer, Director Smart Mobility TU/e; Cora van Nieuwenhuizen, Dutch Minister of Infrastructure & Water Management; Pieter Litjens, Alderman Traffic & Transport of Amsterdam; Erik Jonnaert, Secretary General ACEA; Peter van der Knaap, Managing Director SWOV and Chairman Jury Innovation Award; and HRH Prince Constantijn van Oranje, who officially opened ITSUP, the new startup event at Intertraffic.

HRH Prince Constantijn - startup ambassador

HRH Prince Constantijn van Oranje is the startup envoy of TechLeap, where Dutch startups and innovation regions work together to promote The Netherlands as an international startup country. He is therewith succeeding Neelie Kroes as Startup Ambassador.

During the opening HRH Prince Constantijn van Oranje pleaded for our industry to give startups a voice. “We regard it as normal to be stuck in traffic every morning, and to produce car with high CO2 emissions. We need to start listening to crazy ideas that young companies have. After all, we live in a crazy world where their crazy ideas might not be so crazy but rather solutions to our ‘crazy’ mobility system” he said.

Startups represent a major part of the innovative strength in the international smart mobility market. More and more commercial businesses, cities and government authorities are looking to cooperate with relevant startups. At ITSUP, startups pitch innovative solutions and connect with suitable partners from a large and high quality international audience of traffic technology professionals.

And HRH Prince Constantijn van Oranje walks the talk; he invited three ITSUP participants onto the stage to give them a voice and hear their perspective on developments in the smart mobility industry. The innovators on stage were Aipark, Qucit and Robot tuner.

One of the discussions was about data and more specifically a continuous flow of data. The only way to build reliable systems that are publicly used is to ensure continuous accurate data supply. Lots of government bodies are very restrictive, which causes roadblocks in data supply and makes it hard for startups to provide accurate services. According to Marie Quinquis, representing Qucit, the city of Paris is currently working on real time data delivery, with the aim to create data driven infrastructure. Also Berlin is doing quite well in terms of aggregating data, according to Johannes Riedel (Aipark). Jorrit Kuipers, representing Robot tuner, said Artificial Intelligence knowledge and resource for AI applications are currently still low. He stated The Netherlands is doing well in the field of testing but believes the focus on raising knowledge and experience with Artificial Intelligence needs to increase in order for data to be better interpreted by the industry.

All innovators indicated they were looking for partnerships with governments and international partners, in order to further build on their services.

AIPARK develops innovative traffic solutions with a focus on tech-driven parking management. They offer a cloud platform for predictive parking information and change the way, navigation is done today. AIPARK’s target groups are automotive companies, mobility apps, smart cities and parking operators. The company was founded in summer 2017 and is located in the city of Braunschweig.

Qucit is French based and their mission is to build more pleasant cities with artificial intelligence where billions of people will have easy access to quality urban services. They combine data and AI to predict how people behave in a city. Qucit states that in order to create a big impact, they are relying on partnerships with big companies (such as the Transport Authority of Paris). https://qucit.com/en/

Robot tuner are technical partner of Cities and Governments implementing autonomous driving. They build tools for assessment of both auto-pilot software and humans. Applications and technology are already existing but Robot tuner helps certifying this technology so that it becomes suitable for the market and accessible for suppliers.